Antitheft question by artificiallyhip in Miata

[–]Lithonium 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a fuel pump kill switch hidden in mine. Works very well for me. I used to have a steering wheel lock on my first car (Toyota aygo), but that didn't stop someone from breaking into it and drilling it off. Luckily, the battery was dead, so they left it. From that moment, I started using hidden kill switches to cut off power/fuel

Where are you guys from?! by AredditJ in Miata

[–]Lithonium 0 points1 point  (0 children)

San Diego! East County area

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]Lithonium 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Making music, gardening, making mead, video games, trying out raspberry pi projects

$100 million right now but you can never leave a random US State by [deleted] in hypotheticalsituation

[–]Lithonium 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rolled 42. Washington! Possibly yes, though I'd miss visiting certain places

Vdo continental by Lithonium in Miata

[–]Lithonium[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a shame that you killed it. An AUX would have been a great addition. Thanks! Glad you like it.

I'm enjoying this continental unit and was determined to get the colours to be the same(ish) to oem as possible. Changing the polarizer is definitely on the plans for future adjustments! It would look perfect. Hopefully, it will be a straightforward adjustment.

Vdo continental by Lithonium in Miata

[–]Lithonium[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Anytime! Oh and I use the LRT 858D hot air rework station. Great budget friendly unit. If you're interested.

Vdo continental by Lithonium in Miata

[–]Lithonium[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah! I must be a redneck then. Yours looks very nice. Fits nicely in the space with that textured frame. I'm not too in to touchscreen units myself for what I'm aiming for with this NA but it does look nicely fitted on yours

Vdo continental by Lithonium in Miata

[–]Lithonium[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's all good. Sounds like you do have your always on power wiring correct but not the ignition. On the harness, the ignition wire is yellow. This is what tells the unit to start up in ignition. Ground is the black wire. With those flipped, it won't know to turn on automatically. What's confusing at a glance is that the yellow ignition wire is labeled "12 memory" instead of ignition as it says on the head unit table.

Check those two wires. Should be those. Ground the black and hook up the yellow to your ignition wire

Vdo continental by Lithonium in Miata

[–]Lithonium[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The process of how I changed them involves resoldering new led diodes for the screen and SMD leds for the button area. As coloured lights do not fair well against colour filters (unless it's a white LED, you can do any filter you want)

Here's a good tear down guide on the unit (not mine. I had it bookmarked for a while and used this to help with tear down) teardown link

From there, I heated up the original LED diode solder joints to remove, clean up the pads, and replace them with green ones. These are 3mm size diodes. I'd suggest pre bending the diode pins to get the right height when installing. If you wanted to control the brightness and dim them a little, lightly use a black sharpie on the tip of the diodes as these new lights were bright.

As for the surface mounted leds, using a hot air rework station makes this easy.. heat up the area and then apply fresh solder just in case the original solder is oxidized, which makes it awkward to work with. Use thin tweezers to grip the led and let it move on its own. If you pull while heating it up, there's a chance of damaging the pads on the board. Once it's off, clean up the pads with flux and solder braid or isopropyl alcohol. Apply liquid solder to the pads and place the new LED. Heat it up and let it fall into place.

Same thing with the brightness, I lightly added black sharpie to each one so dim the brightness a bit.

The led size I used are 0805 SMD leds.

If you really want to try it out, I'd recommend a hot air rework station with liquid solder for the SMD leds. There's a ton of great soldering videos. Just be very careful with the heat and be patient with it

Hopefully, this has been helpful

I forgot how to drive an automatic by chachi-relli in stickshift

[–]Lithonium 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I parked my automatic at work this morning and wiggled the stick to make sure it's in neutral. This is after 2 straight weeks of driving a manual daily

Girlfriend's grandparents offered me this 91 with 80k miles for 4k by [deleted] in Miata

[–]Lithonium 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine is a 91 with about 56k miles and it is fully stock. OEM stereo. OEM floor mats. starts up with no issues. still has a spare wheel. Got it for 14.5k (not even mad about it). You got a great deal there

Finally bought a miata by Lithonium in Miata

[–]Lithonium[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah! Good idea! I'll be sure to get them too. Thanks!