This is the receiver I'm thinking about getting, its one of the only ones that I found that has a rear USB port, Bluetooth, and red backlighthing since there is 30K color combos to choose from. Plus it is in my price range.
I'm open to suggestions if anyone knows of a better receiver that meets the rear usb and red backlight criteria. I wanted to go with a mechless unit since I won't need the cd player but couldn't find any that would do what I wanted.
I'm really picky about my dash looking clean, and I wanted this install to look more or less factory. That meant no USB cable hanging out of my cup holder or ash tray. I decided to turn my front cigarette lighter plug into a USB plug since I don't smoke and have one in back for charging my phone. I took an old cigarette lighter plug that went bad, and cut the back off of it so all that was left was the sheetmetal body. Not wanting to cut into the plug wiring though, I saved the back half for later use. Then I traced the outline on a piece of aluminum and cut and dremeled it to fit snug inside of the plug body and cut the hole for the female USB plug and LED. Then I epoxied the whole mess into the back of the plug body and let it dry for a while.
I figured having a red light inside there would look kinda cool so I picked up some LED's and resistors at Radio Shack and went to work. What I ended up using is a 3mm red LED and 2 resistors totaling 690 ohms so the +12V woudln't burn out the LED that only needed 3V.
I think it came out pretty well, now I just need to get the receiver ordered so I can get it installed...to be continued.
The setup before I put it in the car.
Here's a close up of the circuit board and resistors I used.
Inside the plug...
Circuit board going into the enclosure...
Crappy picture of what it looks like in the dark...the camera makes the light look pink, but it matches the dash lights perfectly.
*Update 9/2/09*
Alright, I finally got the receiver ordered and the big brown truck dropped it off today at about 6. I finally got it all to fit and look good after a few hours of cutting plastic and wrangling wires.
To interface with the data bus and issue a system healthy status, I used the PAC adapter to plug into the stock wiring and hook up to the cd player. It also retains the warning chimes which are played through the stock radio.
Here's where I started from.
Here's a pic of the adapter and the back side of the stock radio.
And the receiver wiring harness connected to the adapter harness. The connections are all soldered and wrapped.
Had to make a little room at the back of the radio opening. I used a soldering iron, because there was no way I was getting a dremel close to that ribbon cable and all the wiring back there.
Done
Crappy picture in the dark.
The USB plug. Works like a charm.
