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FINALLY figured out the noise problem...

I used Scosche’s FDK11B Audiophile harness:

http://www.scosche.com/products/productID/581

This harnesses comes with a separate connector for the subwoofer (the smaller one in this picture) . This connector has 6 wires coming from it but the Edge doesn't use all of them.

I Used the wires that match up with the factory’s harness. But in the factory part of this harness, there is a bare-looking ground wire that matches up to nothing in the Scosche harness.

Today, I just connected the bare-looking ground wire from the Factory subwoofer harness directly to ground and the noise went away.

Well - a year later and I'm still having this buzzing sound from the subwoofer when the headlights are turned on.

I removed the voltage regulator from the sub's amp remote wire and replaced it with a 5.6k resistor. Still have the buzz/hum sound from the sub when the headlights are on.

Any ideas ?

The usefulness of the NAV varies depending on the situation. There seems to be some bad logic for calculating the shortest route in certain cases.

For normal day to day use, it works OK for us. But I'd never solely rely on it to plan a drive of over an hour.

Have a look at these two threads:

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

If the VSS wire come disconnected, it guesses at your speed using it's internal gyros. Which isn't that accurate, hence the need for a VSS input.

I don't have my VSS wire connected right now. The D3 has my speed PERFECTLY matched to my speedometer. I don't think it's using the gyros to calculate speed. It can calculate your speed from the GPS signals - like any hand-held GPS can do.

If they're treating their customers like crap and ignoring problems reported, then who cares if we irritate Frank !! I will call him for sure.

Be polite and professional.

Whatever the problem is, at least it seems that the unit does learn a little. I took a trip to Las Vegas. Knowing that the D3 will sometimes make outragous routes (although, I haven't had much trouble with it locally) I mapquest my trip.

 

Mapquest said it would take about 5 hours to get to Las Vegas. On the day of the trip, my d3 said it would take 9 hours! Well, I just followed the mapquest directions. During the trip, on a stretch of 30 or 40 miles, I noticed that the timer on the D3, it was counting down minutes like seconds.

 

On the way back, when i calculated the route home, I noticed that the time for the trip was down to 6 hours. So, I guess if you drive around with the D3 a little, it might get a little smarter.

I really don't think it's learning at all. It's just that the calculation is different in one direction verses the other. It's also probably that you were driving faster than the average speed in the D3 for the road you were on.

EVERY time I calculate the route from Northern Virginia to Duck, North Carolina, it comes up with the same, ridiculous, overly-long route. It's learned nothing from the couple of times I've driven that route.

If so, please use your NAV to calculate the shortest route between Northern Virginia and Duck, North Carolina. As you can see from my post on the D3, it does a terrible job with this particular route. I'd like to see the results from a different Pioneer Unit.

http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8403

Is the D3 the only bad trip planner / route calculator of Pioneer's fleet or are they all quirky ?

Can someone post the number to call for the correct person at Pioneer ?

Also - has anyone tried comparing the D3 with other model Pioneer's to see if they're any different ?

See the thread I started a while back about the D3 being a bad trip planner. On my vacation from Northern Virginia to Duck, NC - the D3 was suggesting that I go WAY, WAY out of my way and never could come up with the correct route:

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

wher did you hook up the illumination wire?

 

At your advice, I hooked it up to the purple/white parking lights wire in the driver's kick.

 

are you hooking the purple/white from the d3 to the parking lights? only reason i ask is that is the reverse wire, not parking lites. pl wire is orange/white.

No - I've got the correct wires from the D3. The screen dims properly when the lights are on and my reverse camera works properly when I'm in reverse. It's just that recently, I started having this buzz through the subwoofer when the lights are on.

yeah, thats the right one. dont know why your getting that problem. do you have aftermarket fog lights or anything else that might be tied into your lights?

Nope - nothing aftermarket - except for the D3 and reverse camera. Haven't had a chance yet to try removing the voltage regulator...

wher did you hook up the illumination wire?

At your advice, I hooked it up to the purple/white parking lights wire in the driver's kick.

Did it start around when you installed the voltage regulator? Could that be the cause of it? Remove the voltage regulator from the setup and see if the buzz is still there.

I installed the voltage regulator several months ago. I didn't notice this buzz until just recently. It's odd that the buzz is only there with the headlights on and only through the subwoofer. All other speakers are noise free.

I guess the voltage regulator would be a good place to start. I can remove it easily and will see if that eliminates the buzz.

All my connections seem solid. But when the headlights are turned on and the D3 dimms, there is a slight buzz from the subwoofer.

I've done the voltage regular to eliminate the turn-on thump. But just started hearing this buzzing sound lately.

Any ideas ?

It's almost like the engineers at Pioneer are playing a joke with that horizontal line background. It makes the display look defective. I've seen that comment many times on this forum and when I originally saw that background, my first thought was that something wasn't right.

As far as I know, increasing the average speeds will do nothing to help it pick better routes. It simply helps it make a better ETA calculations.

 

I would think that changing the speeds would change which route is calculated. If you are looking for the fastest route, and your highway speeds are set faster than the standard, it would probably be more likely to route you to a highway, then have you take back roads all the way.

Aren't highway speeds set - by default - as being faster than secondary roads ? The D3 shouldn't avoid highways unless you specifically tell it to. By it's OWN calculation, when I ignored one of its turn commands and finally got it to follow MY route, it immediately knocked off 80 miles in an instant. At that time, my route was set to "Shortest Distance", which it - without question - was not.

I could set the highway speed to 150 mph and it wouldn't make the D3 pick the shortest route for me from Northern VA to Duck, NC. Its problem wasn't that it was routing me on back roads. Its problem was that it couldn't determine the best highway route.

In my situation, outlined on the first page of this thread, the D3 takes the long route on a highway where there is an obviously shorter route on a different highway.

i just ordered a D2 and i want to make sure that after reading this entire thread that the following are all suggestions on how to adjust the D2 for better routing.

 

1-increase average speed

2-multiple routes option

3-?????????(any more i should know of?)

 

if theres others i missed please inform me that way i can improve my D2's routes as soon as its installed.

 

thanks

-nick

As far as I know, increasing the average speeds will do nothing to help it pick better routes. It simply helps it make a better ETA calculations.

The multiple routes options may help you find a better route. In my case it didn't but others have reported success with this option. I still don't understand why the D3 can't pick the best of the multiple routes it suggests, based on fastest time or shortest distance.

dalbert Any report back from your test of making Duck, NC a destination from your location in Northern, VA ?

Well, I guess on certain routes it does OK and on others, it just isn't intelligent enough.

 

The route it picked for me on my vacation was pure and simply bad logic somewhere.

 

I've tried a few others lately and the route it picked was OK.

 

I live in Northern VA. Tomorrow Ill try entering a route to Duck, NC and see what kind of results I get. They maybe different, who knows.

Please do ! I would be quite surprised if your D3 didn't calculate the same 400 mile route that mine did.

Well, I guess on certain routes it does OK and on others, it just isn't intelligent enough.

The route it picked for me on my vacation was pure and simply bad logic somewhere.

I've tried a few others lately and the route it picked was OK.

The average speed is more valuable than we realize. It isn't just for time estimates - it's where the D3 gets it variables from for the math problem.

 

Typically (where I am anyway), the interstate is an out of the way trip. Well guess were my avaerage speed is set the fastest on the D3?

Regardless - on my trip from Northern VA to North Carolina, the D3 put me on a course that was over 400 miles and over 7 hours by it's own calculation. Every one of it's 6 routes took pretty much the same distance and time.

HOWEVER, when I finally forced the D3 to use the route I thought was better, it - by it's own calculation - came up with about 300 miles and 5 hours. It did this without me changing anything in the average speeds for certain roads.

So, I don't see what difference it would make to change the. average speeds of any road type. The D3 is calculating the distances and times correctly - for me anyway. It's only problem is that it cannot find the shortest or fastest route for some reason.

I just tested the multiple (6) route option with my Northern Virginia -> North Carolina route. I looked at every one of these 6 routes and every one of them completely avoided the most obvious short route as shown in the picture I attached from Yahoo! maps. I tried shortest and fastest route. Same results.

So for whatever reason, the D3 will not take the shortest route on this particular trip. It just refuses to go down route 64 - the very obvious straight line between my two travel points.

Here is what I have found with the D3. The first thing you need to do is set your average speeds. In the south there are many "major" roads that have speed limits of 55 mph, but they are 4 lane roads that you can easily do 65-70 mph on. I had to tell the D3 that. Freeway, put in what you really average. Don't tell it 90 mph because that is the fastest you go, tell it your average speed, for me, that's 75 mph.

I have no problem with the time estimates given by the D3. They are fine by me as default. My only concern is that it can't consistently find the shortest route.

Next thing is to go into route options and change from 1 route to mulitple. That way, when you route to your destination, it will give you usually about 6 routes to choose from. Now I will say that there is a glitch that I have found. I am planning a trip this weekend and planned it on Google, Mapquest, and Yahoo. They all returned the exact same route. My D3 is set to "fastest route". The D3 picked route number 1 as a very "out of the way" option. However, I went to route 2 and it was dead on with the 3 web-based options. Mileage, time, everything. It picked my best route as an option, but not as it's first option.

That's an odd glitch - and I'll guess that it happens both on fastest or shortest route. If the D3 can find 6 routes, why can't it pick the shortest of the 6 as it's first choice ?

Bottom line - this unit is great. The routing can be fine if you know how to operate it as efficiently as possible. I would never jump in my car for a trip or vacation and rely solely on a radio/gps to get me where I am going. For short stuff, yes. But if I'm traveling any amount of real miles I am going to look at a couple of options first.

I agree that on a long trip, I wouldn't rely on it or any other nav solely. But I was still pretty shocked that it put me on a route that was 100 miles longer than necessary on a trip that's only 300 miles.

It has the route on screen as a green path over the roads, but there is also a thinner red line that goes straight from my current location to my destination. Yesterday when I put in the route, I know the distance is about 400 miles, but it was telling me 260. Just by looking at it it looked like it was telling me the distance of the red line. I'm at work now, but I'll see if I can go out to my car and take some pics.

I do see the thin red line that keeps pointing towards the destination (kind've a nice feature). But I've not seen the D3 display a straight-line distance - because on my trip from Northern Virginia to North Carolina, the straight-line distance would have been under 300 miles and the D3 immediately showed just over 400 miles - just after calculating the route.

I live in CT and go to school in Rochester, NY about 400 miles away. I know the way well but figured it would be a good test for the D3. I plotted it in Yahoo maps, Google maps and on the AVIC. All 3 gave me the same route, although for some reason the mileage was slightly different between the 2 websites. I would compare it to the D3, but I can't figure out how to change the distance from an "as the crow flies" sort of distance. Can anyone help me out with that?

 

This is the first long route that I have planned and it worked perfectly. No complaints about the nav here (yet haha)

Maybe it just screws up certain routes. BTW - I also plotted my Northern Virgina home to my Parents home in Pennsylvania. Yahoo, Google and the D3 were all within a few miles of each other and I actually liked the D3's route better !

But I don't understand these "as the crow flies" distance comments. When I routed the D3 from Northern Virginia to North Carolina, the FIRST distance it gave me was 400 miles. That's definitly NOT as the crow flies unless that Crow is drunk. The actual driving distance is only 300 miles if you don't take a ridiculous route.