Anytone AT-D578UV stealth installation in Toyota Prius (2008)
I wanted to make a “stealth installation” of my Anytone AT-D578UV radio in my Toyota Prius (2008) so I don’t have to worry so much for burglars when parking the car. Below the FM-radio is a compartment, when removed, leaves a space big enough for the radio.
There is plenty of space behind the compartment. I was a bit worried about that issue becase the radio is longer than the depth of the compartment, but it turned out there is enough empty space behind it.
I installed the radio with the programming cable connected as it will be very hard to connect it after the radio is mounted in the car. The microphone is extended and connected using a flat straight ethernet cable and both cables are dropped downwards and pulled out from behind the panel. That way I can easily hide the microphone when parking the car.
When the compartment under the radio is removed (and saved to be reinstalled when selling the car), the space between the metal plates is to wide, so I took a 5 mm nylon cutting bord that I cut into pieces and glued them together to form a suitable spacer and drilled a hole for the mounting screw. I did not use the mounting screws that came with the radio, instead I used one M4x20 mm and one M4x40 mm. On the right side of the radio I used 2 nylon pieces and on the left side 5 or 6. The screws went into the rear holes on the radio and to get some support for the front I used zip tie straps around the radio through the holes in the metal plates.
The GPS was just tucked up behind the navitor screen, just to the right of the speaker. A note about the GPS antenna connector. After about 6 months after installation, I had no GPS signal on the Anytone AT-D587UV. It turned out that the SMA-connector, that I tightened by hand, hade shaken loose by the vibrations. So do tight it a bit with a small wrench, not overtightening it but enough to keep it from getting loose.
For power, I routed two 6 mm2 wires directly from the battery (with a 30A fuse close to the battery) and routed them through the left trunk panel and inside the side panels below the doors to the front. The antenna cable went the same way and I didn’t want to drill a hole in the car so I used a trunk lid mount even though the performance for those are often not as good.
Useful videos
These are some useful tutorial videos as you need to uninstall and reinstall the stereo in order to install the Anytone AT-D578UV below it.
This looks awesome! I’m trying to do the exact same thing with the D587. I just purchased one to replace my current transceiver.
I’ve got a question for you: why did you got power from the 12V battery and not from the fusebox instead? If you forget to turn the set off, it’ll drain the battery.
If you check my website, I made a little blog with my current set: https://pd0dp.nl/2023/07/03/set-eindelijk-geinstalleerd-in-mijn-auto/
It’s in Dutch, but you can look at the pictures 🙂
73s,
Jarno PD0DP
I prefer a direct connection to the battery using 6 mm2 cables to reduce the voltage drop when pulling full power on the radio. It’s a habit from when I used to work HF in the car (ICOM IC-706) which has 100 watts output and pulls almost 20 A at full power. Close to the battery I have an inline 30A fuse (don’t want to start a fire if short circuit). And it turned out usable. At one point (only one occasion) the 578 froze so it would even to turn off. I had to pull the fuse to turn it off. It was probably a firmware bug because after update it never happened anymore.
My way of making sure the battery is not drained is just to make a habit of turning the radio off by hand when I leave the car. Forgetting that is a mistake you only make once, hi. One way of doing it automatically would to put a relay on the wires directly from the battery, and pulling the relay by using the power from te cigarette outlet. That way when you turn off the car, the connection to the battery is cut by the relay.