Aftermarket Stereo - Have I opened pandora's box?

TechMinerUK

TechMinerUK

TechMinerUK

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Hi all,

Recently I bought a Pioneer FH-X840DAB radio for my trusty Fabia MK2 however I neglected the fact that I have never fitted one of these before so I have no idea what I am doing.

So far I have checked the wiring and setup and worked out that I will need a DAB antenna, Fascia kit with ISO wiring converter however after this I really am lost haha

I've heard that I might need a "cam-bus" (No idea what that is) however the current stereo doesnt really integrate anywhere else (It's a basic skoda with no reverse sensors/dot matrix display).

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated as it seems to be getting more complicated by the minute :D
 
paradigm said:
The CAN-BUS adapter will also be responsible for steering wheel controls if you have them.
Connects2 will likely make the right adapter for your radio and car combination.
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So if I don't have any controls on my steering wheel I can get away without one? I was mainly concerned about the Stereo not turning on without the car being powered etc :)
 
xs2man said:
You "should" be able to cross-over the yellow and red wire in the harness, as is usually needed for VAG motors. This is to save your radio stations and settings and such.
BUT, without CANBUS integration, you may need the ignition right on, just before cranking, to power the radio. Rather than the canbus control where when you park up somewhere and turn the engine off, the radio stays on. In this case, you need to turn the ignition on again to start the radio.
I didn't need any special harness when wiring my Alpine into my Alhambra, but I did need to run a power line to a switched fuse in the fuse box to power it. A special harness, however, may have integrated it correctly and had it switch on and off in the same manner as the OEM headunit.
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So the CANBUS unit is responsible for the ability to power on the unit without the key in the ignition as well as the steering controls etc (On aplicable cars?)

Scottland said:
You should be ok with a DAB aerial splitter cable, rather than a dedicated dab aerial.
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As far as I'm aware my car doesnt have a DAB antenna as the current stereo is just a normal Swing unit with AM/FM only

Kenai said:
If it's anything like the Octavia, if your CANBUS gateway is too old a revision, the stereo will cause excessive battery drain, regardless of if you have any CANBUS 'features'
Probably needs to be changed for a newer version, which needs VCDS coding when adding the new one
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Would the car have a CANBUS even if it doesn't have steering controls/parking sensors etc?
 
Kenai said:
I'm only working on the assumption the Fabia was built the same as the Octavia, do a bit of Googling on Fabia Canbus canbus gateway battery drain to confirm first before spending money.
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A quick scout and I can't find much other than issues relating to power steering and Skoda Superb's so (Fingers crossed) I might be in the clear :)
 
paradigm said:
I think what he's getting at is that you can split the FM antenna signal into FM and DAB. This does work, however a decent active splitter with proper filtering and amplification (such as the Apline KAE-DAB1G6) will cost more than a DAB antenna.
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Ahh, that makes sense. To be honest if the car was newer I would have gone the extra mile and fitted an external antenna but since it's a '12 reg I couldn't see the point haha :)
 
paradigm said:
Interesting. I just ran the cabling for the external VW shark fin combo antenna (GPS, GSM, DAB, FM) on the wife’s 2010 Polo, which I imagine is exactly the same car underneath. Took me 30 minutes and about £45 using a genuine antenna (used) and two eBay special FAKRA 6m extension leads.
I wasn’t really bothered about the DAB bit, I just wanted to ditch the cruddy GPS aerial I had originally put behind the dash, to resolve GPS accuracy problems. But this was part of an upgrade to a VW RNS-315 satnav unit, rather than an aftermarket radio.
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On mine (from the research so far) I would have to take down the entire roof trim to replace the aerial and run the cable as a quick try showed I couldn't get enough room by loosening the back of the fabric :(
 
Hi again,

So I've managed to get the stereo installed and I have wired up the DAB antenna, mic, ISO kit and ignition live and all is working as expected (Thank you all for your help).

One bit that you were right about was needing the can-bus so the unit can be powered on even whilst the ignition is off. So far I've found this one (Linky) however I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to wire it up or if anyone has used one before? :)
 
xs2man said:
Should be pretty easy to wire up. Plug and play as they say.
Never used one myself though. I just put up with the stereo not being on without the ignition.
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Welp after emailing the support for Connect 2 it seems it must have some sort of ignition live turn on :(

"Unfortunately the aftermarket radio will only power up with full ignition. The aftermarket radio will not work like the OEM radio, unlike the OEM radio the aftermarket radio also requires an 'Accessory / ignition supply feed' for the aftermarket radio to power. As there is no 'Accessory / ignition feed' on the vehicle harness as this is not required for the OEM radio to power up, our interface generates this 12v accessory / ignition feed for the aftermarket radio to power up. This Accessory feed is generated from the CAN-BUS signal and this CAN-BUS signal is only active with full ignition. Therefore the radio will only power up with full ignition."
 
xs2man said:
The correct leads does exist. I came across a video while looking for the best solution for hooking up BT for my B6 A4 with Bose. I was looking at a lot of semi-relevant videos, but there was one from Enfig in the states that showed an aftermarket radio coming on without ignition, steering wheel controls, dash integration, the lot. I think the lead was around $99 though, so not exactly cheap. But it does do exactly what you would want, so the ability to do it is there.Here is a video I found. I have started it from where he shows the aftermarket stereo turning on and doing it's thing. He then goes on to show how it stays on even after the ignition is turned off.
The adapter he uses is this one: https://enfigcarstereo.com/ENFIG_SRWH_AUD2_HILO.html
Not sure if there will be a UK supplier, or how much it might cost or whatever. But for proper aftermarket integration, that looks like the way to go. If I'm sitting for any length of time though in the car, I usually just listen on my phone, so my battery doesn't drain and I cant start the car (this happened once). But then I'm usually listening to Radio 4 or Scotland, so generally just chat. So don't really need it pumping through my speakers. I do that to save spending $99 or whatever on an adapter that allows me to do otherwise.
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Damn, to be honest at $99 and excluding import tax/delivery I think I might just prat around with the ignition live and latch it onto the stereo circuit so it stays on for five minutes after the car has turned off :D
 
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