Ive been playing with the thought lately as installing an iPad in the dash of my truck. I was looking at an in dash unit but I can get and iPad in for like $500 total installed. I don't want to have a head unit along with the iPad, just the iPad with the adapter that allows for charging with audio/video rca's.

Here's some of the questions I was trying to figure out.

Has anyone ever attempted this or talked with someone who has?

Although not the best I can use processing on the iPad itself. I should be able to connect directly to the amp with the rca's correct?

I may be missing some things but it seems like if you tapped the remote in with the ignition and rca's worked that there'd be no problems?

The few installs I have seen with them they have been installed with a headunit located somewhere else in the dash. A few guys on here have done it. Epicenter designs is one that comes to mind.

The few installs I have seen with them they have been installed with a headunit located somewhere else in the dash. A few guys on here have done it. Epicenter designs is one that comes to mind.

The h2? I thought that had a head unit...I'll have to go back and check it out

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I saw his video with the Yukon I believe a while back. I think it'd be a pretty good idea since most the features on the in-dash I want, I don't need. Radio, navi, and Bluetooth are things I could go without but I want a touch screen for aesthetics

You need to wire in a switch to send power to the remote turn-on(s) for your amplifiers. Super easy.

You can get just about any charger designed for it, and wire the connections up for power, and have it triggered by the above switch.

You can use a 3mm jack to rca adapter, and plug in the ipad directly to your amp. Depending on how many amps you have, and your amps' ability to output the signal again, you'll need a few more rca adapters / y-splitters.

You'll have to play around with the gain on the amplifiers, as the input voltage from the Ipad may be out of the average range headunits are.

I believe the ipad has some basic settings for "classic", "rock", "rap", etc. Or perhaps there is an app you can use to tweak the signal, some basic eq, but other then that you can't use it as active processor for splitting the signals up to different speakers, and I doubt there is an app for T/A.

Hmm interesting. Well I'm running everything active now and my deck doesn't have T/A but I know I will be looking at an external processor in the future so I can live with it like that for awhile. After I finish my enclosure I'll have to jump on this idea.

I have installed a playstation 3 in my van and have no headunit. I used a sound processor from soundstream and a directed monitor I had laying around. Your factory wires for your radio can be used to control the amps for turn on and off just use the acc wire as ur remote. I love having this feature in my van as I just plug my phone into the 3mm.jack and run slacker radio if I want it but I have 100gb worth of music on the station 3

You should check out soundman car audio, they have a YouTube channel and they explain the way they put iPads into dashes without a headunit. Those videos might be theirs but I can't watch them in my class.