Our 2 year old conveniently stuck a coin in our 6 disc changer on our 2007 Accord and the CD player has completely shut down. Is there any way to manually remove the system ourselves to take the coin out?

 

you can pull the deck out. and take the deck apart. pulling it out is easy. all I can say about taking it apart is good luck.

 

i've had to take coins out of in-dash changers for several vehicles. children love putting coins in the slot. being experienced with electronics repair, it is fairly easy for me. i'm comfortable taking apart head units.

for the normal person, you are welcome to try. my best advice for a first-timer is to label each screw and draw a diagram so you know how to put it back together. don't force anything, if it won't move, find the other screw(s).

 

Oh, c'mon. It's 2011, take some digital pictures!

 

Yes DiGi Pictures...

 

i take pictures too, my PC has thousands of pictures of electronics i have repaired/installed/tested, but you are unlikely to instantly upload the pic and draw screw labels on the pictures. the diagram lets you know where every screw went, and the order of operation. there are always notes about how things go back together that are obvious when you take it apart. i know i never have labeled pictures unless i was sharing it online to help others. and even when you think you took enough pictures of the assembly to know how it goes back together, you'll never have the picture you need. not as important when you can start and finish in an hour or so, but when the project extends a couple days or longer while waiting for replacement parts, those labels and diagrams are hugely important and make reassembly go very quickly.

i was repairing the convergence IC's in a Mitsubishi rear projection TV a few weeks ago. i was shooting for a hour start to finish (each IC had about 24 pins). You do that by removing the entire board through the back, and to do that you need to remove about 20 wire harnesses. then you rotate the board to gain access to the bottom so you can de-solder the existing pins, and replace the IC. i took digital pictures before i started disconnecting but i didn't get one harness clearly, a harness that fit in either direction. i figured it out in a few minutes, but a diagram would have been faster.

from someone who disassembles, repairs, and reassembles electronics - labels and diagrams are how it's done to prevent "spare parts" or screws that don't belong or harnesses identification. harnesses should be labeled on each side with a number or letter or symbol that also gives orientation. even if they have the same head, the threads and length are commonly different. getting that resolution on a camera takes longer than sketching and labeling.