Well the new Pioneer stereo arrived.
When i went to remove the old Sony, it would not even turn on, so i could not eject the CD that was in there. It had that distinctive burnt electronics smell, and it was strongest right at the transistor, perhaps power mosfet, that attached to the back of the unit which acts like a heatsink. I took the whole thng apart, saved al the tiny screws, and electric motors, and got my CD out of it
Heat does reduce the lifespan of electrical components, and in my van the stereo is directly under the dashboard, the black dashboard. NO doubt it bakes in there, so a larger heatsink is certainly a good thing, from a longevity standpoint. I could even go all SternWake on it and add more heatsink surface area, and even a fan too!
The Heatsink on the back of the new pioneer stereo appears to have twice the mass and a few more ribs for surface area, even though the previous Sony had 2 more watts per channel.
My ~ year 2004 wiring job looked to be done fan better than I expected to see, with each wire individually heatshrinked and then each speaker's 2 output wires grouped together under more heatshrink. But they were not soldered or crimped, I had just tightly twisted all the wires together before covering with heatshrink.
When my first Sony stereo failed, one reason I got another Sony was I figured that the plug on the back should be a simple plug or play, which it was. i kept the new plug/pigtail from Sony#2 in my glove box, and all the wires are narrower gauge than the first sony stereo, which was only 40 watts per channel. Beancounters got at the wire gauge sometime between 2004 and 2012.
The new Pioneer pigtail connector's wires were this same thinner gauge wire, but the colors all were the same in terms of front back left and right speakers, + and -, so it was easy enough to splice in the new wires, soldered and heatshrinked this time.
As usual, since power comes from the house battery, i have bypassed the ignition switching, both yellow and red wires are joined together and fed with 10AWg from rear fuse block. With all previous stereos this was fine and dandy, but if I turn the new Pioneer off, the display still stays lit up, displaying the time.
I have not yet measured its parasitic Amp draw just to illuminate this screen, but I do NOT want it lit up all the time when i have it off. Looks i will be running the red wire through a switch I will mount next to the stereo. The red wire is designed to be ignition switched, but I do not want to have to have the key in the ignition turned backwards to ACC just to listen to stereo with engine off. The parasitic draw of the display screen with stereo off is not really a concern, but the lights being on all night long is. IN daytime, i would not mind the clock on continuous display, but I like it dark when I am sleeping. I wish bought some round rocker swirches, the type where one can just drill a hole. I doubt much current flows through this red wire, as it is les than half the thickness of th eyellow 'always hot wire' and a rectangular 5a rocker switch is likely more than enough, but cutting a rectangular mounting hole for friction fitting a rectangular rocker switch is not very fun.
I guess what is neat with this stereo, is if I leave the soon to be installed manual switch on overnight, i can turn the stereo on with the remote control, from bed, which might assist in gettng my 'love to sleep late' ass out of bed in the morning. All previous stereos could not be turned on except by the button on the faceplate itself, but I guess a random IR signal could turn the stereo on and wake me up.
What is neat is I can choose a lot of different colors for the dsplay to be, and the brightness. I like red or amber. All my dash lights are red, but for one on the Hvac controls and the Digital ammeter and one of the voltmeters. Bright Colors other than red make little sense to me from a night driving perspective as any other color will cause the pupil to constrict and reduce the ability to see at night.
The Stereo sounds good playing CD's. The 'loudness' setting has 3 stages, the third one is ridiculous on the amount of bass generated. I've not yet hooked my phone to it bluetooth, nor mounted it yet, nor ran the wire for the microphone for talking on the phone through the bluetooth. Gonna take a while to learn how to get what I want from it.
In so many ways I miss the analog fader and balance and bass and treble, but so be it. My first stereo for this van even had an analog graphic EQ on the faceplate. I could easily drive of fhte road trying to adjust the sound on this SOB going through all the menus and trying to fiddle with programmable graphic Equalizer
When i went to remove the old Sony, it would not even turn on, so i could not eject the CD that was in there. It had that distinctive burnt electronics smell, and it was strongest right at the transistor, perhaps power mosfet, that attached to the back of the unit which acts like a heatsink. I took the whole thng apart, saved al the tiny screws, and electric motors, and got my CD out of it
Heat does reduce the lifespan of electrical components, and in my van the stereo is directly under the dashboard, the black dashboard. NO doubt it bakes in there, so a larger heatsink is certainly a good thing, from a longevity standpoint. I could even go all SternWake on it and add more heatsink surface area, and even a fan too!
The Heatsink on the back of the new pioneer stereo appears to have twice the mass and a few more ribs for surface area, even though the previous Sony had 2 more watts per channel.
My ~ year 2004 wiring job looked to be done fan better than I expected to see, with each wire individually heatshrinked and then each speaker's 2 output wires grouped together under more heatshrink. But they were not soldered or crimped, I had just tightly twisted all the wires together before covering with heatshrink.
When my first Sony stereo failed, one reason I got another Sony was I figured that the plug on the back should be a simple plug or play, which it was. i kept the new plug/pigtail from Sony#2 in my glove box, and all the wires are narrower gauge than the first sony stereo, which was only 40 watts per channel. Beancounters got at the wire gauge sometime between 2004 and 2012.
The new Pioneer pigtail connector's wires were this same thinner gauge wire, but the colors all were the same in terms of front back left and right speakers, + and -, so it was easy enough to splice in the new wires, soldered and heatshrinked this time.
As usual, since power comes from the house battery, i have bypassed the ignition switching, both yellow and red wires are joined together and fed with 10AWg from rear fuse block. With all previous stereos this was fine and dandy, but if I turn the new Pioneer off, the display still stays lit up, displaying the time.
I have not yet measured its parasitic Amp draw just to illuminate this screen, but I do NOT want it lit up all the time when i have it off. Looks i will be running the red wire through a switch I will mount next to the stereo. The red wire is designed to be ignition switched, but I do not want to have to have the key in the ignition turned backwards to ACC just to listen to stereo with engine off. The parasitic draw of the display screen with stereo off is not really a concern, but the lights being on all night long is. IN daytime, i would not mind the clock on continuous display, but I like it dark when I am sleeping. I wish bought some round rocker swirches, the type where one can just drill a hole. I doubt much current flows through this red wire, as it is les than half the thickness of th eyellow 'always hot wire' and a rectangular 5a rocker switch is likely more than enough, but cutting a rectangular mounting hole for friction fitting a rectangular rocker switch is not very fun.
I guess what is neat with this stereo, is if I leave the soon to be installed manual switch on overnight, i can turn the stereo on with the remote control, from bed, which might assist in gettng my 'love to sleep late' ass out of bed in the morning. All previous stereos could not be turned on except by the button on the faceplate itself, but I guess a random IR signal could turn the stereo on and wake me up.
What is neat is I can choose a lot of different colors for the dsplay to be, and the brightness. I like red or amber. All my dash lights are red, but for one on the Hvac controls and the Digital ammeter and one of the voltmeters. Bright Colors other than red make little sense to me from a night driving perspective as any other color will cause the pupil to constrict and reduce the ability to see at night.
The Stereo sounds good playing CD's. The 'loudness' setting has 3 stages, the third one is ridiculous on the amount of bass generated. I've not yet hooked my phone to it bluetooth, nor mounted it yet, nor ran the wire for the microphone for talking on the phone through the bluetooth. Gonna take a while to learn how to get what I want from it.
In so many ways I miss the analog fader and balance and bass and treble, but so be it. My first stereo for this van even had an analog graphic EQ on the faceplate. I could easily drive of fhte road trying to adjust the sound on this SOB going through all the menus and trying to fiddle with programmable graphic Equalizer
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