I need to extend the harness that my stock headunit uses so that I can relocate it ~2 feet away under the glovebox.

I've began by snipping, stripping, and soldering the harnesses to some 18gauge wire from radio shack. I realized I made a mistake by getting solid vs stranded but I pressed on anyway.

Question is, two of the wires (i think power) are larger gauge, something like 10 or so. Can i solder 18ga onto it without any problems? Or should I find the same gauge before continuing.

thx

9/15/2007 12:40:06 PM

no headunit is going to be using 10 gauge. Definitely use some similar gauge wires; 18 awg is tiny. some 14 or 16 gauge will be fine.

go back and replace all those solids with some stranded wire. Oh and get it from Walmart (car stereo section, of course)

[Edited on September 15, 2007 at 1:15 PM. Reason : ]

9/15/2007 1:14:20 PM

well walmart car section has various colors of stranded automotive wire for pretty cheap... replace the solid stuff b/c the connections will stress and break pretty quickly from all the vibrations in an automotive environment.

you DEFINITELY want to use the proper gauge for your power, and you probably are going to want to re-route your ground to a stripped chassis location to minimize ground loop noise.

9/15/2007 3:07:49 PM

all of the harness wires look to be similar gauge to the Wii Sensor bar (if it were one wire not two) or cat5 strands. The two other wires, power/acc I assume...are definitely 12gauge.

I also extended what looked to be the ground (it had a brown clip with teeth that plugged into a squarish spade connector on the back of the head unit). I have a ground loop isolator, if that saves any time/trouble.

I'll take a picture of the connections, but there are also a couple more proprietary connectors that i thought to be AM and FM antennas but there were 12-13V going through them. Maybe i measured wrong and used something hot for the groundnegative pole. Still relatively new at doing anything more than aftermarket head unit with a harness kit.

While we're sort of on the subject, I also have an APC 350W power inverter. The guy I bought it from did not include the alligator clips. I make shifted an old cigarette plug and it worked for small power items, soldering iron, mini-boombox, but not my laptop. Where do I find the alligator clips that contain an in-line fuse to wire directly to ignition terminals? The kid at ratshack had nfi what I meant.
http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=PNOTEAC350

At which point do I stop this madness and pay someone to do it profesionally. It's a Bose symphony head unit if that makes any difference.

Ultimate goal is a Xenarc LCD + laptop under the seat for a carpc.

[Edited on September 16, 2007 at 9:57 AM. Reason : .]

9/16/2007 9:56:57 AM

That's ridiculous for them to have used 18-22 gauge wire (those cat5 wires are tiny)

The antenna wire is a huge wire off by itself, separate from the main harness. All you have to do is keep track of your extension wires and make sure that you match colors on each end. I wouldn't bother messing with the ground loop isolator unless I did have noise problems, just to simplify things a bit.

Alligator clips? These things? http://www.designnotes.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/CM6X.JPG
You should be soldering to high-powered lines or maybe straight to the battery (fused) if you want more power. If you're going to be using the laptop as a music player, they say it'll sound really crappy for all the electrical noise in the car or something. You'll have to look into special power supplies and stuff made specifically for car pc's.

message_topic.aspx?topic=489300

[Edited on September 16, 2007 at 2:53 PM. Reason : ]

9/16/2007 2:52:42 PM

Yeah, I'll probably end up getting a Carnetix from mp3car.com but the kid i bought my molded LCD screen from used the APC inverter without any problems apparently, and gave it to me for a decent price. And I know omarbadu uses an auto-air adapter just fine.


Yeah those clips, but something with a fuse in-line.

9/16/2007 4:30:02 PM

why alligator clips? if it is meant to be slightly more than temporary I would just use the little rings that hook around the battery terminals

9/17/2007 5:19:09 AM

Yeah, you should definitely run the inverter into the battery. I ran one on my amp wiring once, and it was fine running 200+ watt equipment. Just get a light-ish gauge amp wiring kit and use that to hook up your inverter.

Also, it's probably a bit late, but if you wanted to preserve your stock wiring, they make these little quick-splice connectors that allow you to splice a line into another one without irreparably damaging the original wiring. You could have just spliced in runs of wiring to go to your carpc, and left the original harness completely working and intact.

As for the solid core wiring thing, I HIGHLY recommend that you go get some >= 16 ga. stranded wire and install it instead. Use crimped butt connectors, don't solder in your dash. It's not going to get pulled around a lot and it makes your life a LOT easier.

I've done quite a bit of creative vehicle wiring, so PM me if you need any help.

[Edited on September 17, 2007 at 11:03 AM. Reason : .]

9/17/2007 11:02:53 AM

I was surely going to run the inverter directly to the battery I just didn't know how without the original clips that came with it. Good call on the amp wiring kit, that thought didn't even occur to me. Now hopefully I can find the entryway out of the cabin. (C5 Audi A6)

Are you talking about something like a Metra wiring harness ? Or individual pins that would have plugged directly into the stock harness? >.< I thought about the Metra kit but in the end I just spliced everything with some 14 gauge stranded.

I did end up soldering in the dash as well as on the other end of the harness...Started around 11 this morning just finished and much to my surprise, everything works.

What exactly are those quick splice connectors called, because I left certain things un-extended such as the telephone/navigation wires.

Thanks for all the advice in the thread. The next obstacle I can see is what to do about splicing a 12V lead for the Xenarc LCD. There are two spade connectors and a common barrel plug, but my roommate's Garmin cigarette lighter adapter also powers it.

9/17/2007 1:59:30 PM

I (and most other people) hate those crimp-on splicers that he's talking about. NOT a reliable connection.

He's talking about these:

http://www.frozencpu.com/images/products/large/ele-46.jpg

that metal piece has two spades (one for each wire) with splits in the middle. when you crimp the connector down, the splits cut into each wire through the sheathing and touching both sets of bare wires inside. the design of it already sounds sketchy

9/17/2007 3:04:55 PM

Well I'm going to be running GPS and what not through the PC anyway so I don't need that harness spliced, I was just curious.

Basically what stands in my way now is powering my laptop reliably. Also figuring out how the hell i'm going to mount this 15lb double din beast of a headunit under the glove compartment without it falling off every speed bump. Hey, at least I can listen to my mp3 player now while driving. You don't realize how boring it can get until you don't have shit to listen to but silence for hours at a time.

9/17/2007 3:09:10 PM

^^Maybe I'm lucky, but I've used countless dozens f them and never had any problems when they were put in properly.

As far as mounting location...no room in the trunk or under the seat?
In the glove box perhaps?

[Edited on September 17, 2007 at 5:34 PM. Reason : .]

9/17/2007 5:34:19 PM

when I put power wires for my amp in, I ran it through the firewall where my clutch cable ( I have a five speed geo tracker) went through, it was a bit tight to go through but it went

9/17/2007 10:50:40 PM

if it is the Bose headunit, most likely there is an amplifier elswhere in the car. So the wires going from the head unit to the amp will be very small as they are just signal wires. Make sure these connections are solid otherwise you wll introduce a lot of noise into the system. The power and ground will be bigger.

If you are going to be running a laptop off the power inverter, definately run it directly to the battery with a fuse as colse to the battery as possible. Go buy a cheap amp kit (10 gauge) and it will have everything you need + some stuff you wont need.

edit: I asked what kind of car, then saw Audi, everything still applies.

[Edited on September 19, 2007 at 11:43 AM. Reason : car]

[Edited on September 19, 2007 at 11:44 AM. Reason : ]

9/19/2007 11:41:00 AM

Initial pictures, before running the LCD to a perm 12V lead and hiding wires. Still have to figure out what to do with this clunky double din headunit though, it's sitting on the floorboard now.

Also, there's a large metal post that the passenger seat connects to with a rather large nut/bolt. Is this fine for the inverter's ground or should i pull up some carpet and look there?

^I ended up doing exactly that, after FenderFreek suggested the amp wiring kit, i dropped 10 bones + 10GC at Worst Buy for 17ft 10ga. with a 25 amp ATC fuse kit. Ran it through a hole in the ECU box and it dropped right under the knee bolster.


Surprisingly there was no wining of the alternator or any other kind of interference, but then again I've only sat in the driveway with the car started so far.

9/19/2007 6:24:49 PM

damn fine work

9/20/2007 3:26:00 AM

heh, i wish i could take credit for the LCD enclosure. I bought it from a guy on audizine who had it molded for his S4. Unfortunately, there's about a half inch difference in the S4 and A6 DINs

Not sure if i'm gonna leave it or try to bondo it myself and match the paint.

[Edited on September 20, 2007 at 12:20 PM. Reason : .]

9/20/2007 12:20:25 PM