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6 Double Din

87K views 107 replies 30 participants last post by  KreAch3R 
#1 · (Edited)
Alright well to start off this is just an option for people who don't wish to spend $400 bucks on the Kanatechs kit. I purchased both single din & double din thinking I would have to mix the two kits together. But you don't, so onto the double din install.

This is the ebay kit labeled as a 03-05 Mazda6 double din kit. The seller said it would not fit 06-08 and would not work with electronic climate controls.

I will be posting pictures of both single din made for the 06-08 6, and the double din comparing them. Then stock components swapped over to the double din.



Had to remove the pictures. If you are interested please pm me
 
#59 · (Edited)
Just ordered mine today from the ebay seller. I'm gonna wait until the new Pioneer AppRadio 3 comes out in july to install it though. Just wanted to grab one of the kits before it was gone again. Does anyone have an AppRadio or AppRadio 2 installed? How do you like it if so?
 
#67 ·
Hi! New to the Forum but ready to dive in and learn as well as share iso with other like yourself. so. i have he ebay kit and the 2008 display for my 2003 m6i i purchased the wires from star tech u recommended so i was wondering about the top pins on the display and the 5th set of wires is not a 2pin connector its a 3 pin an the wires are on opposite ended. I'm stuck. lmk if u have some time to help. I'm in New York. I'm available anytime sat & sun 716-948-7664
Thanks,
Rob
 
G
#68 ·
Rear window defrost and air recirculate lights staying on

Problem with the lights that stay on when the ignition is off I have discovered on mine, is the circuit board doesn't fit the button holes cut in the trim plate. I can remove the board and the buttons click and work just fine. I install the board and something is binding the buttons and they stay pushed, thus illuminating the lights. I filed the button holes and shimmed the board seems to have freed the binding.
Anyway thought I'd share this and maybe save someone some grief with sending it back are arguing with the seller.
 
#70 ·
Thanks for the help!

Kind of an old link... Messages from this thread were ESSENTIAL to my getting this to work on my wife's 2004 Mazda 6 Sport Wagon. Used a Pioneer single DIN Bluetooth Stereo, 2008 display, a Maestro kit for the steering wheel controls which all work. Phone works with bluetooth hands free. All air and other controls work fine. Only thing that didn't work out was for some reason by lights don't work on the shifter console. Think this is unreleated to the kit...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4LjvxXiHZ5fTjhERHNpQjYxNjg/view?usp=sharing

Regards,

Aservire
 
#71 ·
Kind of an old link... Messages from this thread were ESSENTIAL to my getting this to work on my wife's 2004 Mazda 6 Sport Wagon. Used a Pioneer single DIN Bluetooth Stereo, 2008 display, a Maestro kit for the steering wheel controls which all work. Phone works with bluetooth hands free. All air and other controls work fine. Only thing that didn't work out was for some reason by lights don't work on the shifter console. Think this is unreleated to the kit...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4LjvxXiHZ5fTjhERHNpQjYxNjg/view?usp=sharing

Regards,

Aservire
Any chance you'd be selling that dash kit in the near future?
 
#72 ·
Europa PCB
Hope this will help! For DIY
Left side count from down
1.J165 - > LED
2.J164-> LED
3.J151 -> left connector middle down pin
4. ! from 145 to J194 on pcb !
5.J142 - > J144
6.J227 - > J315
7.J181 - > led
8.J191 - > led
9.R922 - > led
10.R920 - > led
11.R923 - > LED
12. any


right side
1.J206 - > right connector right down pin
2.J102 -> J130
3.J153 -> led
4.J249 - > right connector up right
5.J307 - > right connector middle down
6.- > need to cut
7.J223 - > L901
8.J158 - > led
9. see point 4 left side
10.Q904 down - > led
11.any
 

Attachments

#73 ·
Thread revival and my first post here in a VERY long time.

Finally bought myself a double din headunit (Kenwood DNX693S) and scooped up one of these ebay kits (used of course) locally from a friend. Of course, he had a single din installed and cant find the double din brackets or trim ring. Looks like I may have to get crafty and make some brackets from steel.

Im sure some of the posts in this thread about the wiring will be a huge help.

Cant wait to get this thing installed!!
 
#75 ·
Double Din Project WIP

Glad to see this thread seeing some life again. Its been one of those I've come across and read again and again to plan for my stereo upgrade in my 2007 Mazda 6 GY. Last year i upgraded the door speakers, and this year I've gotten the double din kit and took out all the coloured plastic trimmings and had it all painted.

So over the next few months I'll be getting things setup and ready to go based on not at least the wirering post in here from jcf6288.

As for head unit I've gone with Xtrons Octacore TB706APL which is one of the few Chinese models that allows for RCA out for rear screens.

I'm going to have to splice some cables onto the CANbus ISO adapter I got for steering wheel controls but once done it should end up pretty epic.

Here is a couple of pics of the painted double din.

Double Din Full:


Double Din Closeup:


Hope this can help inspire others to go down this path.
 
#76 ·
Double Din Project WIP - Part #2

Time for a short update.

So since the other day I received parts. Which is a good thing. Now I can start looking at what seems to be the most time consuming part of all. Planning and the cable splicing and making sure all the cables are set right and have working connections. I want to make sure that I have the cables set before I start taking the car apart and taking out the radio.

So here is the plan and where I've started.

Cabling:
I'm going to splice in cables for the top display. Instead of the PC kit that was recommended before I'm using the stock Arduino cables one can buy cheap. One needs to run 10 cables from the display to the ISO cable so I'll be using a good soldering iron and some wire shrink wrap to make sure after the soldering things are sealed tight.
I'm also going to use the universal cable that came with the double din dash kit to be a donor for the ISO harness I got. So I can get the molex cable and the canbus wires (blue/ping and ping wires) from the dash kit into the new ISO harness I got. It has a CANbus adapter to make sure I get the steering wheel controls over to the Xtron head unit.
On the stock ISO cable for the stereo I'm going to solder the break control wire (Ping on the Xtron cable) to the B+ (Yellow) wire to make sure I override the break restriction for video and other features. Also I found that it has an illumination wire, that I'll splice into the illumination wire that comes from the car and goes into the top AC display. I found out that the ISO harness I bought with the steering wheel adapter didn't have the illumination wire in it, so instead of tapping into the car I used the dash kits universal harness to donor the connection pin + wire (its part of the 5 pin molex for auto AC) along with the molex plug over to the harness I'm going to use. So when I get to the part where I need to hook it up I'll not have to hook into the car in any way. I'm doing all the splicing in the adapter harness pre-install.

See parts here: files.markwalker.dk/mazda/Parts.jpg

The Head unit looks really nice to me, flat and clean: files.markwalker.dk/mazda/HeadUnit.jpg

I was originally worried ho it would fit within the actual double din dash kit even after I had it painted, but it turns out its going to look really nice and flush.

I test installed it on a table to see how it would look: files.markwalker.dk/mazda/DashAndUnit.jpg

Once all the soldering and wire work is done I may start by just running the important cables in the car before taking out the unit. So running a reverse cam in the car to the front glove compartment, and then running the microphone up to the rearview mirror and lastly which I didn't mention before I ordered the DAB+ dongle so I'll need to install the DAB+ antenna at the very top of the front window. The wire it came with is just not long enough to run to the rear of the car (At least I don't see how it can in my car, will have to measure that out when I'm in it).

NOTE: And I'm sorry that the pics aren't auto shown, but my post count is not high enough to actually post images yet. Once I am I'll go back and edit them in correctly.
 
#77 ·
Double Din Project WIP - Part #2

Time for another update.

Parts started arriving and its getting to that stage where I can start doing actual prep work for the actual install. I figure the time consuming steps are going to be the harness wirering/splicing and the running of various cables inside the car. For now that will be, reverse camera + microphone from rear view mirror area and the DAB+ antenna thats part of the kit I bought.

Parts are lining up nicely: files.markwalker.dk/mazda/Parts.jpg

Xtron TB706APL: files.markwalker.dk/mazda/HeadUnit.jpg

For the splicing I'm using 40cm Ardiono cables from the top LED dash to ISO harness I bought. Furthermore I'm using the double dash kit from ebay's universal harness as a donor for the 5 pin molex and the CANbus cables that need to run into the dash kit. Once all cables are splice (cut, soldered, wire shrink wrapped) the ISO harness should be good to go. I mean I do need to splice in +15 wires to make all parts come together.
I'm also going to solder the Break Control wire on the Xtron head unit to B+ (Yellow wire) to make sure it overrides any restrictions while driving. Might as well do it in the kables as I want to avoid any cutting of the cables in the car.
It also turned out that the ISO/CANbus adapter cable I bought to make sure that steering wheel controls work didn't have a pin in the plug for the illumination wire that I'll bee needing for the dash kit and the top display, so I took the cable + molex + pin from the universal harness and inserted it into my purchased ISO harness.

Once all the cabling is done and the head unit is correctly fastened to the double din kit I will be using velcro tape to attach the devices I need USB attached to the head unit underneath it. I opted to use an Anker powered USB hub and found a 3A 12v microUSB converter on ebay. I will be splicing that into the power wires of the ISO harness allowing for any USB device to work without having to worry about the headunit being underpowered.

I tested out the looks of the head unit in the dash kit and it looks really nice.

Semi mounted: files.markwalker.dk/mazda/DashAndUnit.jpg

I think once I get the wirering done I'll show the end result and see about getting the USB and other parts velcro'd to the head unit.

I think before progressing to do the full on mount in the car I may spend some time just running the wires pre-install of the dash and headunit. I do need to run a video cable from the back hatch to the front of the car, run a mic up to the rear view mirror and finally run the DVB+ antenna to somewhere so it can get signal. It looks like it has to be mounted on one of the windows, but I fear the wire is too short to be run from the rear window to the front, that would have been a nice place to have it though.

I'll post back when I have more info on my radio upgrade. Its starting to be a fun project.

NOTE: I know I'm not posting the full links to the images I have, but I don't have a high enough post count to do so. So is the live of a newbie :p
 
#79 ·
Double Din Project WIP - Part #2

So as I mentioned parts arrived. And I’m starting to feel like a little kid again.

The head unit arrived:


And its looking great. The Xtrons Octacore TB706APL is a fair bit longer than the 108mm as the docs say, its more like 143mm like the other Chinese units. But it should still fit.

Among other parts I ordered is a DAB+ USB dongle with antenna. I also had to order an external mic as the Xtrons ship without them. And I had previously ordered a ISO CANbus adapter harness to get the steering wheel controls over to the head unit. The one I ordered even came with a cable from the control box to the Chinese models so it should be an easy fit.

My focus at the moment is the cabling and splicing of cables to make sure all connections are correct and working. I’ve found out that I have to splice around 15-17 cables to get all things working right.

Cables and stuff can be seen here:


The current plan is to use some 40cm Arduino cables (They are quite similar to the PC bezel kit linked to earlier in this thread but much easier to come by) to splice into the ISO harness and I have a box of misc housings for the Arduino cables to click into. I’m hoping the 10 pin one I have just slides right into the LED display once done.

Furthermore I’m going to use the Double Din kit’s universal harness as a donor for the cables I need to feed into the Double Din circuit boards. So cutting off the Molex and CANbus wires and splicing them into the ISO CANbus adapter for easy fitting when I actually fit the unit into the car.

In the ISO CANbus kit I ordered the illumination pin was missing from the car end of the cable, so I’ve unclipped the pin in the Double Din kits universal harness and fed that into my primary harness. That will allow me to pull the illumination controls over to both the top LED display and the head unit (Yeah the head unit has an illumination in wire).

To make this all come together I’ll be using my trusty Weller temp controlled soldering iron and a fair bit of wire shrink wrap. So once done it should end up nice and robust.

I also wanted to get a quick feel of how the head unit will look in the dash. So I added a little felt tape to the headunit and fixed it to the dash kit. Looks really nice:


So over the next few nights or early next week I’ll probably be fixing wires and testing their connections etc. Should be fun :D
 
#80 ·
One more thing I forgot to mention, is that the spacer frame that comes with the Double Din kit doesn't work on the Chinese double din head units, its way to small. That also means that if one isn't using the spacer the fastening of the brackets for the head unit don't lign up right.

There are small raised pins from the kit to ensure the spacer frame locks in place right. I'll have to cut those off and also cut a tiny bit off the screw points that extrude from the Dash kit to fasten the brackets on. I'm thinking the best solution may be to use one screw in each bracket to make it sit reasonably firm to the kit, and then use some sort of super glue to make the brackets fit perfectly tight.

I'll add pictures of what I mean when I'm back home with the kit.
 
#82 ·
@ziggimon am I understanding that you arent using the included double din brackets? Would you be willing to sell them to me?

The used kit I bought had a single din in previously and the seller is having trouble locating the double din brackets for me.

Please let me know if you can help me out.
 
#81 ·
Double Din Project WIP - The Mounts

So as I was mentioning before the actual mounts for the Double Din unit is not fully on par with the Chinese units. To make things fit I need to cut off/back some of the plastic to make room for actually gluing/mounting the brackets on to fit the unit.

These are the points I'm planning to cut back:


And just to show how the brackets don't fit see this image:


I think cutting them down and using superglue may be the best option. As the plastic pins for the screws is quite frail and seems to be splitting when using the screws that came with the kit.

Ofc if others have any good ideas I'm all open for it. I won't be cutting it off/back until next week anyways as my focus this week is to get the cable sorted.
 
#89 ·
Cable Update

So I finally had time to complete the harness.. And yes it was quite the ordeal to get done. Splicing in all those wires and connectors truly made me aware of how vast this project became by adding a Chinese head unit. Yet I'm reasonably pleased with the result. And I tested all connections with a wire tester, so all should be ok. I tripple checked the connections on the LED Upper Display and verified the 5pin Molex connecter + CANBus cables that I pulled over from the dash kits universal harness. So fingers crossed when I get some free time I should be able to start running wires and install it in the car. And I really want to thank jcf6288 for his Upper display post it truly was a help making the harness. Post is here.

I took some shots of the harness to show how not so straight forward to join all these things together.

Cables explained:


The Mazda Adapter Kit isolated:


And I'm also pretty close to having all parts set right on the unit and faceplate ready to be mounted. I opted to use velcro tape for the misc things I needed to connect to get it as close to the unit as possible but also removable if I need to make adjustments to it.

Most parts added can be seen here:

Assembled 1:


Assembled 2:


Assembled 3:


I hope my posts and images are found useful to others that want to embark on a project like this and help them make the right choices for their setup.
 
#90 ·
So I finally had time to complete the harness.. And yes it was quite the ordeal to get done. Splicing in all those wires and connectors truly made me aware of how vast this project became by adding a Chinese head unit. Yet I'm reasonably pleased with the result. And I tested all connections with a wire tester, so all should be ok. I tripple checked the connections on the LED Upper Display and verified the 5pin Molex connecter + CANBus cables that I pulled over from the dash kits universal harness. So fingers crossed when I get some free time I should be able to start running wires and install it in the car. And I really want to thank jcf6288 for his Upper display post it truly was a help making the harness. Post is here.

I took some shots of the harness to show how not so straight forward to join all these things together.

The Mazda Adapter Kit isolated:


And I'm also pretty close to having all parts set right on the unit and faceplate ready to be mounted. I opted to use velcro tape for the misc things I needed to connect to get it as close to the unit as possible but also removable if I need to make adjustments to it.

I hope my posts and images are found useful to others that want to embark on a project like this and help them make the right choices for their setup.
I'm curious about the LED you spliced. Is that to the screen above the vents? Is that so the screen can be used in conjunction with the head unit? Or are you only using the CANBus wires to intercept the info to be utilized by the head unit?

Also I'm worried that all the accessories you have velcroed to the unit might get pretty hot being mounted so close together

Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk
 
#92 ·
An update on my progress.



Last weekend I was supposed to have everything installed, but the guy I bought the kit from couldn't find the correct brackets for the double din. So, as originally planned went forward with making my own. They worked out perfectly.




Got the headunit installed and working great. Very pleased with the final results!





I did not get this completed without running in to some problems though. When I first got the unit "ready" to be taken to the car I decided on a test fit first just to make sure the upper display would work, along with all the HVAC stuff and the 3 buttons below the headunit. All was well and everything worked as intended without issue so I unhooked everything as I still needed to do some wiring. Spent about an hour running the RCA/AUX/remote/GPS antenna/mic stuff through the car. My problems started when it was time to do the final hookup and install.



As soon as I plugged in the 5 pin molex connector all 4 lights on the center 3 buttons illuminated, even with no key in the ignition. These buttons are essentially "dead" and don't work at all. My upper display wasn't showing any of the HVAC information either. This came across as very strange to me as everything had worked on my test fit and now its suddenly not. In an earlier post on this same thread someone experienced this same issue and it's believed to be a bad board. I have managed to find an old ebay seller who may have some spare parts yet, so I'm waiting until tomorrow to hear back from them. I have also been told about a local shop that can very likely repair or rebuild the board for me so I have reached out to them as well in hopes of getting everything functional. I have lost the use of my rear defrost and HVAC display until I can get this sorted out.

I will be sure to post back as things progress.
 
#93 ·
An update on my progress.

My problems started when it was time to do the final hookup and install.



As soon as I plugged in the 5 pin molex connector all 4 lights on the center 3 buttons illuminated, even with no key in the ignition. These buttons are essentially "dead" and don't work at all. My upper display wasn't showing any of the HVAC information either. This came across as very strange to me as everything had worked on my test fit and now its suddenly not. In an earlier post on this same thread someone experienced this same issue and it's believed to be a bad board. I have managed to find an old ebay seller who may have some spare parts yet, so I'm waiting until tomorrow to hear back from them. I have also been told about a local shop that can very likely repair or rebuild the board for me so I have reached out to them as well in hopes of getting everything functional. I have lost the use of my rear defrost and HVAC display until I can get this sorted out.

I will be sure to post back as things progress.
The brackets and install look great.. The HVAC controls not so much. I hope I don't hit that issue when I mount mine. If I do I'll be keeping an eye out for your progress. I gather you ran the 10 wires from the harness to the top display as per the other post in this thread detailed for us? Thats how I made the wiring. So I hope that will just work. Also did you run the two pin wire with the CANBus connection to the HVAC control board? The 5 PIN molex shouldn't be enough.

EDIT: I'm thick and not paying attention. You did say it was working in the test install :facepalm:
 
#96 ·
Almost last update

So I finally managed to get my unit put into the car..

TADA:


I have a few things I want to note on it.

1: For some reason I ordered the wrong steering wheel interface harness. The one I've gone with is a 2010 Mazda harness so the steering wheel control adapter is ofc not working because its connected incorrectly for my car. I'll need to reach out to those I bought it from and sort out wiring for that. Hopefully I can avoid getting a new harness kit.
2: I don't know why, but my defrost button doesn't work. On first startup it turned on the defrost and after it auto turned off I can no longer control it. Quite a bummer. Not sure if I would need a new board or if its just something cable related.

I'll need to have a think. But until then I'm going to enjoy that I can now listen/watch to Spotify, Plex, Youtube.
 
#98 ·
I have the ASWC-1 which is made by metra I believe. I had some troubles getting it to reset so it could reprogram and find my car/headunit. It was a used unit, so we believe the little box is faulty. It powers up, just wont reset as per their instructions. Everything is wired correctly, or at least I believe so anyways.

I see you are having issues with your defrost. Hopefully its something simple and you can get it sorted out without needing a new board. One thing I noticed is that fitting the auto climate to the boards is very tight. There isnt any room beteeen the upper board and the climate control box and it presses on the upper board. Its also very hard to get the climate control to snap in to the lower board.
 
#106 ·
Maybe Final Update

So since last update I got a bit annoyed with some of the top display issues, so I found a place in Germany that sold the Chinese kits (YAY No EU Import tax). So I went for one of them to get the replacement PCB from the new kit. I switched the PCB from the kit to the on in the car and have now regained the AMB temp functionality. I still have no defrost icon, nor the ECO light when running the AC in ECO mode. As I use the car AC in AUTO all the time I think I'm going to let things slide and live with it for now. I have the feeling that the quality of these PCB's for controlling things on the Automatic AC is just not fully viable unless I've missed a wire somewhere. Could be one could splice a wire or two from the AC to the PCB but I have no wiring diagram on those wires, so I'll avoid breaking things in the future.

My end result is that I'm really happy with the replacement, the Double DIN I went with the Xtrons TB706APL really is Chinese.. You can feel it through and through. But it has a huge advantage over the stock Pioneer, Sony etc units, and thats that its rootable Android 6 that gives me full flexibility on the UI and the apps I install. I've found via XDA forums a russion guy who is providing custom ROM's for that unit and so far its been a good experience. The look is great, the steering wheel controls also just work and I'm finally at a point where I don't miss my old stereo. I mean having mobile 4G + GPS Navigation (Tom Tom) + DAB+ + Spotify + Plex was my goal the entire way. The only thing that needs to be fixed is bluetooth calling, but thats part of what makes it feel Chinese. I'm still waiting for the final firmware fix for that, but as its a general issue I'm sure that will get handled soon also.

I hope my build has been insightful to others also and hasn't been to intimidating. I didn't find it too hard, just requires a fair bit of manual labor and time.

All pictures are here: https://files.markwalker.dk/mazda
 
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