Mystery Car Stereo! :o

[bicostp]

OK I need help identifying a car stereo I have. Here's the story. My uncles run a small motorcycle parts buisness, and I was helping them clean out some old junk. I made something like 50 trips to the dumpster, throwing out an old OmniScan SCSI greyscale handheld scanner (I kept the 12v, 800ma wall wart.), an Apple LaserWriter II with a IIg card (ooh AppleTalk! I would have kept it if it hadn't been flooded), moldy textiles, all sorts of fun crap.

Apparently one of them decided to kick the truck's stereo system up a notch, so he got a new stereo and a Bazooka bass tube to go in the extended cab. Well, twelve years later, the stock stereo and the bass tube came home with me. The bass tube is hooked up to a power supply in the garage, and I'm trying to figure out how to power the stereo.

This is all I know about it:

- It came out of a 1993 GMC Sierra 1500
- It has Delco-Loc II
- It has an AM/FM stereo and CD player
- Delco Model #16171423
- It was built October 15 1993 in Kokomo Indiana
- There is a set of 20 pins, broken up into sections, that go to the wiring harness
- the bar code sticker on the back has the model number and "89AZUB" written on it
- I can't find any pictures of it online and I doubt my folks would want me to post pictures online. (:()
- I punched in basically every number or identifier into Google and either got 0- hits or random bullpoopies.
- It has this connector on the back:
<img src="http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/6463/img249gj.gif">

I'm not sure what some of the connections on that diagram are for... either for power or whatever. (FR+, FR-, etc... are obviously the speaker connections, but things like "Voice" and "GRD"?)

Can anyone help me? I found <a href="http://www.corvetteradios.com/Page.html">this page</a> that has some information, but it's only a start...

Thanks, and if you can't help, thanks for looking at least.
If I can't get this working as is, I'll have to open it up. If I still can't get it to work, there's bound to be fun parts inside!

[Triton]

1. left front speaker neg
2. left front speaker positive
3.right front neg
4.right front pos
5.ground
6. parking lights (no idea what its for lol)
7.dimmer (for the lcd light i think)
8.power antenna
9. positive from ignition
10. positive from battery
11.left auxilary (i think thats for subwoofer conenction)
12.audio connect, has to do with the aux things somehow
13.right aux
14. aud c again
15. voice, dunno
16. ground
17-20 more speakers

[bicostp]

So to get it working I'd need to put +12v to #10, connect the ground lead to #5, and I'm assuming there's something I'd need to do with the ignition line?

[Triton]

just to test it you hook it to the same as #10, in a car it would be to the positive lead on the ignition switch

[Sword_Gun]

Woah, What do you mean by the Apple that was flooded? Like it got wet?

Oh and whats a Omni Scanner?

[bicostp]

It was a LaserWriter II printer by Apple, which had an upgrade card in it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Appl ... ter_II.jpg

AppleTalk was a networking protocol that the old Macinstosh computers (and I think some late Apple IIs) used. It's sort of like TCP/IP because it's the software "language" they use to communicate. The IIgs board in this printer had a 9 pin round Appletalk serial connector which I believe is RS-232 compatible. (though I'm probably wrong.) It also had a SCSI connector (25 pin Centronics connector I think, or else a 25 pin D-sub) for connecting an external SCSI hard drive. The hard drive was used to store fonts besides the ones that were built into the printer's ROM, because if they weren't on the printer the computer would have to send it the font each time it was used.

"OmniPage" was either a model or brand of handheld scanners. Think an oversized T shaped mouse. You would roll it up or across the page you want to scan. No, it was not good at all. At the maximum resolution (600dpi) you could only move the scanner less than an inch per second if I remember right. You also had to keep the speed uniform and push the scanner in a straight line or else your scan would be all wavy. Plus since the light sensor was only about 5" wide you would have to do multiple passes with the scanner to scan an entire page, and then splice together the sepeate scans with image editing software. About the only thing it was good for were postcards and comics.

And yes by flooded I mean it was saturated with water. See we were cleaning out a rented metal storage unit behind the building. The only place they could put it was ajacent to the edge of a swamp. Well, last summer we had a lot of snow melting and a bit of rain, so the swamp rose a lot. The whole shed shifted a foot into the swamp, with the leading side sunken an additional 3" into the ground. There were a few inches of water inside the metal shed. I looked at the LaserWriter (mainly to try and salvage it for nostalgia's sake), but it had a water line inside about 2" up from the base, so the motherboard was soaked. There was also a lot of debris inside, so I threw it away.

[usbcd36]

I'm not sure what some of the connections on that diagram are for... either for power or whatever. (FR+, FR-, etc... are obviously the speaker connections, but things like "Voice" and "GRD"?)

Ok then!

I've done some work with using an old car stereo (more specifically, I got one for about $10 at a garage sale and converted it as a cheap one for use in my house), and I understand a little about them. First, the speakers are pretty obvious, so I'll leave that part up to you. Tying PRKLITS to either 12v or ground (try ground first; it'll be less likely to short it out), should illuminate the radio front, ANT is probably a power output to run the motor (or at least the motor relay) for a retractable power antenna (or if there isn't another antenna connection, it's that), and L- and R-AUX are either inputs or outputs (if the radio has an aux input button or something…).

Here's the important part though:

There are TWO (not one, but TWO) 12v lines that you need to connect to the radio. Ok, y'know how radios tend to have AM/FM presets so you can switch to your favorite stations? Those settings are stored on volatile RAM inside the radio, so loss of power will cause them to to disappear. You may have seen this experienced when one of your parents needs a new battery. Thankfully, it doesn't take much power to keep these settings alive, so they won't drain the battery (quickly, at least) when it's not being charged (just like the car's clock won't). Unfortunately, a radio that is running WILL kill a battery pretty quickly, so the wire to actually power the radio is connected to a switched line (activated by putting the ignition into ACCessory mode or starting the car). In my experience, radios don't work unless you connect both lines to +12v.

In short, tie BAT and IGN together and connect them to a PC power supply or something. You'll need enough wattage on the supply to prevent clipping of the bass, so check stickers on the radio, and get a supply of at least 200 watts (an old AT supply will work perfectly, and they're cheap too).

Oh, and although I don't know about VOICE, GRD is ground for the radio. Connect that to the ground wire(s) of your power supply.

[bicostp]

It works!

I think I may build it into a case sometime, probably after I convert that 200w PC power supply to a lab power supply. Parts aren't too expensive right now because one of the Radio Shack locations near me is closing and everything's on discount... 50-75% last time I went (a couple weeks ago)

[Triton]

lol usb i pretty much said that in a lot less words

[usbcd36]

Yep. I skimmed your post before I wrote mine, then read it afterwards and realized that.

[Triton]

lol, i only know this crap from having installed a few car stereos so yea