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SC810 radio balance control mod

Help, Advice and DIY Tutorials on Volvo's P80 platform cars -- Volvo's 1990s "bread and butter" cars -- powered by the ubiquitous and durable Volvo inline 5-cylinder engine.

1992 - 1997 850, including 850 R, 850 T-5R, 850 T-5, 850 GLT
1997 - 2000 S70, S70 AWD
1997 - 2000 V70, V70 AWD
1997 - 2000 V70-XC
1997 - 2004 C70

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pogo
Posts: 1
Joined: 21 April 2011
Year and Model: 850, 94
Location: Vancouver

SC810 radio balance control mod

Post by pogo »

As a new owner of '94 Volvo 850 I was very surprised that stock SC-810 radio has no balance control. I've decided to fix this and modify fader to act as balance - who needs fader anyway? ;)
First you need to pull radio, remove faceplate and then remove big printed circuit board behind the faceplate (the one with switches and bulbs). You can find instructions here, as well as on other places:
http://volvospeed.com/vs_forum/topic/8357-93-volvo-850-radio-light-replacement-notes/
When you turn the board backward it should look like this:
DSC00002A.JPG
DSC00002A.JPG (42.04 KiB) Viewed 834 times
Here is a closer look at squared area:
DSC00004e.JPG
DSC00004e.JPG (37.32 KiB) Viewed 834 times
What we need to do is to swap Front Right (FR) and Rear Left (RL) channels. This can be done by breaking connection between FR pin and resistor close to this pin and also connection between RL pin and his resistor:
DSC00004f.JPG
DSC00004f.JPG (38.88 KiB) Viewed 834 times
Use very sharp knife or needle to remove copper. You don't need to dig a lot - the connections are pretty tin and will remove very easy. Be careful to not cut or damage surrounding connections. Blow the board to remove all particles left. Check the connectivity (actually lack of it) before next step.
Solder 2 new wires as follows:
- from resistor near the FR pin to RL pin
- from FR pin to RL resistor.
"A picture is worth a thousand words”:
DSC00004g.JPG
DSC00004g.JPG (45.6 KiB) Viewed 834 times
Here is a final result:
DSC00007A.JPG
Check everything, replace the board and test without faceplate (you have radio code ready, right?). If everything work well, reassemble faceplate, put the radio back and enjoy.

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