Soldering is the way to go but if you have too you can use crimp connector and wrap it with heat shrink.

 

Would a crimp connector crimp down hard enough on the little resistor wire?

 

You can buy a cheap solder iron at sears or radio shack for around $10.

 

DON'T CRIMP THE PAC KIT RESISTORS. I assume this is what you are doing. I just did it myself.

Man up and drop $8 (yes, $8) on the little 14w soldering iron they sell at Rat Shack, along with $ for some 60/40 solder and $3 for some heat shrink tubes. Don't try to rationalize it away, just do it. You don't need to be an electrician to guess that if they are telling you to connect a 150ohm resistor to one wire and a 47 to another that the tolerences here are pretty darn tight. Don't blow the whole thing on a bad connection.

Could you crimp it? Probably. Would it work very well? Probably not. I'm sure someone here managed it but I don't recommend it, at all. Solder that thing.

Look, here's how easy it is (I did exactly this, and I have a 100% working steering wheel control interface on my Titan with no lag, btw):

Get some 18g red hookup wire from Rat Shack when you get the other stuff.

Cut a length of said wire, then cut it in half.

Solder the resistor in between the two pieces of wire. Careful! The resistor wires as you know are thin and they break easy. Wrap the copper from the hookup wire around it, not the other way around. Form the two wrapped wires in to a shallow v. Put the heated iron under it, touch it to the side (not tip). Give it 30-45 seconds to heat the wires themselves. Touch the solder to the wire, NOT the iron. Watch the solder flow on and in to the wire. Give it a moment to cool, slip the heat shrink tube over it. Run a lighter under the tube rapidly back and forth, do not allow the flame to touch it or the wire for what are hopefully obvious reasons. Watch the tube shrink. Now do the same for the other end and the other resistor. Now solder the two ends ot the hookup wire with attached resisters to the white wire on the PAC.

Now you can use a butte connector and crimp the other ends to the #12 and #13 wires in the radio harness. Cut them in half to do this. Crimp another pieces of hookup wire to #14 and ground it to the chassis. Now you are ready to program. Make sure you crimp it good and tight! (easy with 18g hookup wire.

It's easy. Even if you can't solder it'll take you 10 minutes, and as a bonus you can (and should) solder all your other radio harness connections too.

Trust me on this. That PAC is highly sensitive. Don't go the easy way or you will regret it.

 

I pretty much agree with ix, but was going to offer that the RS iron is a massive piece of shiite which will make an easy job more difficult. Here is a better one from Weller:
Amazon.com: Weller SP23LK Marksman 25 Watt Soldering Iron Kit: Home Improvement

Still won't break the bank. Or just ask your neighbor. Lots of people have irons. But Don't try to crimp it, I guarantee you don't have the correct tools or connectors for that task (or you wouldn't be asking).

 

Here's a so-so pic of mine pulled out of the dash - not a great pic, sorry, yes it's a rat's nest, I took this right after doing a test hookup, before I cleaned everything up and taped off loose wires, etc.





Anyway, couple things about this pic - first, notice the tape on the two wires, one that says 150 - that, obviously, is where the resistors are, which I labeled because of course they are now covered by heatshrink and you can't tell which is which (so don't forget to label them!)

Second, you'll see they are connected to the harness down the line via a T-tap - that's that red plastic connector there, sometimes called a Vampire tap. I did this at first because I was lazy. Short answer is don't do this I ended up re-doing it after via soldering and taping and it worked perfectly. Would have saved me a lot of time if I had done it right the first time so take it from me - do it right the first time




Well I can't argue with you there, although I will say that he can pick the Rat Shack one up right away, and I found it adequate enough to get the job done, even if just barely.

Great info dude, thanks. I don't know why they just don't put these resistors on the circuit board inside the PAC.

WalMart carry a soldering iron? I need to get a lighter, too, then...
However I was planning on just using crimp connectors for the other connections, soldering and lighter-ing inside my dash isn't something I really wanna do.

They do carry them not likely to be that great either but see above, it'll get the job done.

They don't put the resistors in the device because every vehicle is different and not many use the resistors. Nissan's need them because they use more than one wire to send steering wheel commands, which means from the perspective of the PAC two different commands could trigger the same voltage by the time it gets to it. Thus the resistors - they are so the PAC can tell the difference between different button presses. Very few vehicles need them which is why we are stuck doing this but trust me, it ain't that hard

As for not soldering in your dash, etc - why are you doing it in your dash? Don't you have a Metra or other brand wiring harness you can solder to your new HU's harness at your kitchen table? If you do it that way then there's really only 3 wires you need to crimp or solder, and those are on the steering wheel control harness (plus the VSS I suppose, if you need it, which is also on the same harness).

 

Great info dude, thanks. I don't know why they just don't put these resistors on the circuit board inside the PAC.

WalMart carry a soldering iron? I need to get a lighter, too, then...
However I was planning on just using crimp connectors for the other connections, soldering and lighter-ing inside my dash isn't something I really wanna do.

 

I was thinking of doing kindof like you said, soldering the resistor to a wire. Then using electrotap to tap it into the existing wire without having to cut it- so that if I ever have to take it out the factory stuff is all unchanged, and using the crimps on everything else.

 

Not sure if this would help, but it makes a good connection without a soldering iron.



Nissan uses these for the seat belt tensioner harness recall on the Armadas.

 

I was wanting something I could pick up locally (RadioShack or Walmart or something), was hoping to get started tonight.

 

I was fully planning on using those taps... I really don't want to cut the factory stuff at all. I want the ability to pull them out if I have to.

I don't see how when you're soldering to a wire inside the factory system without having to do it in the dash.

 

That's why I said "most" of the wires can be soldered outside. Read it again I think you think soldering inside the dash there is a lot harder than it is. It's really not.

Anyway if you really don't want to solder in the dash for whatever reason at the very least use butte connectors and crimp them real good with a pair of decent crimpers. You are flat out asking for trouble if you use T-Taps on those connections. It'll either not work, partially work (mine, I could program volume up but not down, for example), or work and then weeks, months, or years later stop working. Or you'll have little problems you won't even think are related, like interface lag. Once again, the tolerances with those are very tight. If you do it right up front it'll work perfectly and you won't have to worry about it again.

As for cutting the factory harness, just do what I did and cut away from the end so there's some room to reconnect the wires later on down the road. It's not like you are going to ruin the harness, you can always return it to stock later just by re-soldering or re-crimping the original wires back together.

 

That's what I've been using (wiring the harness to the head unit), was butt crimping connectors. Then finished off with electrical tape for good measure.

I'd really just be needing to solder the two resistors... Why exactly did your crimping the resistors not work?

Not saying I won't do the soldering thing, I'm just having a hard time understanding exactly why it'd be bad unless it came apart (like I sad, they're crimped and electrical taped...)

 

Crimping the resistors doesn't work because the resistor wire is very thin, and very brittle. It does not crimp well. You CAN crimp the other ends if you do what I did - solder the resister in between two pieces of 18g hookup wire. The 18g wire you CAN crimp because it's nice and thick and will hold a crimp well. I ended up soldering everything just because it didn't work right with those taps on the harness end and I was tired and figured I'd just do it the way I knew would work. I probably could have crimped those ends instead of soldering them and it'd hold fine but I already had the iron out and ready.

So at the very least, solder the resistor in between the two 18g wire pieces, do the same for both, then solder the ends of those to the white wire on the PAC since you can do all of that outside your vehicle. Then you can cut/crimp the other ends to the right wires on the harness instead of soldering, if you want, just make sure you get the wire ends in there right and crimp it nice and tight, then tape it.

 

That's what I was leaning to.
However I did have an idea... Since it's the thinness of the resistor (which is what I suspected myself), why don't I wrap the cable itself around the resistor end and stick that into a crimp???

The only thing that still sucks is why the hell doesn't PAC pre-solder this thing in-line with another wire???? That'd seem to make more sense.

 

Since it's the thinness of the resistor (which is what I suspected myself), why don't I wrap the cable itself around the resistor end and stick that into a crimp???

Cause this is TitanTalk, not GhettoTalk.
Do it right, or don't do it at all.

.. why the hell doesn't PAC pre-solder this thing in-line with another wire???? That'd seem to make more sense.

Cause it costs money.


You can't crimp the resistor because it its leads are solid. All the Crimp connectors you are going to find at RS, Wally, Autozone, and every other not-actually-an-industrial-supply-store are made for stranded wire.

 

Clarion NZ500, I figured it might be a combination of a delay in the HU as well.

 

I think it may be all HU, I have zero delay with my Pioneer x920bt. It is exactly as sensitive as stock if not more so.

Check your ground on both the PAC and the harness just to be sure, there were reports on the Pioneer forums of people fixing delay issues by re-doing their grounds.

 

I don't think it's the ground... I've got it tied into the same ground the HU is using, I didn't have it going into the harness.

 

Sorry if I am mis-understanding you - you have the ground on the PAC connected (obviously) but you did or did not ground wire/pin 14 on the harness itself? You should have two connections going to ground when all is said and done. The same ground the HU uses is probably fine although I did ground both of mine right to the chassis.

 

Yep, two grounds...

 

radioshack has a nice propane soldering iron, its more money but well worth it, heats up quick and works great. Especially if you need to solder while camping, or in your car. Nothing like dropping a hot soldering iron onto your dash when you kick the cord with your foot.

 

* Distraction Notice *

I haven't used the gas version from radioshack, but I have had a Weller version and a BernzOmatic version of these, and can attest that they work pretty well for what they are. More importantly though, they usually come with different attachments, like a hot knife, which is cats azz for cutting synthetic rope.

Sorry, now back to your regularly scheduled program.