What would cause my face plate display to stop working?

Venom351R

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Apr 27, 2002
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I have a Kenwood KDC-MP919 and on Friday night the illuminated display on the face plate stopped working, thus I cant see what station I'm on or anything that was previously displayed on it. Is this something that happens often? Is it a fixable problem or do I have to get a whole new CD Player or could just the face plate be replaced? I know nothing about audio.
 
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Does the sound continue playing? I have an older Clarion Pro Audio head unit in my GT that has the exact same thing happen. Sometimes just taking the face off and putting it back on seems to fix the problem, but I've never nailed down the cause either.
 
sound works fine, all the buttons are lit up like they should be, only problem is that there is no display on the face plate, its all blank

The only time that happened to me was when I dropped my faceplate. The LCD screen stayed dark, but buttons and sound worked fine. I was able to order another one from Alpine with no problem.

Another thing to check is the contact pins on the radio and faceplate. Maybe one of them is broken or stuck.

Good Luck!
 
If the sound works but all of the lights are out on the entire face of the deck, then there could be a couple of different things that happened: #1 = On most decks there is a setting where you can have all of your lights go off on the entire deck (I guess its used for like a drive in movie or something) you might have accidentally put that setting on. #2 = Another thing that could have gone wrong is the a connection in the back of your deck, if that is the case then you will need to take your entire deck unit out and re-tighten the connection, you will probably have to take of your dashboard for this. Hope this helped.
 
I never did drop the face place Ive never taken it off, Im not sure if it even comes off its the kind that when you turn the car off it flips around so you cant see it so it looks like there is no raido then when you start the car again if flips back around so all the buttons are facing you.
 
I never did drop the face place Ive never taken it off, Im not sure if it even comes off its the kind that when you turn the car off it flips around so you cant see it so it looks like there is no raido then when you start the car again if flips back around so all the buttons are facing you.

Ah, well then it will then be either two things. One - like the person said before me, check to see if there is a setting to disable the lcd display. Or Two - Radio is Fubar'd.
 
isn't that one of kenwoods flip face displays? ( or swing face) if that is the case your ribbon cable from the source to the face is going bad. cost around $100 to replace.

If it was a settings. The display would show up when you are changing something on the radio then turn back off.
 
I am hoping its just a setting you pressed. I know my Alpine had a setting where you could turn off the lcd display. Check the manual. Good Luck!

It was in the car when I bought it, I dont have the manual and its not a button you can press, I hit all of them today with no luck.

isn't that one of kenwoods flip face displays? ( or swing face) if that is the case your ribbon cable from the source to the face is going bad. cost around $100 to replace.

If it was a settings. The display would show up when you are changing something on the radio then turn back off.

Yeah its one of those. Where can I get one of those ribbon cables to fix it?
 
by the time you pay to have it fixed you mine as well just buy a new one unless its a top of the line model. you should be able to replace the cable, but it may be a pain if you dont know electronics. it could also be a connection inside the face plate, and the cable wouldnt do anything about that.
 
by the time you pay to have it fixed you mine as well just buy a new one unless its a top of the line model. you should be able to replace the cable, but it may be a pain if you dont know electronics. it could also be a connection inside the face plate, and the cable wouldnt do anything about that.

Thats the thing its either that or the face plate itself and it would suck to spend $100 on a ribbon and have it not be that and even if it was then it would probably be more worth it to buy a whole new CD player anyway. At this point the car will be going up for the winter in November anyway so Im not concerned about fixing it now I can still listen to music so its not all bad. I'll probably just buy a new one in the spring.
 
It's the ribbon cable. Every Kenwood with the rotating face will eventually need a new one, and thats why they dont make those decks any more. Any repair shop whould be very familiar with that problem.