kenwood HU

i found a kenwood KDC-519 in my garage last week. I hooked it up and tested it. everything works except nothing on the display (or backlit buttons) light up. I thought it was broken but remembered that some head units have a "Stealth mode" the display is turned off to give more power to the speakers.

can anyone tell me if the KDC-519 has this feature and if so how to enable the screen?

thanks, - radioflyer

I'd bet large sums of money that if you check the ribbon cable that runs from the body to the faceplate you'll find that one or two of the traces on it are cracked.  This is a chronic problem with those MASK units.  An easy and cheap fix.

They do have a black mask feature on them, but it is just for simplifying the display to make it less confusing.  The display uses such minimal power that disabling it would not have any noticable effect on speaker outputs.

it's pretty simple if you're marginally mechanically or electronically inclined.  You'll need to remove the top cover of the unit, there are 2 philips screws holding it on.  Once the cover is off, the CD mechanism will be exposed, this needs to be removed, there are 2 phillips screws in the front holding this in.  Be careful lifting it out, it is connected by a cable to the main board.  Disconnect the cable and remove the CD mech. 

now you'll need to flip the unit over and use a precision screwdriver to remove the two small phillips screws holding the faceplate motor in.  You won't be able to totally remove the motor, you just need to disengage it from the drive gears for the face. 

The black panel on the back of the faceplate mount needs to come off.  It is held on with an adhesive.  The best way I've found to remove it is to warm it with a hairdryer and carefully pry it off, starting in the front left corner when the faceplate is removed and the empty face is horizontal. The block that holds the contacts for the faceplate has two tiny screws that will need to be removed.

Inside the unit you will see where the cable connects to the circuit board, carefully remove the cable from this connector and remove the tension from the coil.  *Take note which direction and how many times the cable winds through the coil*

You can now completely remove the cable from the unit, again taking note of the routing from faceplate to chassis, as this will be necessary to know for reinstallation.  Inspect the cable carefully, the most common area for breakage is immediately after the cable leaves the faceplate; this is the area that flexes back and forth everytime the face is opened or closed.  You can also take a multimeter with a continuity setting and check each trace individually(I believe there are 10-15 of them)  If the cable shows no continuity on one or more traces you'll need to replace it. 

The new cable will not come with the connector block.  You can purchase a new one, or desolder the old one from the old cable and solder it to the new one to save yourself about $12.  Either way you'll have to do some fine solder work to solder the block to the new cable.  Once you've soldered the new block to your cable, take your continuity tester and verify connection between each pin on the connector and the corresponding trace on the other end of the cable.  This will save you alot of frustration finding out you did not solder completely. 

Now you're ready to reinstall the cable, just reverse the previous directions.  You may need to apply more adhesive to the back of the faceplate that you removed to get it to ahere well enough to stay on.

I think I've got an old unit around here somewhere, I'll see if I can get some pics up to clarify the process.