After reading so many posts from members who do installations and cannot get things working properly, I would like to offer some advice on testing equipment before going to all the work of an installation only to discover the gear was defective or less than what you thought it should be. This post is not meant for Professional Installers or Advanced Amateur Installers since PI's and AAI's already do this routinely.

Before installing any electronic gear in your car, you should bench-test the equipment. Your purchase -- whether it is new equipment purchased from an authorized seller, new but from a source that is not an authorized seller (e.g., eBay, private party, etc.), or used equipment -- might be defective or less than what you want. It is painful to go to a lot of work installing equipment, and then have it not function properly. If the equipment is not tested before the installation, you don't know if it is defective equipment or an improper installation. If it doesn't work as expected, your question is: Did I wire and install it properly, or is the equipment defective?

So... How to test electronic gear before installation? All you need is a AC-to-12 volt supply. Here is an example:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=family

Before doing an installation of any electronic device in the car, connect the device (and, any other components that are part of the installation) to an AC-to-DC 12v supply (as the example shown above). That allows testing before the effort of the actual installation (in your car). If it works properly "on the bench," but does not work after installation, you know it is a wiring-connection problem in the car.

--Spike

 

Good advice.. Planning to do my first real install myself on my Z. Will have to pick one up.