Bought Kenwood 8120, few quick questions in regards to 05 Altima install

[htsource]

HU is going in tonight but I just wanted to make sure a few things. First my car is 05 Altima 2.5 SL with Bose system. However, I already upgraded to after market speakers, HU and amps. So this time I have the Metra harness 70-7550 which is meant for non-Bose system. Is this okay?

Also, one of the harness adapter is for speaker wires, amp ground and amp turn on. Everything I have is after market, so can I just ignore this adapter altogether? Just use the other one for power/battery power, antenna, etc.

Also, there are 2 wires for illumination and dimmer, according to the Kenwood manual, it's dimmer control wire, but on the wire itself, it's labelled illumination. So which wire should I use from the factory harness adapter?

Thanks for your input and hopefully I can get it installed and set up tonight!

[AppleBonker]

HU is going in tonight but I just wanted to make sure a few things. First my car is 05 Altima 2.5 SL with Bose system. However, I already upgraded to after market speakers, HU and amps. So this time I have the Metra harness 70-7550 which is meant for non-Bose system. Is this okay?

Depends on how you're running things right now. Since you've upgraded the amp, are you running patch cables to the amp? Although, you still probably need the harness for the Bose system. Have you replaced the stereo already and are making an upgrade (IE changing out one aftermarket head unit with another)? If so, you can just cut the wire harness that you've already used and reuse it.

Also, one of the harness adapter is for speaker wires, amp ground and amp turn on. Everything I have is after market, so can I just ignore this adapter altogether? Just use the other one for power/battery power, antenna, etc.

You still need to have these connected somehow. How are you planning on getting power/ground/antenna/etc to the new head unit? I guess I'm a bit lost with this. I'm not sure exactly what it is that you're doing. A better description might help?

Also, there are 2 wires for illumination and dimmer, according to the Kenwood manual, it's dimmer control wire, but on the wire itself, it's labelled illumination. So which wire should I use from the factory harness adapter?

Where are the two wires you are referring to? Are there two wires on the Kenwood wiring harness (I've never installed an 8120, so I'm not familiar with the harness it comes with)?

[htsource]

Sorry I should be more specific, I'm just too excited

Basically I'm replacing my 1-din Pioneer 980BT HU with this new Kenwood. I already have Focal amp, and Focal speakers installed with the Pioneer HU. Currently I'm using the Bose harness, but I'd hate to cut the harness, in case someone is buying the HU for their Altima.

As for the amp ground/turn on, I'm referring to the Metra harness adapter. There are 2 plugs basically, one with all the speaker wires, amp turn on/amp ground. All the speaker wires should be off the after market amp, so nothing to connect to this adapter. As for the amp remote wire, the HU has that already so I just connect the amp remote wire from the after market amp in the trunk and to the HU. Amp ground should be taken care of at the amp in the trunk?

And as for the illumination wires I was referring to the harness adapter, it has 2 orange wires. One solid orange wire is called illumination, the other orange/black is called dimmer. From the Kenwood manual, the wire is referred to dimmer wire. But the sticker that's on the actual Kenwood harness, it's labelled illumination. So I'm not sure which orange wire to use from the Metra harness adapter.

Thanks so much for your help.

[htsource]

And to answer your question about the patch cords from the Bose metra adapter, no I don't use any of it. Basically the Pioneer HU has front and rear speaker RCAs, I plugged the amp RCAs into them. Is this what you're referring to?

Also, the factory Bose amp adapters have been unplugged at the amp under the rear deck.

Thanks.

[htsource]

This is the harness I have now for the Kenwood install:

http://www.audiooutfitter.com/....html

I'm referring to the smaller adapter which has all speaker wires, amp turn on/amp ground. If I use all aftermarket stuff, should I just ignore this adapter and just hook up the other one. The other adapter has 12V ignition, 12V battery, Power Antenna, and Dimmer wires.

[AppleBonker]

Ok, starting to make more sense. Sorry if I'm just being slow.

So you're planning on selling the Pioneer unit and you want to keep the wires intact so if you sell it to someone else with the same gen altima it's just plug and play?

Yes, the amp turn on lead will come off the Kenwood unit (probably blue color?). This is what you will want to connect to the amp turn on lead that runs to the trunk currently. The amp ground will be supplied by the larger gauge power cable that should already be connected to the amp in the trunk somewhere.

If I have this right, the solid orange wire on the metra adapter (illumination) sends a constant voltage to the head unit when the headlights are turned on. This will tell the head unit to dim if the feature is enabled in the settings somewhere (so the Kenwood won't be as bright when the lights are turned on - IE at night). The orange/black wire is a dimmer that will change the voltage based on the dimmer knob on your car (like how you can turn the back light down on the gauges, etc). I don't believe the Kenwood functions like this, so I'm fairly certain that you will want to connect the solid orange wire from the metra harness to the orange illumination wire on the Kenwood harness. As soon as Doc gets on, he can probably confirm this, or he'll correct me and prove me to be an idiot.

[AppleBonker]

And to answer your question about the patch cords from the Bose metra adapter, no I don't use any of it. Basically the Pioneer HU has front and rear speaker RCAs, I plugged the amp RCAs into them. Is this what you're referring to?

Also, the factory Bose amp adapters have been unplugged at the amp under the rear deck.

Thanks.

Yes, the RCA cables are also referred to as patch cables, so you have this connected correctly.

[AppleBonker]

This is the harness I have now for the Kenwood install:

http://www.audiooutfitter.com/....html

I'm referring to the smaller adapter which has all speaker wires, amp turn on/amp ground. If I use all aftermarket stuff, should I just ignore this adapter and just hook up the other one. The other adapter has 12V ignition, 12V battery, Power Antenna, and Dimmer wires.

You should be ok with only the one harness. The one with speaker wires and amp turn on are all covered (as described in previous posts). The second harness (that you will need to use) is the one with battery/antenna/etc. Sounds like you are definitely on the right path. BTW, that's a nice HU you're putting in. You should be very happy with it.

[rjdmmfl1]

Honestly, your posts are just confusing... too many words, NO pictures... you use harness too many times and since harness can be applied to any of the four harnesses involved, it just gets a bit confusing... I can't respond about the illumination wires without pics.... if you hook them up incorrectly, you will blow a fuse to your dash panel (someone did this a while back on this forum and that's what happened)

sorry dude, we shouldn't have to fish out what you're talking about.. after a few minutes of reading this, it just began to sound like charlie brown...

[htsource]

Thank you so much, now I can go ahead and rip out the old HU and put this new baby in. I don't have the cover plate for it yet (will be in tomorrow) but I should still be install everything.

Thank you for your response, it was much appreciated. I'll hook up the illumination wire to the harness. Will reply if everything works as it should later. Guessing the install should be less than an hour (or so I hope).

[htsource]

And to answer your questions, yes I'm planning to sell the Pioneer HU with the mounting plate as well as the harness so whoever getting it will be plug and play.

The amp remote trigger wire from Kenwood is blue/white.

[htsource]

rjdmmfl1, from the Kenwood manual, it says the following about the illumination wire:

Dimmer control wire (orange/white), it says to connect to car light control switch.

From the metra adapter, I have 2 wires which they're labelled:

Illumination -> orangeDimmer -> white/orange

As you can tell, I'm just too excited with new toys! Sorry about that!

[rjdmmfl1]

OK, this is the color codes for your vehicle (2005 NIssan Altima) on the factory wiring harness

Now, the orange/white on your "kenwood harness adapter" should be connected to the red/blue wire on your "factory wiring harness"

now, in order to not hook things up incorrectly, I would either

A. hook the orange/white wire directly to the red/blue wire on the factory harness via T-tap connection

or

B. check the pin position on the "metra harness adapter" and check which wire (orange/black or orange) lines up with the blue/red wire on the "factory wiring harness"

those are the best answers i can give you ! hope this helps.. next time please provide pics

also, kenwood didn't help the situation any by putting dimmer control wire in the instruction booklet, and ILL on the wiring harness

[htsource]

Thank you very much rjdmmfl1, I'll double-check before I hook up the Kenwood. Worst case, I can just leave the illumination disconnected right? The HU should still function regardless, don't want to blow a fuse tonight.

[htsource]

Got it installed, played fine and nothing blew up! Guess I'll know tomorrow when I'm driving the car to work. GPS got the signals no problem even though I have the antenna inside the dash. Picked up the time from GPS, that's cool.

My PAC controller is a Pioneer specific, no IR. Can I use it for the Kenwood?

Sounds pretty good so far with even Tuner! Will have to do some serious listening in the next few days. Curious to know if the Kenwood Bluetooth handsfree is as good as the Pioneer? I was told even driving with windows down, my voice was still very good. Don't need to speak very loud either. Hope the Kenwood will be just like that.

Thanks again guys for all your help tonight, don't think I would have done it all be myself.

[rjdmmfl1]

Got it installed, played fine and nothing blew up! Guess I'll know tomorrow when I'm driving the car to work. GPS got the signals no problem even though I have the antenna inside the dash. Picked up the time from GPS, that's cool.

My PAC controller is a Pioneer specific, no IR. Can I use it for the Kenwood?

Sounds pretty good so far with even Tuner! Will have to do some serious listening in the next few days. Curious to know if the Kenwood Bluetooth handsfree is as good as the Pioneer? I was told even driving with windows down, my voice was still very good. Don't need to speak very loud either. Hope the Kenwood will be just like that.

Thanks again guys for all your help tonight, don't think I would have done it all be myself.

glad you got it working...unfortunately you can not use the PAC-SWi PS with the Kenwood... if you recall, there was a black plug on the PAC unit that plugged into the back of the Pioneer unit.. that is for the wired remote control, the PAC-SWI JACK has a blue/yellow wire that needs to be wired to a blue/yellow wire on the kenwood harness... your PAC-SWI-PS has no blue/yellow wire and thus can not be used with the Kenwood headunit

[AppleBonker]

glad you got it working...unfortunately you can not use the PAC-SWi PS with the Kenwood... if you recall, there was a black plug on the PAC unit that plugged into the back of the Pioneer unit.. that is for the wired remote control, the PAC-SWI JACK has a blue/yellow wire that needs to be wired to a blue/yellow wire on the kenwood harness... your PAC-SWI-PS has no blue/yellow wire and thus can not be used with the Kenwood headunit

I'll also say I'm happy for you that it is up and running. The good thing about the PAC connectors, is that they'll use the same connections into the wire harness. This means it shouldn't be too difficult for you to switch over to the SWI JACK. Now you just have to pick one up.

[htsource]

Thank you, I'll have to get another PAC which is $89, guess not too bad. Got my Blackberry phone paired up, pretty good I even can see the entire address book - very impressive.

[rjdmmfl1]

NO, the PAC from ebay should be ~ $50 shipped!

http://cgi.ebay.com/PAC-SWI-JA...wItem

Thank you, I'll have to get another PAC which is $89, guess not too bad. Got my Blackberry phone paired up, pretty good I even can see the entire address book - very impressive.

,

[htsource]

Got the PAC! Will try to set it up over the weekend. Do I need any adapter for the HU? I recall the remote cable has a special connector.

As far as the front bracket, I got a Metra kit and it doesn't fit very nice. It has a small gap around the edge. I'm also thinking of painting it to match the interior colour. I know the HU is still black but that bracket just doesn't look too good there. Or can I get a different one aside from Metra?

Thanks for your help.

[htsource]

Also, I'm using a thumb drive 8GB in size and it's pretty full of music in mp3 and wma format. It seems to take forever to refresh the screen if I'm browsing the music folders? Is this normal like this? One thing I found very annoying is it queues up all the button presses so sometimes I was thinking the screen didn't register my touch, then I touch it again knowing now I just click it twice.

Thanks.

[AppleBonker]

Got the PAC! Will try to set it up over the weekend. Do I need any adapter for the HU? I recall the remote cable has a special connector.

The Pac should connect via the wire (blue/yellow). I believe you just need to splice to that wire on the Kenwood harness. Shouldn't require anything more than you already have.

Unfortunately, I'm not as familiar with the previous gen, so I'm not too sure about another dash kit. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

I haven't messed with the Kenwood using a thumb drive. I'm not sure how it processes the directories, so that might be the problem. Maybe doc has used one on his and can lend some insight. I don't really know of anyone outside of on these forums that are running that HU so I can check in person. Let me browse some of my other connections and see if I can come up with anything.

[htsource]

Thank you, I'll check out the wiring with the Kenwood.

As for the USB connection, next time I'll try to copy all songs in a flat structure. Right now I go by this:

Artist Album Name Track Name

Maybe it's taking too much time to read all the folders. But with the USB connection, D/A is done in the headunit. With an iPod, it's analog into the headunit so one more layer of D/A conversoin.

Thanks again for all your help, much appreciated.

[rjdmmfl1]

Also, I'm using a thumb drive 8GB in size and it's pretty full of music in mp3 and wma format. It seems to take forever to refresh the screen if I'm browsing the music folders? Is this normal like this? One thing I found very annoying is it queues up all the button presses so sometimes I was thinking the screen didn't register my touch, then I touch it again knowing now I just click it twice.

Thanks.

yes, I've noticed this also... hopefully they will fix this with a firmware update...

thankfully, the refresh rate and speed when browsing folders on the ipod are faster (and can be adjusted through the ipod menu on the kenwood)

[AppleBonker]

yes, I've noticed this also... hopefully they will fix this with a firmware update...

thankfully, the refresh rate and speed when browsing folders on the ipod are faster (and can be adjusted through the ipod menu on the kenwood)

Thanks Doc for that. I'm checking with some other people who claim they don't have much of a delay when browsing music on a flash drive. I'm trying to find out how they have their music organized, as this might play some roll in the navigation speed through the directories. I'll let you know if I find anything out!

[htsource]

Thank you guys, but I have not so good news

I was driving today and all of a sudden the main amp cuts out (Focal DM), then I try power cycle the HU but nothing. Noticed the sub amp still playing. Got home and checked what's going on, the LED on the stiffing capacitor in the trunk is not showing the voltage anymore. So I'm thinking it might be the cap has gone bad?

When a cap go bad, can it reduce the output voltage? My sub amp is JL so I guess it has regulated power supply so it takes whatever it gets and converts into 12V. However, I don't think the Focal DM has that, and hopefully I'm not damaging the amp!

I'm going to get the shop to give me a distribution block instead. I wanted the block but they ran out of stock, so they installed a cap instead.

Argh......

One more question, the HU doesn't have any Kenwood sticker about it has the latest firmware. According to the shop, they just got the stocks so they gotta be the latest. Can someone please let me know the firmware # of their Kenwood? Assuming I can find out the firmware from the HU.

Thanks again.
Modified by htsource at 9:41 PM 8/9/2008

[htsource]

In regards to the thumb drive being slow navigating, even FM is slow too. Basically when I hit >>|, it takes at least 2 seconds to settle, if I press down the button for more than a second, it queues up again and I may not have control for few seconds while it executes the previous commands.

[AppleBonker]

Thank you guys, but I have not so good news

I was driving today and all of a sudden the main amp cuts out (Focal DM), then I try power cycle the HU but nothing. Noticed the sub amp still playing. Got home and checked what's going on, the LED on the stiffing capacitor in the trunk is not showing the voltage anymore. So I'm thinking it might be the cap has gone bad?

When a cap go bad, can it reduce the output voltage? My sub amp is JL so I guess it has regulated power supply so it takes whatever it gets and converts into 12V. However, I don't think the Focal DM has that, and hopefully I'm not damaging the amp!

The capacitor is connected in parallel with the battery, so the voltage will be fine (unless you're battery is crap, but you'd find that out really quick when your car died). I'm guessing you've probably got a bum ground or power connection somewhere. Recheck all those (and the terminal connectors as well). Also, amps can't regulate their power supply, they can only take what is given to them. However, I'm pretty sure nearly all amps have voltage protection and heat protection circuits. Get a multimeter out and make sure that you're grounding points are all functioning as they should.

[htsource]

Thank you for your information, I went to the shop today, they tested the voltage to the amp, it was all okay. Then the guy popped off the amp cover and found out one fuse was blown. He then went in and checked with my old amp (yes, this is my 2nd amp in 2 months and I just switched to a new one about a week ago). He brought out with the other fuse and while he plugged it in, smoke came out of the amp and that was it.

He did have everything disconnected other than power and ground. Radio was off at the time too. He said it wouldn't have been anything I've done with the HU installation. For now I'm using my other JL amp which suppose to be for the rear speakers. Argh.... Hopefully it will be sorted out later this week.

For this particular HU, would it be any benefit to download the Kenwood Music Editor for USB drive? I can't actually find and download the software. There's only update on the Kenwood site. And I checked the box, it didn't come with any CDs.

I wish the HU has an option where I can take the unit inside and program everything the way I want, rather than doing it in the car. I've been pretty much living in the car for the last few days - so many options so confusing

[htsource]

Installed the PAC last night and programmed it. However, when I try to move to next preset FM station through the steering wheel control, it just move up the frequence or down. How can I make it to go next/previous presets instead of frequencies? In other mode (i.e. CD), it skips to next/previous track which is what I want.

Thanks for your help.