Long story... I live outside the US so sending the unit overseas for repair is not an option, the only option... DIY!!!! I blew the pico fuse in my F700, for those of you that don't know anything about it, it's a tiny tiny very delicate fuse that breaks very easily (if you're stupid enough like me to swap RCA cables with the power on). Bassicaly what it does is it grounds your pre-outs so when it blows.... horrible engine whine. I had my RCA's grounded to temporarily which fixes about 90% the problem. I'm very picky about SQ so it bothered me a lot that small SHHHH that still persisted so I was brave enough and opened up my F700. First I read about piso fuse fixes on other audio forums, specialy on diymobileaudio.com, very helpful. Here it goes....

Holy S#@t there is a lot of stuff crammed in there. Nice pics...Thanks

Good Work. Nice pics.

Do these units have these "pico fuses" for the aux input as well? I've recently lost the left channel on my ipod. Its actually on and off, so i'm not sure if its the ipod or the unit (or the cable) thats faulty. The left channel is there, just very quiet and very staticy.

There's lots of people that have the same problem including me. If you have the pioneer cable that's the problem. They are not very good quality. Also somebody posted a solution to this same problem stating that it was the conection of the pins in the rca harness. I checked mine and was fine, then redo my wireing and the problem seamed to just go away until a couple of days ago that it came back. I'm sure is the cable because all other sources work fine except the ipod. I'll be changing my cable to the apple cable, it seams that it works perfectly to all the users that have it in thus community and it also looks a lot better than the pioneer wich looks like a cheap third party brand.

very nice pictures did you take anymore of the internals?

Nice DIY. That wouldn't happen to be a clarion EQS746 7Band EQ, would it?

can you tell us what the dangers are of bypassing the fuse like that? I believe that's what you did isn't it?

There's lots of people that have the same problem including me. If you have the pioneer cable that's the problem. They are not very good quality. Also somebody posted a solution to this same problem stating that it was the conection of the pins in the rca harness. I checked mine and was fine, then redo my wireing and the problem seamed to just go away until a couple of days ago that it came back. I'm sure is the cable because all other sources work fine except the ipod. I'll be changing my cable to the apple cable, it seams that it works perfectly to all the users that have it in thus community and it also looks a lot better than the pioneer wich looks like a cheap third party brand.

Let me know how the apple cable works out for you. I'm gettting really sick of ripping my dash apart

nice work. I have a hiss whenever the unit is on. Would it be caused by this?

bump

nice work. I have a hiss whenever the unit is on. Would it be caused by this?

I notice a sort of whine with mine. I really only notice it when I turn it on and when on a call over Bluetooth. I wouldn't think it is related to the topic in this post, but I wonder if yours sounds the same as mine.

nice work. I have a hiss whenever the unit is on. Would it be caused by this?

 

I notice a sort of whine with mine. I really only notice it when I turn it on and when on a call over Bluetooth. I wouldn't think it is related to the topic in this post, but I wonder if yours sounds the same as mine.

Mine is whenever the unit is on.

There's lots of people that have the same problem including me. If you have the pioneer cable that's the problem. They are not very good quality. Also somebody posted a solution to this same problem stating that it was the conection of the pins in the rca harness. I checked mine and was fine, then redo my wireing and the problem seamed to just go away until a couple of days ago that it came back. I'm sure is the cable because all other sources work fine except the ipod. I'll be changing my cable to the apple cable, it seams that it works perfectly to all the users that have it in thus community and it also looks a lot better than the pioneer wich looks like a cheap third party brand.

 

Let me know how the apple cable works out for you. I'm gettting really sick of ripping my dash apart

I just got a Ipod cable from Bestbuy, made by Rocketfish, it works really good so far and only 35 bucks. Looks identical to the Apple one and a lot better than the Pionner

Sorry for the delay, I was out of town for a few days...

halfelite wrote:

very nice pictures did you take anymore of the internals?

That's pretty much all the pictures I have, or at least the good ones...

CatchMeIfYouCan631 wrote:

Nice DIY. That wouldn't happen to be a clarion EQS746 7Band EQ, would it?

Yeap, thats a clarion EQS746 7Band EQ, love it!! 7V pre outs = no hissss or noise from the amps...

03Aviator wrote:

can you tell us what the dangers are of bypassing the fuse like that? I believe that's what you did isn't it?

baisicly any fuse is for protection, what happened was that the terminals in one of my front speakers tuched the dynamat on the door and bam... a short circuit, then i tured on the car and awfull noise, the pico fuse had blown and protected my unit from any further damage. I'm now unprotected and guess that if something similar happens again (which it wont) bye bye to the hole unit. Just disconnect the negative terminal on the battery every time you're working on your wireing and you won't have this problem...

to any of you saying that ou have a wine, if it is because of a blown pico fuse, it will sound just horrible and will sound at all times, not only with the bluetooth or when you turn the car on. It doesn't sound like a hisssss it's defenetly a wine, What I did before I opened up my unit was to ground my RCA cables, that helped but didn't fix the problem 100% and since I have polkaudio SR6500 components they reproduce every single imperfection. Any of you that "think" this is your problem, believe me you can't stand the noise, so if it is just a hissss I would look at my amp gains or get an clarion EQ like mine that will make the RCA pre outs jump from 2.2v (on my 700BT, 4V on the 90BT) to 7V, that means less noise. hope this helps and I wish that none of you have to open the unit like I had to. any other question I'll be happy to answer.

Wow, that is one hell of a nice camera, I never seen so much detail for such a small sized comonent, what is it?

Oh yeah nice posto n the internals and pico fuse, very cool. Very helpful for those who break it and dont want to go withotu a stereo for weeks and a repair bill when it goes out of warranty in a few months for those of us who ar eearly adoptors.

Thanks, the camera is a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9

hey i know this is an old post but glad i found it when i was searching and i just wanted to say thanks on the pixs i tired to find a 1ohm resistor and the one we need is special order item so i said blah and just did the wire method and boy oh boy the noise is gone ....

i would like to state tho that my pico fuse wasnt damage to the degree yours was but i had the symptoms of a blown pico fuse i was a little hesitant to do it but i am glad i did and i am ordering me the eq like yours if i can trust you to preform surgery on my radio i can trust u on the eq too lol

Hello, I FINALLY found the answer to my problem I believe !

I do have a quick question tho.... It looks like there is more than one pico fuse? Are there 2 or 3? I guess I just want to make sure that when I open my unit that I get them all bypassed at once, rather than having to take the unit back out again if I didn't bypass the correct one.

Thank you !

Hello, I FINALLY found the answer to my problem I believe !

 

I do have a quick question tho.... It looks like there is more than one pico fuse? Are there 2 or 3? I guess I just want to make sure that when I open my unit that I get them all bypassed at once, rather than having to take the unit back out again if I didn't bypass the correct one.

 

Thank you !

Yes, sometimes there are more than one pico fuse. Usually they will all be labled the same on the circuit board (FU####). Rather than bypassing protection, a post on DIY Mobile Audio forums suggested running leads though the back of the unit and wiring in a 1A fuse that you can replace should it blow again. Keep the protection and the ability to change out a blown fuse in the future. Source Link: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/469640-post156.html

I have my RCA's grounded now wondering would a ground loop isolator work better than a ground wire?

Any one tried it?

Anyone know if the f700 has one or 2 pico fuses? And is this really hard? How much better does it sound than just grounding rcas?

thanks just trying to decide If I want to do this or stay with grounded rcas?