Cool little hidden radio

Thanks for site, haven't found one that has balance control yet..Did find this http://www.parts-express.com/kinter...mount-remotes-usb-mp3-2--310-380...Everything but radio, cute little remote and real small size; 3.5 wide, 1.0 height, and 2.75 deep..

 

Says fm tuner. Wouldn't that be radio?

 

Yup you be right..Since I had been fooled before I was looking for an extending type antenna and tuned out the FM tuner line.....Reading the reveiws and Q & A doesn't seem too bad for the money...I think a car ant. could be hooked to the ant. wire....Found another http://www.parts-express.com/wired-home-whhcps-high-current-power-supply-12-vdc-12a--182-886...No SD but has USB and inputs and FM...Bout same size as the A7...

 

List of units Kinter brand..http://www.parts-express.com/brand/kinter/602..

 

I took the antenna off the unit and soldered an antenna socket on and hooked it to my original works great.

 

Ok, the slowest radio build thread shows up again. This won't finish for a while but can maybe give some ideas to others.

My Idea is to remote mount the thing inside the guts of the 1939 Mopar radio - which is sitting 200 miles from here, so that part is for later. (Pic of that radio is up thread). This post is just for the Lepai radio part.

I spent about $20 on Amazon and bought some parts. Patch wires and mini switches; car antenna extension, speaker attachment extension. Also desoldering wick. I had the heat-shrink tubing.




I de-soldered the on/off/volume switch and ran a 10 inch extension - it took 2 wires because the patch wires were too short.

Next two rotary switches are treble and bass. I almost never touch them in a car now, so I figure to set and forget.

There is a SD card slot which I will fill with a 32GB or 64GB card full of my favorite music. That's a few weeks worth of tunes. Again, set and forget.

There is a USB slot which I will plug an extension into, and run somewhere - radio face or under dash. This way I can get new tunes too.

The RCA jacks I'll probably run to a 1/4" line in jack. That might be mounted with the buttons.

The 4 buttons share a common ground, so I only need one ground wire. I left the buttons in place and just added extra "hot" wires on the back.



There is an IR receiver that talks to the remote - I'm not sure if I will try to remote-mount that or not. It would take desoldering and proper physical mounting. I don't know how much you would gain - I'll probably experiment later to see if it's worth it.

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I'll mount the Lepai inside the Mopar radio somehow. (I need to add a heat sink - the Lepai uses the case as a heat sink so I might put the case on, or part of it.) I'll add the speaker ports and antenna off the back, and put everything else up front, using existing openings in the chrome dash grill.

The Mopar radio has 5-6 buttons for preset stations which are made from early fragile plastic, mine are broken to stubs. I'll have to wait to see what modern pushbutton switch fits best (I bought 2 types). And how to mount them, etc. Lots of unknowns yet, but I think I have a good start. I just hope it works when I'm all done.

 

I'll be tuned in..

 

Here's a link I found for the plug.http://www.americanradiosupply.com/...k-connector/?gclid=CPDrjuP89MkCFVFffgodEZ0AEg

 

They all seem to get bad reviews on humming. Any thoughts on a small unit that works properly with no issues? I want one of these for my 34 and want to buy a good one. I'll spend more for one that actually works. Help!

 

X2 and and would be nice with a balance control! The reviews on the ma-600 aren't too bad but only two channels..A pevious [#150 56premire] poster said he had one with a balance but couldn't remember brand..

 

Can someone school me on tuning the Kinter radio? All mine will do is PO1 and PO2 neither of which are local stations.

 

Anyone?

 

Check the parts-express website comments on the Kinter radios - someone may have had the same issue.

 

Thanks

 

For the few of you looking for a solution to hiding the unit but still use the remote, it appears the Kinter MA-120 has an "external infrared receiver input" and a receiver cable with the infrared "eye" to place remotely:

This is only a 2 channel (speaker) unit and still requires a power cord and the auto antenna modification. It would be perfect to install tucked under the seat of my IH pickup with a couple of speakers and still be able to use the remote by mounting the "eye" somewhere on or under the dash. Thanks to OP Justin for this; perfect solution for broke folks that just need some cheap tunes in their old beater...

 

I thought I had been watching this thread but no............................so, thanks for bringing it back up again.

 

Ok, a lot of chiming in here with no real answers. Can anyone answer my question please? What is good and what is bad? Reviews on these things are poor.

 

Great topic, I am about ready to put some tunes in my car so I have done some checking since I started reading it.

BALANCE controls:
You probably will not find any on these units, they are amplifiers, amplifiers are normally designed to send boosted or amplified signal to a head unit that has the balance controls built in. (someone correct me if I am wrong please) Plus at this price point I would not really expect state of the art equipment. They are designed for the cheapskate like me.

COMPARISONS:
I did a search on YouTube and found a couple dozen caparisons and evaluations on these units. I have to admit, I am impressed with the quality for the money. In my last car I bought one of those vintage style radios, and without naming the company, I thought it sucked for the amount of money I had invested. By the time it was wired up and working I had about 10 times what these mini amp's cost.

Thanks for opening up a new thought process with this thread,
Jim

 

I thought i had this thread tagged but missed some how..
Balance ..from my research to make balance.. Its called an L-pad. You would need two or a stereo model thus your looking at ~$20. But L-pads are typically only made for 8 ohm speakers. All auto speakers are 4 ohm. By the time you get done with buying parts of sufficient size (e.g., current/power capacity), you've likely spent enough to purchase a budget car head unit. A car unit will give you all the functionally you want and much more (e.g., graphic equalizer) and a built in fader in a neat package that fits in the dash.

The suggestion: Go back to PE and select Car Stereos from the Car Audio main menu. Then sort view the results by "Price-Low to High". Even the cheapest units (<$50) have USB, Memory Card and Balance & Fader controls. Sometimes these controls are within a menu rather than a knob on the front of the unit. Been checking some..http://www.parts-express.com/pyle-plmr18-marine-stereo-usb-inputs--267-7250 and http://www.parts-express.com/boss-6...l-media-car-stereo-receiver-50w-x-4--265-3125 Both require a 7"x 2" dash hole [din]

EQ Button..Many of the units have an EQ button, what is its function? How does it work compared to a Balance control?

 

I asked tech and the answer: The EQ button has 5 different settings which mildy change the sound of the amplifier. Ok, about what I figured..

 

I am at a loss as to how you tune the fm stations. I did get it to search but could not get it to stop on any station. Should a thumbdrive work on the auxillary?

 

From what I've read most will use/play a thumbdrive in the USB port but there are a few that the USB port can only be used for like powering stuff, charging phones, etc..

 

Most will run a thumbdrive from the USB port but there are a couple that can only be used to power stuff; ipod, phone charging..I don't know on the tuning you may be able to get some tech support help from where you bought it..

 

Did you have the antenna hooked up?

 

Yes the antenna is connected. It will search for stations but will only stay on PO1 and PO2. The instructions say it "can play U disk SD/MMC card for music and FM stereo radio, support MP3 music format. [USB+SD+FM].
I have a thmbdrive inserted now that plays in the USB port in my car but it does not play. I should explain that I am 71 and therefore technologically challenged.

 

you can get the 12vdc power supply here - http://www.epowerco.com/listing-category/dc-dc-power-adapter/

 

Radio?

 

Anyone hook one of these up to real amp? I realize it doesn't have pre-amp outputs, so not sure how it would sound...
Maybe I will be the first?

 

Ordered the MA-600. It's smaller. It only has 2 speaker hook-ups, but I will split it to run four, after the amp. I'm looking at a Kenwood amp that has speaker level inputs. I'll post the results later. Oh yeah...$33.57 on eBay.

 

I got a blue one that, like your red one, had a display. The display shows mode and FM station frequency. That's useful because it doesn't really tune, it finds the next station up or down. Modes on mine are SD, USB, Aux, FM.

I bought a 32 GB SD card and filled it with songs I like. It will get tucked away and will be hard to change.

I took the whole thing apart - it's one circuit board and a little child board for the display.

I soldiered some wires from the buttons on the new radio, and de-soldiered and removed the on/off/volume switch. I added a 12-inch extension to this switch via thin wires, soldier, heat shrink. It is electrically the same, just on longer wires. I then did the same thing for the display - that was about 12 wires. I bought some 24-gauge Arduino jumper wires that made it fairly easy.

Then I gutted my in-dash radio, preserving the switched and knobs. The left knob shaft was shortened; I physically mounted the new radio's on/off/volume knob to it.

I ran a USB extension and Aux extension to he front of the radio, where the dial display would go - just mounted with a bunch (a BUNCH) of hot glue into a metal face/box with proper sized cutouts, replacing the dial indicator area. I polished the user-facing part. Getting fancy, I also added a dual USB charging port in this area. This area now has the display, 3 USB (one for data drive, two for power) and Aux plug.

I hooked up the old radio's station memory buttons to the new radio wires I earlier soldiered on. I also removed the button locking detent for the old radio buttons so they are now momentary contact buttons that make contact only when held in.

I mounted the circuit board in a remnant of the original metal case, and screwed that inside the old radio. It still has the SD card in it.

Treble and bass are the other two knobs - I set them to middle levels, treble a little up; set and forget. The knobs are not accessible - I could have hooked them up to the other shaft with a lot of difficulty but that's too much work.

I put in an antenna jack as described above, and used the Retrosound speaker. That was the most expensive part, about $50 delivered. My new radio was $35 and the pieces/parts were about $20.

I have no pics, sorry. Phone the pics were on died and radio is hours away now.

It works but I'm a little worried about my internal mounting of the circuit board. Other than that I'm pretty happy with it.