# Tutorial: DIY Toslink for your Alpine IVA-W505



## shawnk

Hey guys!

I know the 505 is an older model, but hopefully this may help those who are still rocking this deck and (like me) will not pay the $100 or so for the proprietary Alpine digital cable (KWE-610A).

So here's a step by step for doing your very own Toslink conversion, of which I have tried to take as much guess work out as possible.

Here's what you'll need:

1) PLT133/T Fiber optic transmitter (Digikey part no. 108-1428-ND) Digi-Key - 1080-1428-ND (Manufacturer - PLT133/T)

2) 0.1 uf capacitor (I had one laying around) Radio Shack part no. 272-0135

3) Soldering iron & solder

4) Small flexible cable (18-22ga should be fine)

5) Small heat shrink tubing 

6) Patience 

Ok so here we go:

Remember, you can always click the image for better detail in full scale!

First, open the face and remove the small black screw in the center of the back panel









Next, remove all of the indicated screws as well as the 8mm nut for the gps antenna jack.









Flip up the fan and remove two screws









Remove the top plate, disconnect the fan plug and then remove the back plate









Remove the two large ribbon cables, two mounting screws and remove this board


















Remove four screws that secure the GPS housing and remove it.









Remove four screws for the DVD transport


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## shawnk

Carefully lift up on the transport and gain access to the ribbon cable.









First remove the cable for the transport, then move on to the other two for the face.









There is a hidden screw under this piece of foam tape









Remove Five screws for this board









Try to pull straght up on this board when removing it due to the two large connectors underneath.









Take the previously removed board out and place it on your work bench. Fip it over to access the underside. You will be making your connections to the contacts of the KWE-610A receptacle. Enlarge this pic to see the pin assignment for your new Toslink transmitter.

Contact "4" on this board will need to be connnected to Pin 3 of the PLT133
Contact "2" on this board will need to be connnected to Pin 1 of the PLT133









It is not necessary, but I decided to completely remove the KWE-610A receptacle from the board. This allowed me to solder the new lead cables directly into the vias









You will notice a tin protection plate right behing this area. I had removed this plate when I was "exploring", but please don't do this... it's simply not necessary. This is where I decided to tap the VCC, but you will see later that there's a more pheasible location to tap VCC.


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## shawnk

This is the "top" side of the board we are working on. Here you can see where I tapped the 5v VCC. This will connect to Pin 2 of the PLT133. Please enlarge the pic to see precisely where to tap into. I came up through the bottom of the board for my lead which is why you can only see the "tinned" cable, but it would be much easier to simply have your leads soldered to the top of this board 









If you only purchased a sinle transmitter, now is the time to prepare the mounting. Unfortunately, you cannot just mount the new transmitter in place of the old recptacle. Unless that is, you want to drill new holes in the board and realign everything. I opted to use the dead opening to the far right of the back plate. It's uncanny how well a Toslink transmitter fits in this location!

You will want to remove some material from the chassis. Be sure to mask off the area as to not allow any debris to contaminate the deck's internals



























Next up, you will want to drill out the mounting hole for the transmitter and find a nice "coarse thread" screw for secruting it.


















Now you can make your connections to the PLT133. Be mindfull of your soldering time & temps here as the transmitter is fairly sensitive! Here is also where you will want to solder the 0.1uf cap across pins 1 & 2. 









Here's the transmitter all mounted up and leads protected with heatshrink tubing.


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## shawnk

Now just carefully reinstall all of the previously removed items and you're done! 










Enjoy!!


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## aV8ter

I like where this is going. I didn't imagine this process being this labor intensive as it seems to be but it will surely be worth it when considering the cost of Alpine's optical cable.

I just picked up a broken w505 on eBay last night with a broken front panel and glass. I'll do the Toslink mod for sure when I have it apart to replace the broken parts.


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## shawnk

aV8ter said:


> I like where this is going. I didn't imagine this process being this labor intensive as it seems to be but it will surely be worth it when considering the cost of Alpine's optical cable.


I sure think so 



aV8ter said:


> I just picked up a broken w505 on eBay last night with a broken front panel and glass. I'll do the Toslink mod for sure when I have it apart to replace the broken parts.


Hope this will make it a little easier for you then


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## Thrill_House

Wow this is awesome, I was just thinking the other day that someone should do a writeup on how to do this on a 505 and now here it is! Thanks a lot for the very informative writeup!


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## shawnk

Thrill_House said:


> Wow this is awesome, I was just thinking the other day that someone should do a writeup on how to do this on a 505 and now here it is! Thanks a lot for the very informative writeup!


Good deal.. 

This is just my way of trying to contribute


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## bigdwiz

Excellent tutorial  !!


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## Sulley

shawnk said:


>


What are pins 1 & 3 used for? 

Why did you need a capacitor? or is that a transmitter specific requirement? 

Great DIY!


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## ErinH

awesome post.


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## shawnk

stockley.rod said:


> What are pins 1 & 3 used for?
> 
> Why did you need a capacitor? or is that a transmitter specific requirement?
> 
> Great DIY!



Pin 1 & 3 on the Alpine board are actually dead.... no traces to them at all.

The cap is just for protection for the transmitter. The data sheet calls for this... so I followed suit


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## Sulley

shawnk said:


> Pin 1 & 3 on the Alpine board are actually dead.... no traces to them at all.
> 
> The cap is just for protection for the transmitter. The data sheet calls for this... so I followed suit


Awesome, My pioneer has a similar digital out connector which apparently is interchangeable between the Alpine optical cable. I guess I'l be taking my headunit apart agian


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## shawnk

stockley.rod said:


> Awesome, My pioneer has a similar digital out connector which apparently is interchangeable between the Alpine optical cable. I guess I'l be taking my headunit apart agian


Coolman, just keep in mind that this tutorial is for the W505 specifically. Your Pioneer may be different!


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## Thrill_House

Ok guys now heres the big question, does anyone have the balls to perform this on say a w910?


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## chad

I love this stuff, Well done!


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## shawnk

Thrill_House said:


> Ok guys now heres the big question, does anyone have the balls to perform this on say a w910?


I believe the W910 uses the same cable as the W505 (KWE-610) no??

Should be very similar


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## shawnk

chad said:


> I love this stuff, Well done!


Thanks man!


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## Aaron'z 2.5RS/WRX

Pretty sweet.... Been a long time since I've seen the guts of a HU... I miss it... 


A spin off of this OLD article... New Page 1


You can add TOSLINK to any CD player really...


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## shawnk

Aaron'z 2.5RS/WRX said:


> You can add TOSLINK to any CD player really...


Yes indeed you can. I remember reading that article several years ago and it was very informative. However, it's slightly out dated now that dvd transports are common place. Nothing in the W505 is simply labeled "D-OUT"  If I didn't have access to a service manual for the 505 I probably wouldn't be able to do this. I probably spent more time tracing circuits and checking transmitter specs & availabitlity than I actually spent doing the mod.:blush:


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## Aaron'z 2.5RS/WRX

shawnk said:


> Yes indeed you can. I remember reading that article several years ago and it was very informative. However, it's slightly out dated now that dvd transports are common place. Nothing in the W505 is simply labeled "D-OUT"  If I didn't have access to a service manual for the 505 I probably wouldn't be able to do this. I probably spent more time tracing circuits and checking transmitter specs & availabitlity than I actually spent doing the mod.:blush:


Oh, I'm sure man, no doubt... 

It just occoured to me when I saw this, I had that link somewhere... 

And indeed not all units are going to be labled nicely for you.. lol.. I used to repair HU's long ago.. so I know... 

Cheers..


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## lashlee

This is great! Now if I can only figure out how to fix my dead W205.


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## gamma_ed

I have managed to do a Ina W910R. 

The 5 volts can be taken from te ic BA05s and take the 4th pin. (counting left is 1). 

For the rest its the same as explained above, and the optic transmitter needs to have an other place.


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## deltasaurus

Shawn, is there anything that you can't do? I was just discussing doing this same addition, but to an older Alpine single din pull out radio. The idea was to get more output flexibility to go with tasty OS goodness. This conversion adds somewhat more modern conveniences. It is sometimes sad that more manufacturers are not enabling us with better outputs, but why worry about that when someone with your mad skills is just down the road from me and can work his creative magic!
You 'da :bomb: man! Keep the goodies rolling!


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## gamma_ed

I wish it was also this easy to make a ai-net bus on the new alpine units.


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## snap88

Hello, can u provide me the schematic, i want to mount an optical out on IVA W502, it looks the same like W505, but in my case is not working, i`m not shure if is wrong conection made by me or something else, i use a diferent optical connector. Thank you !


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## gamma_ed

snap88 said:


> Hello, can u provide me the schematic, i want to mount an optical out on IVA W502, it looks the same like W505, but in my case is not working, i`m not shure if is wrong conection made by me or something else, i use a diferent optical connector. Thank you !


Did u turn on in the menu optic out? if not, turn this on!

It only works with the cd player.


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## snap88

I have turn it on, i have test it on my home powered by 12V pc source, IVA not conected to semething else, do i need i-net or something else to have signal to connector ? thank you !


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## gamma_ed

snap88 said:


> I have turn it on, i have test it on my home powered by 12V pc source, IVA not conected to semething else, do i need i-net or something else to have signal to connector ? thank you !


No, do not think that Ai-net connector is neccesary but I'm not 100% sure. 

What I do know for sure that RCA out is not working when optical out is selected. 

Think you should isolate/test what is working correct. few steps to take:
1. Is their rca out or not (turn on and off the optical out in the menu)
2. Check polarity of the connector.. 
3. measure if the connector do get his right voltage to work. Look at the specs of your toslink wich voltage is needed.


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## snap88

Thank you for your help, i have recived wrong informartion about the pin connector, now it`s working good.


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## RoyAlpine

please delete.


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## ledzpg

I know it's an old thread, but I'd like to ask a question:

If I add the toslink output to my W505 and plug it into the PXA-701, will it send all the audio through the optical cable (ipod audio, mp3 on USB, etc) or only audio from CDs / DVDs?

Thanks.


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