Alpine head unit problems

[haydenm315]

I've crapped on alpine in the past about reliability with their head units and I think the culprit may have been found. My 7863 has had problems with turning off when I push buttons or turning off when the cd drawer opens and closes. It's extremely annoying. The display on the face will also get garbled from time to time. Just by chance I noticed that touching the ribbon cable that connects the the main board to the face plug affects the problem significantly. Does anybody know if this is a common alpine problem and how do I fix the connectivity issue between the ribbon cable and the connectors? I've got the thing broken down right now on the table. The cable looks to be in good shape, but there is a pretty steep bend in it which may be causing a loss of signal? Any ideas? My only ideas are to clean the contacts. What else can I do?

<small>[ December 27, 2003, 04:17 PM: Message edited by: haydenm315 ]</small>

 

[haydenm315]

I put the crappy alpine back in my car with a minor modification. I tried to tape the ribbon cable to keep it from bending, but that made matters worse. I removed the tape and pressed firmly on the cable. The unit is working fine now, but I know the controls will go to crap again sometime soon when I go over that magic bump. I'm willing to bet this is a common failure issue for alpine cd headunits. The cables are available at alpine's website for about $14.00. It doesn't look too difficult to put one in. Definately a lot easier than tracking mr alpine down and beating the crap out of him.

 

[RickieFrat]

Moved To: SHO Generation I & II Performance Upgrades - Electronics & Audio

 

[RI-SHO]

I've never hard a problem with any my past 6 Alpine head units, I cant speak for there work on the lower models because I always had to buy the highest model for that year, I liked it but my bank account never did .

 

[haydenm315]

RI-SHO:
I've never hard a problem with any my past 6 Alpine head units, I cant speak for there work on the lower models because I always had to buy the highest model for that year, I liked it but my bank account never did .

Maybe the higher end models use a larger cable that's beefier to accomodate more functions.

 

[AutoSHO]

I've had 2 alpines and loved them... Much better sound quality than the Pioneer I currently have.

 

[haydenm315]

AutoSHO:
I've had 2 alpines and loved them... Much better sound quality than the Pioneer I currently have.

I don't have complaints on the sound quality, just the communications issues between the face and the headunit.

 

[haydenm315]

The ribbon cable came in the mail and includes the plug the face connects into. The mystery of my power cycling head unit has been solved. I'm just a little bit happier now.