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Installation of a Intercom

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:23 am
by westernair
Well yesterday I got my 6 station intercom system from Soft Comm Aviation; it is a stereo version with an IPod in jack to listen to stereo music. I decided to get one head set that has cell phone capacity as well 4 without. Now everyone has hearing protection, can communicate without yelling and can listen to music while cruising down the road.
I was up to 3:00 AM building the wiring harness and installing it. The drive in at 7 this morning was great, even decided to put on some old school Black Sabbath war pigs, since the trucks nickname is the warthog .
Tonight I am taking a truck load of Boy Scouts into the woods for an 18 mile hike on Saturday and Sunday. The 2.5 hour drive will be so much nicer now on all of us.

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:26 am
by Gear
Very Cool. I would love to see pictures of the install. What did it cost?

Thanks

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:34 pm
by audiocontr
What was total cost Shawn?

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:04 pm
by westernair
I'll post pics after the weekend hike, these units are US made in AZ so they are a little more expensive then a unit from overseas. $850 is what the equipment cost. It has 6 connections so I took a piece of diamond plate and filled in the middle rib above the rear seats (710k) and installed the rear 4 connections there. The two front have not been perminatly mounted yet but will be in the same place of the front rib.

Also I still need to figure out where to mount the IPod, right now it is just sitting on the engine console...

Good enough for the first trip this weekend but a bit of finalizing is neccessary.

Re: Installation of a Intercom

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:02 pm
by westernair
Sorry it took so long to finnaly post these photos, but as you can see I have 4 connections in the back and 2 up front. I chose to use diamond plate.

Image
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Re: Installation of a Intercom

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:11 pm
by westernair
A new system for Korea, with head sets would be about 1/2 the cost and I am sure would work just fine.
Others have scavanged their parts used and done it for even less.

The gray bumpy material in the back is not a bed liner material but a sound deading material made by secound skin. I then put a marine grade 2 part epoxy coating over it. To do two coats of secound skin and one coat of epoxy took an entire weekend and about $250.00. To appy it I used an under coating gun from harbor freight, it cost $30.00

Re: Installation of a Intercom

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:31 pm
by totaljoint
Shawn: beautiful and professional install!

I found with my intercom system, that the headsets were the most important factor. I bought used headsets from e-bay (needed 8 total) all name brand, quality sets, with the assurance that they only a few years old and in perfect working condition. True, they all worked, but differing microphone sensitivities were issues. Adjusting the squelch for the newer more sensitive sets made some others miss the first word or clip the end of every sentence. I went with two new Lightspeed headsets from an e-bay seller for the driver and passenger, and they work really well. We spent this weekend driving Forest Service trails listening to "Car Talk" podcasts. The cell phone connector for the driver and passenger is a really nice option- call ahead for pizza or connect to CB or ham radio. If you went through all the expense and trouble of the intercom install, I would recommend not skimping on the headsets.