Steering wheel control with Pioneer?
 

I read through the sticky on this topic but didn't find anything applying to this question.

Does anyone make something to use the stock steering wheel controls with a Pioneer head unit? I've always used Pioneer in the past and have been happy. I was looking at one of thier AVIC models but it doesn't look like Pac-Swi-Jack or Soundgate make anything compatible to my knowledge. Is there anything else, or has anyone tried one of these units?

It looks like the Pioneer radios come with a remote and steering wheel mount but that not very clean IMO. If nothing works maybe I'll have to conider another model.

Thanks.

The Pac-Swi-Jack is the only one that I know of that works with the Z as of right now. Maybe this one will work for you. But I am not sure if these are compatible with the z you might want to check.

Amazon.com: PAC SWI-PS Sony and Pioneer Steering Wheel Radio Control Interface: Automotive

PAC SWI-JACK | Car Audio, Car Stereo

there's another brand... cant remember the name but it's basically the same thing as the PAC. bestbuy sells them. talk to one of the geeks.

Pacific Accessory Corporation (PAC) makes steering wheel interfaces (SWI) for about any vehicle and stereo combination. You just need the one for Pioneer/Sony (PS) instead of the one for JVC/Alpine/Clarion/Kenwood (JACK).

What I'm trying to say is you need the PAC-SWI-PS instead of the PAC-SWI-JACK which you can order just as easily as the other one. I've got one in my 370Z with a AVIC and it works fine.

Pac-audio.com Products | iPod Integration for your car and More by Pac-Audio - Connecting you to the future

I ordered mine online from here:

Discount mobile electronics, Bluetooth hands free, cellular repeater, cellular amplifier

Awesome, thank you all for the info. I'm glad you guys clarified and that you have one working on an AVIC Pioneer model. Forget about the other guys post I just bumped lol.

I bought the PAC switch, but couldn't get it to work on my F900BT. You have to wire some resistors inline with the wiring, and I think I probably picked the wrong ones, as they are pretty hard to read and tell the difference between brown and red for me. I never use the controls on any of our other cars though, so I didn't bother trying to troubleshoot it.

I've never in my life worked with resistors. Does anyone have a picture of what the end product looks like after your added the transistor to the wiring?

You can just bend the wire comming off the resistor in a U shape and just solder onto that, e-tape it.

I think wiki had a diagram of how to read the color rings if you need help with that.

Depends on what you need to do with the resistors some you just tie into certain wires by putting one end to the wire and the other end going out to the other end of that wire. It is hard to explain online. Also there are tons of different ones make sure you get the right ones, go to a radio shack and show them the diagram they could probably show you what you need to do with the resistors. That is what I use to do back when I started out with them.

The SWI has one wire (white) that takes information from your steering wheel wires. Since the Z has two wires that give a momentary signal to the SWI the resistors are used to that the SWI can tell which wire is active when they are both tied to the white signal wire. All the resistors have a gold band that you put to the right i think, and three other bands of color that you read from right to left. If you dont want to solder you can just put one end of all the resisters crimped into a butt connector and the white SWI wire, and connect the other end of each resister individually to the proper steering wheel wire with a butt connector. It's basicly just a 12V signal saying the button is pushed like a amp turn on wire, there is no reason to solder if you don't want to. Since the wiring harness usually doesn't have wires for the steering wheel wires you can rob unused wires from the harness (rear speaker wires for base people etc) and move them to the steering wheel pin location to avoid cutting the factory wiring at all.

I haven't confirmed this, but I don't think it even matters if you use the right resistor on the right wire. As long as the SWI can tell the difference between the two you program the buttons after it's all hooked up anyways.

use this. :p

4 Band Resistor Color Codes

For the Pioneer AVIC F series........

“Z” Pin #6 to 47ohm (yel/vio/blk) to PAC white wire
“Z” Pin #16 to 150 ohm (brn/grn/brn) to PAC white wire
ground pin #15 (Br)
PAC black wire to “Z” ground
Do not cut the loops

Confirmed you can use the wrong resistors and it still works fine. Except for the highest resistace one.

Great info. Thanks guys.

Just FYI I posted in the sticky on steering wheels controls with a link here since the sticky only references the SWI-JACK and not the PS. That way people with Pioneer/Sony head units can get all the info in one spot.

Thanks again.

I am going to have to disagree, the manual says to use one kind of resistor and that is what you should use. I would play it safe and stick to what it says to use.

Why do you disagree? Have you tested it? I have and as long as the two resistors are different it works. The paper instructions that come with it say this also.

I would agree with Bigaudiofan. Just because something "works" does not mean it is receiving the proper juice................:tiphat:

Sorry I don't understand what working but not recieving proper juice even means. The swi is programed after installation to match different functions to different voltages.

the connector we are talking about is the one that is connected to the white box underneath the stereo? correct?

and do we leave it connected?

Should we cut or pull the wires out of the connector and then put the resistors on the end or put the resistor on the wire while it is still in the connector?

No the wires for the swi are all in the same plug for the radio. Nothing is done with the white box underneath. Not sure what that even is (the white box).

The white thing under the stereo
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u...2/DSC02027.jpg
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is this thing
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u...2/DSC02034.jpg
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which was connected to the middle connector in this picture
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u...2/DSC02031.jpg
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Do i leave the box connected and cut the 2 wires i need?
OR
Do i disconnect it and still use the wires?
OR
Do I leave it connected and dont cut the wires but still attach the resistors to the wires?

Yea I know the white box you are talking about, I just don't know what it is or what it does. Just leave it plugged in and don't mess with any of the wires going to it. The wires you need are in the harness that was plugged into the factory stereo.

Ok. Makes more sense now

That white box is your hvac control module, no?

I still don't understand where to put the resistors. Do you cut into the wires in the harness going into the radio? Do you reattach the wires back into the harness or just attach the resistors and then to the white PAC wire?

jpit- your kit should come with instructions. i just followed that. i think i used 2 resistors.

if you need the linky on how to read the values, check this out: :p
http://samengstrom.com/nxl/3660/4_ba...e_page.en.html

jpit. Is there a chance that you can return the SWI-Jack? The reason I ask is that I just bought a Metra Axxess ASWC and it is loads better that the SWI. It doesn't use resistors and it auto-detects your car. It is also firmware upgradeable with an optional harness.

When it does the auto-detecting, there are a two different series of flashes. The first one identifies which wires you have connected and the second identifies which brand of HU you are using. The first set of flashes is very helpful because it showed me that I didn't get both wires hooked up properly.

I hated screwing around with those flimsy resistors on the SWI-Jack.

Just a thought.


If you can't take it back, then regarding the resistor install, I connected two wires to the white wire, then spliced the resistors into those two wires and put shrink tubing around the resistors to insulate and strengthen them. This way you are splicing wire to harness at each end instead of trying to splice the resistors into one of the harnesses. I still ended up busting one of my resistors and had to buy another (5 pack actually). I don't know why their resistors use such tiny wires. The ones that I bought were a lot thicker.
Confusing enough? :)


The pink wire is the source and track up/down buttons. The blue wire is the volume up/down button.

I was able to figure it out. The Pioneer HU I have has a wire remote input in the back and the PAC steering wheel controls work as well as the OEM unit. Was able to keep the bluetooth phone controls also.