badkins

Hey all - I removed my aftermarket deck to replace it with the OEM Honda deck. The Kenwood aftermarket deck I used to have, used one of those IR controllers.

I'm using a car stereo place to do the work - so we're just trying to figure out what may have been done, or not connected properly. It appears that with the dash controls not working, the MUTE button is engaged. I can hear music playing very faintly if I crank the volume, similar to how you could if you intentionally had the MUTE button on.

Incidentally, the light on the MUTE button on the dash is still dimly lit (And stays lit no matter how many times you hit it), which is how it has worked since it was disconnected when the IR controller was hooked up.

Any advice or ideas as to what it could be? The harness was left intact (except for one wire that he said that was not connected when he took the Kenwood out) from the factory version, so hopefully this is just an easy oversite.

Thanks in advance!

-bill

MacGyver

If the mute button is dimly lit and has alwasy been that way since disconnection, I would lean towards a mistake made during the original install process. Dimly lit LEDs generally indicate low voltage or high-resistance shorts forcing the control into a state it's not happy with. Take some resistance measurements at the signal wire, but you may want to seriously consider the panel being blown.

badkins

macgyver - yes, the mute button light has been dimly lit since I had my aftermarket deck put in, but all the controls have worked, save for the mute button (which I understand usually doesn't work in aftermarket remote installs??)

Anyway - when you say the "panel" is blown, what were you referring to, since all the other controls have been working?

Thanks for your reply.

MacGyver

did you hook the mute button up to the aftermarket deck's mute line?

badkins

I dunno, I didn't do the work, it was done by a local car-audio place. My understanding from reading threads, and hearing the installer's comments was that the MUTE button was not usually re-attached.

badkins

So the guys were able to get the stereo working again, as well as the dash remote controls except for the mute button, similar to how it was with the aftermarket deck.

Anyone have any ideas I can share with them on how to get the mute button re-activated? As I said yesterday, it is dimly lit, which may indicate a short (they thought so too, but were unable to find one), yet all the other controls work fine.

We're totally stumped. They're willing to give it another go, but are hitting a lot of walls in their attempts to get this to work.

Thanks again.

PJK3

i'm tending to think the dash controls are blown...

i seem to remember reading this elsewhere when power was applied to the mute... i think... Mac or modifry are really the men for this job...

badkins

PJK3,

thanks for the idea. The weird thing is that other than mute - all the other controls are working, so the dash isn't blown, at least entirely. the audio select, ch, volume, etc... all work, just the mute that is giving grief.


Does this make sense to anyone else?

MacGyver

The other "circuits" in the dash controls are kind of hard to fry since they're nothing but resistors (assuming no serious amount of power was run through them). The mute circuit, however, is a true single-shot integrated circuit that can be easily blown with application of power to the output.

PJK3

*nods*

yup. i remembered that... i can't remember where i read up on it... perhaps it was in the original thread where modifry started putting his ideas together on doing the DCI? i seem to remember you and Bob bouncing stuff around quite a bit...