Today at Atelier Kaz - ex-Honda R&D, F1, Indy/CART engineer

Awhile ago, started working on another Audio Head Unit but as there was no major electronics issues and also the owner wanted to replace the
On/Off push button switch, kept it as mid priority item until I get the news from Japan about the availability and the delivery schedule.

There are three boxes landing today or tomorrow and seems like the new button is included in this delivery so
decided to finish the service over the weekend.




Despite being very early model spec, no serious acid leakage and just minor one from the big cap.




New caps installed on the power and bottom boards.




The board design is different so decided to use different routing for the jumper wire to strengthen the ACC line in case the owner decides to install iPod adaptor, especially important for USA Spec PA11-HON.
Used the same routing on the same spec board in the past and no interference observed but will double check during the test session.
Applied dash of conformal coating to hold the jumper in place.

There was no noise when operating the volume control dial but as a preventative measure, applied contact cleaner and rotated the volume many times.




Just waiting for the delivery of On/Off push button so started the bench testing.
Very unlikely to be used but disassembled the cassette module and cleaned the head and roller so testing using the ancient cassette tape. Still sounds nice....

Testing the radio with RDS and TPA enabled. As always, RDS will cause minute sound level dip every 5sec or so but quite normal or this old circuit design.




CD changer mode using the USA Spec PA11-HON.
Some owners spend a lot for ICE and replaced the classic Bose/Alpine system with aftermarket ones but for me, when the Alpine head unit and Bose AMP/speakers are operating at their standard design spec, I'm happy with the audio quality.

Even on the bench system with just two Bose speaker system, I'm fine with it.

The latest firmware on the PA11-HON is different from my classic one that when it is in Playlist mode, the fastforward/rewind key opearates differently compared to mine.

No noise observed by the routing of jumper wire.

Testing Aux input mode.
Obviously, you won't be able to control the device connected to aux port through the head unit but very useful if you want to use the music streaming service or if you want to play the audio of DVD player or satelite radio through the factory fitted speakers.




As the bottom lid had huge dent on this head unit, I want to keep it running in mild/hot condition for several hours for extra testing.
Once the push button arrives, will contact the owner to arrange the delivery.


Thank you for using my service.


Regards,
Kaz