Fitted new headunit, but....

C

clong

Member
Couple of questions...

Firstly, the radio reception is poor to say the least and just wondering if something is a miss. Some manufactures fit aerial boosters as standard, and fitting a different head unit with a 3rd party loom might have missed a wire to power the booster. Is there such a unit in the A2?

Ahh, forget that question, just seen the other posts about the radio reception, looks like a booster is need after all.

Secondly, seeing as the rear speakers are amplified there is now a "pop" from the rears when the radio first turns on. Is this normal?

Thirdly, the Concert unit would turn off when the key was taken out of the ignition and if you wanted the unit on with out the key you could press the volume buttton. With the new head unit, it stays on after the ignition key is removed and it has to be turned off manually. Had a lot at the wiring diagrams but could n't see if there wasa switched live and a permenant live. Is this a case of like it or lump it? Or is there something amiss here too.

Head unit is a Alpine 9850i, i swapped it out as its froma old car and i wanted the IPod control.

Cheers
 
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TBH the radio reception is bad, generally, particularly on early models i understand, however my reception wasn't perfect 2004 model and in the end after, headunit, air con in dash unit, rear window amplifier parts and fans unders the bonnet. Audi gave up gave me a host of new parts and apologised. If yours is an early model then perhaps the amp kit will work, if it isn't then i would be suprised if anything will
 
clong said:
Secondly, seeing as the rear speakers are amplified there is now a "pop" from the rears when the radio first turns on. Is this normal?

Thirdly, the Concert unit would turn off when the key was taken out of the ignition and if you wanted the unit on with out the key you could press the volume buttton. With the new head unit, it stays on after the ignition key is removed and it has to be turned off manually.

Cheers
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You car is later/newer than mid 2001, right? So it has the CAN BUS Data-bus on the radio and you need an adapter for that! Because there is no switched plus coming to the radio. Also the lights of the new radio will not work properly or will not dimm if you turn on the lights of your car.

Second prob: The original Radio generats a switched plus siglen to the little AMP for the rear speakers. Maybe the power supply for the litle amp ist now wrong so it is allway on or so.
The new radio should have a switched plus (signal for any other Amplifiers to power up). You shold use this one for the little AMP.
 
Yep, car is 2004. Any ideas what kind of adapter it requires for the CAN BUS for the switched live? or should it have been part of the adapter loom i used?

The rear speakers work fine, the switched amp lead is connected up, but just when the headunit turns on it makes a single pop from the rear speakers. Just wondederd if anyone else had come across it.
 
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Mmm, and i thought changing the head unit was going to be simple swap.

Doesn't the can bus emulator allow pre-2001 head units to work?

To be honest, i can live with the non powering down of the head unit, i'll just do it manually if its going to cost the £80 to sort it....
 
No there is no CAN at cars older than 06/2001. So there it is easy to change the head unit.
But have an other option: Tie some cables with switched plus to the radio...
 
erstens said:
But have an other option: Tie some cables with switched plus to the radio...
Click to expand...


How do you mean?

another question regarding the can bus, reading through some of the older messages regarding aftermarket head units, there seems to be a problem with some units powering down after an hour of use. I've not driven the car for more than an hour yet, but is is something i'm likely to encounter?
 
OK, I mean:
Normaly, the radio turns on if you start teh engine. Your new radio does not. And normaly it turns off if you turn off the engine.
So what you need, is what the pre 2002 models have. They don't have the CAN BUS.
They have a cable at the radio, with 12 Volts and ground (ok, even your car has this). But they also have a switched plus-cable. There is only 12 Volts plus on it, when the ignition is on.
So you could install a new cable from your fuse-box to the radio (but you need to know where to mount the new cable, I could find out later...). Then you have a switched plus cable at the radio as the older A2's have and as you need.
Then the radio will go on and off automaticly.

Because of that 1 hour problem: I don't now. I only know, that the power does turn off after one hour of use, right. And yes, this could happen but I am not shure.
The power is turned off from the main controller box for inner Lights and such things.
 
Not sure about the power off after an hour either, there has to be a permanent live from the battery to the head unit to preserve teh memory functions, but if the CAN-bus doesn't 'see' a unit attached, then i'm thinking it will switch the permanentt live off anyway.

Well i'll get the antenna booster to sort the reception. If i find that it does power off after an hour, then i will look hard wiring the unit in from scratch. Or i might just go back to the original head unit and get teh denison ice link. I though fitting my alpine would be the easiest/cheapest way of getting itunes in the A2, but thanks to this CAN-bus it may not be the case.

Cheers for all your help, i'll let you know how things progress.
 
I have recently changed my head unit in a 54 plate car with a Becker sat nav unit so I may be able to help.
I had to tap into a switched live wire. I used one from the passenger footwell, do a search for +12 switched live on here. I read a post which gave me the number on the plug to look for and took a risk and it worked! Good to have a volt meter handy. If you are really stuck I'll open it up and take a photo.
For the lights, tap into a wire from the coin box, be careful not to break the catch on the coin box like I did.
You do need to power the aerial. I got one from Halfords for about £10.
You may need to get an aerial adapter. I've found my normal mw now gets noise. It was fixed by adding in a piece of aerial extender wire but lw is very poor. FM was ok.
I ended up buying a DAB radio which even where I live is good!
The denison ice link (£100) gives ipod control for the concert unit so unless the new unit is better than the concert, I'd go for that! I love the Becker unit so I'm happy to live with the radio issues.
ST
 
Got the booster thing and it appears to be faulty. When i wired it in it got very hot, too hot to hold in fact. Will change it for another to make sure its not the booster thats faulty.

SirTrevor, will do as you suggest and wire in a switched live. Re the aerial, do you mean a booster or a something else?
 
The aerial adapter has a 12v feed to power the aerial amplifier in the boot of my A2, as well as the the normal aerial socket. Cost about £10 from Halfords. To try to get rid of the hum on mw I just put an aerial extension wire between the aerial adapter and the stereo. It seemed to cure the fault. So I had ....

Stereo -> Extension aerial lead -> Halfords aerial adapter with 12v -. aerial lead to boot.

ST
 
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