kafklatsch

****please see "EDIT" in initial thread post****

Did you ever try to use the included wire GPS intenna to see if that helped?

 

Did you go for the straight or right angle MCX connector? Any issues with the mount interferring with it?

Maybe I missed it but, I am not aware of a GPS wire furnished with the unit. There is an antenna wire for use to receive MSN direct information. can you check to see if the wire has an mmcx plug on it - I dont think a straight wire will enhance gps reception, but I may be wrong.

OH...... VERY IMPORTANT - The socket is MMCX. when i got my gps antenna with MCX, it did not plug in. I went to frys and purchased part no. 5097295. The antenna is available with MMCX which will fit the F500BT.

I went with what I read in this site as far as the MCX error....... but the F500BT has an MMCX socket for gps

i look for skanks and wine-O's....

Here is the lowdown... my shipping and tracking info with delivery date.......wooohooooo

whats with the friggin discrepancy with the pioneer shipped vs UPS billed dates.... anyways......

PIONEER ORDER INFO

Order no.: 503????

Order date: 07/29/2009 19:05

Shipping address: Kevin M??????

12 M???????

LAPLACE LA, 70068

Product Description Ordered

Qty Price Shipping Status Qty Tracking Number

CNSD-150FM

MAP update for AVIC-F500BT 1 $60.00 Shipped: 07/29/2009 1 1Z40W110025109????

Net Subtotal $60.00

Shipping $11.99

Taxes $2.40

Total Price: $74.39

_______________________________________________________________________________________

UPS TRACKING INFO:

Tracking Number: 1Z40W110025109???? Status: In Transit

Scheduled Delivery Date: 08/03/2009 (Updated) / 08/04/2009 (Original)

Shipped To: LAPLACE, LA, US Shipped

Billed On: 07/31/2009 Type: Package Service: 2ND DAY AIR Weight: 1.10 LBS

Where did you wind up getting the antenna from & for how much? Where did you do your research on the different types? Oh, and where did you wind up putting it?

from Amazon... I think about $22.... I bought two of them so that I can semi-permenantly hide the wires in the two cars that I use the F500BT.

I did the typical google search... looking for reccuring postive reviews, performance data, and comments on threads like ours (my way of filtering the hype ads)... the Gilssons seemed to be the cock of the roost ( i did see that garmin has a one new antenna that may be equal to the gilsson, but my order was already placed... ) It is interesting that the gps manufacturers dont have the best antennas stock with the units ....

I placed one of them in the area below my wind shield outside of the car. This is a perfect little hidden nook in my car, but very visible to the sky. havent placed the second one yet, but thinking the same

WOW...... got my antenna's

to see 12 green satellites on the globe is quite enteresting.. I was getting 3-6 green and a few yellows and reds before..... the 12 bars are all at about 60-75% % strength ( 1- 2 bars seem to bounce down to about 40% intermittently). I have checked from a cold boot and the first time it didnt seem any quicker, but everytime I have rebooted or turned on the system since, the acquisition time seems to be about 50% quicker..... I am happy...

now to see if I still get the occasional ""gps signal lost"....... somehow I think that is software related though..

This is a great addition to the F500BT

does this work with the F500BT ?

*** EDIT : the gps socket on the back of the F500BT is a type MMCX. I had to buy an adater for my MCX antenna ***

I just ordered a couple of Gilsson MCX type gps Antennas (the F500BT has an "MCX" type connector). After doing some research, it seems that the performance is off the charts. review here "bc4x4.com/quick/2005/gilsson-ant/". hopefully, my choice is a good one

My need arises from the time it takes for the F500BT to acquire satellites. The car I use for my temporary avic use has tinted and solar rejecting glass all around including sunroof. It really has a tough time acquiring sats within the car. If I open the sunroof and hold it up to the open roof, it will acquire more quickly. Ironically once it starts out within the car cabin and hangs up, even opening the roof doesnt always help, and sometimes I have to reboot the avic.

If I use the F500Bt in the car without such hightech glass the satellite acquisition is quicker.

The gilsson aparently just flat out out-performs almost all antennas and is better even in open skys. I am hoping to show an improvement in acquistion times with such an antenna.

I purchased 2 antennas because I figure if it really performs, I will install the antenna in the car with my semi-permanent setup.... thoughts

check your wiring, it may be incorrect...

Your system must be doing a complete shut down when the key is switched off, thus rebooting in full when ignition is turned on again.

1) The power wiring (YELLOW) is to be fulltime 12 volt (always hot),

2) The ACC (accessory) wire(RED) is to be hooked to a switched 12 volt source/wire (hot only when key is "on").

The ignition(key) would then shut the system down when key is turned off, but the yellow power wire would maintain the proper power to keep the system from having a full power loss and full shut-off.

I have an F500BT, an AVIC Z3, and two factory Nav systems...... in my opinion the F500BT needs a head unit.. I can only say that it does not substitute as a head unit very well based on using it for while now.... just not designed to replace the HU........ I'd try using it without the HU powered up for a few weeks before i removed it.......

hey, I even run my IPOD thru my head unit beacuse it just sounds better that what the avic produces...

I do really really like the F500BT....... when using it with a head unit...

oh....... and starting this week, turn on talk radio at least once a week..... LOL

oh dude... that is awesome help!!!!!!!! But i never thought about the radio, LOL.... i use the radio maybe once every 4 months... and thats for traffic reasons! So I dont think that will stop me from using this as my HU.

 

I think im all set to go then! thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me give a little insight. The avic NDG500 assumes that you are amplifying at the head unit. The NDG500 is the means the avic uses to interupt (mute) sound during avic output. The NDG500 does not amplify the HU output. The NDG500 amplifies the AVIC ouput to attempt to match the already amplified HU output. The logic pioneer used was to come up with the best place to control both HU output to speakers and AVIC ouput to speakers; this to allow AVIC commands and AVIC music output.

your idea is good, but there will not be double amplification, however, there will be amplification from two sources. Have you checked the trigger to see if it induces delayed amp power up. Have you checked for pops or clicks during the triggering. Could be a simple annoyance or a voice coil buster at worst.

keep us posted

Also if you use an Ipod or sd card for music. you will have no bass. It is already a little weak, so you will not be satisfied with AVIC music. It appears that this is not a concern based on your postings.

Ok after a little break...and some more pondering hers what ive come up with....

 

Run thespeaker leads from the hu to the ndg-500 like a factory unit....will double amplify my door speakers(once from the HU and once from the NDG500)...but should not be a problem.

 

For the sub...heres the plan.... i had an extra PAC TR4 laying around so heres my thoughts.... (TR4 is a tigger accessory which accepts low voltage off of speaker leads and such and creates a 12volt output)

 

The plan is to connect the low voltage reader to the aux cable that goes into the audio input in the ndg500. Then run the 12 volt lead to the mute cable of the p4000dvd. This will mute subwoofer when the avic is pronouncing its commands. And i will still be able to run my subwoofer off of the hu preamped output

 

What yall think

100% correct U R

the F500 scenario you propose may have a major shortcoming

any F500 scenario with a system as complexed as his (indash mobile video, 4 channel amp, and sub amp) is going to have a major short coming or two, thats why when you replace your head unit with a fancy one like the 4000 you might as well just get one with all the options you want so that way you dont have to figure out how you want to rig it up with extra stuff, and how you can make "most of it work"

This is off topic and has NOTHING to do with a review of 3.0. Make your own post.

.......... DOWN BOY !!!!............

what a difference a day makes....... when I started my love of electronics, Pioneer sucked, but had great tv ads; and eclipse was even worse by a wide margin. We'd laugh at the guys with the 100 watt eclipse amps that really had about 5 watts - boy did they sound like crap...LOL...... swore I'd never own either

Now I have a Pioneer Kuro that is jaw drop amazing along with 2 Avics, and eclipse is apparently an OEM supplier of highly regarded equipment..... what a difference a day makes...

good luck on all your navigable journeys ...

Well, it was a nice ride. Many of you hate me here, many of you don't.

 

Finally sold my AVIC-F900BT and bought an Eclipse AVN-726e. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I took quite a hit on the AVIC, but considering I was just about ready to take it to a field and pull an Office Space on it... any money is better than none.

 

And yes, I sold the XM with it.

 

So long fellas!

the F500 scenario you propose may have a major shortcoming..... can you combine outputs so that your audio for routing and other spoken AVIC ouput will mute your HU (4000) source?.... or can it feed thru the 4000 and be heard even without muting the HU source?

I have an older Eclass that i did not want to change from oem... it fortunately has a 2+" recess in front of the radio (radio set back 2" from console trim). I installed the F500 with friction hinges to tilt up to access the radio controls, but the F500 is visible at all other times. works perfect for me and looks near built in due to the 2" allowing the F500 to be flush with the console...

I get the functionality of the existing radio along with a stock interior. I modified a hidden (from view) part of the wood trim to hold the AVIC support I fabbed. I modded a purchased piece of wood trim from Ebay just in case I decide to do anything crazy like retore this puppy as a collector down the road - i'd just put the original trim piece back)

you know what would make this a very easy install, ditch the 500 and replace the 4000 with a 700, 710, 900, or 910.

then instead of tring to get every thing to work together there is just IT working.

 

or use audio out on the f500 to an input on the 4000 and not use the f500's amp, your going to run into problems tring to get the amp(4ch) to run into another amp(ndg500) and then out not to mention the sub

 

the point of the f500 is for people thet have very simple stereo systems (factory or near factory) and dont want to spend a lot of money upgrading there entire system (which you have already done) it doeant even work very well with factory premium sound systems.

 

that just my two cents

You have a slight dilemma with using a sub amp.

One way to try to do this is to splice into the speaker-out wiring (L/R rear +/-) on the ND-G500. That is on the large connector (double plug size). This is sending the audio back to your speakers. It has the AVIC produced audio inserted via the ND-G500. The AVIC info is then amplified within the ND-G500. The HU audio is not amplified and just passed thru the ND-G500 using whatever amplification your head unit produces.

See if your AMP can handle this amplified output (amplified? audio produced by the HU and the amplified AVIC audio produced by the ND-G500). If it can not, you are in trouble with the F500. Wiring Spliced before the ND-G500 amplification (small speaker wire plug on harness) will not contain any AVIC audio content.

You may use the F500 L/R audio-out with no amplification, but this is already a wordy post.... reply if we need to discuss that option, but the ND-G500 would then not be used...

Kinda got the same problem here...i have my 4 speakers running of the HU and a subwoofer running of an external amp to the HU preamped inputs. Does anyone know how I should connect the subwoofer to the NDG500 to make it function.

 

For example, some people think 10 Second reverse camera is ok. However, I get in the car and buckle. THEN I start the car, and put it into reverse. In a parking lot, with someone waiting for you to back out, 10 seconds is forever, even at home in the garage I have to sit there for 10 seconds picking my nose waiting for my camera to come on like some kind of tool. Count to 10 slowly, and imagine sitting there in your car. Now do it 3 or 4 times a day for a year. I want my 900 seconds of life back.

LOL......lets see........ in my estimate that really comes to approximately 10,400 seconds and if you count saturday and sunday it's about 14,560 seconds....... let me tell ya, If I had sat that long over the past year waiting to put my car in reverse I'd shoot myself in the head.......jeeeeeezzzz

your F series upgrades at pioneer linked below

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Support/Navigation/AVIC+F-Series+Firmware+Update+Download

look down the instruction page for the click "here"

annotation to get the bluetooth upgrade.

reinstalling should fix your problem. I have decided to carry a disk with all my software, a disk with my current install backup, and a default setup installation disk. yep 3 cheap sd cards in the glove box..... havent had to use them yet..... but I want to be able to do any software fixes from anywhere I stand....

Yup, I just checked and the bluetooth (version) software is gone!

 

Where do I find it and how do I reinstall it?

 

Please don't leave me hanging guys.... I live a hands free driving area, I need this back.

there is a small chance that there is a subtle difference between the X's and the F's lets' at least wait until someone gets the official "F" 3.0 upgrade..... id leave it on order......

question...... is there documentation that says that everything hardwarewise, even the mb (motherboard), is the same..... they could have differences that changes how the software functions ... I am grasping here, but it would seem that pioneer would do more than just "change the clothes" and call them new units, thus copying the hardrive from one type to the other may not be 100% compatible..... thoughts...

Honestly this should be going passed our differences. I feel like that little kid telling people not to fight. The truth is that with out someone being pissed about some performance we wouldn't have standards to go by at all.

If it weren't for people pointing out the flaws of the unit when it was first released, if it weren't for those early adopters of this product, I wouldn't have known to wait. I personally was saved a big head ache and a big hassle by waiting for something like 2.0 to come.

Who cares who trumped the others hack. Competition breads improvement and change. The bottom line is that Tacoma helped us out and everyone who has ever said that something sucks might have sounded annoying but that one comment might have been exactly what someone else needed to hear to stop and think.. "hey this shit does suck! why the fuck did I pay $1200 bucks for this".

Pioneer is the real bad guy in here. These units were hyped to all fucking hell and they not only failed once but they failed over and over again.

Ok I'm done being the lets all be friends guy. Fuck all of you for making me type this and thank you all for allowing me to make an educated choice.

 

I'll be putting 3.0 on my unit tomorrow and seeing how it works. Should I call pioneer and tell them I don't want to buy their copy?

the most obvious thing to do is check and double check your wiring. Dont assume that your cars harness matches the Avics by pin arrangement or color. It must match by wire description. also ensure that all connections are solid. I once purchased the crimp coupling/sleeves; they were difficult for me to ensure a good connection. I use other types of connecters now. The red power and yellow power wires should be rechecked for correctness. The ground must be well connected to an actual ground or ground wire. We have had others assume a ground point (screw etc..) only to find it was not.

It really does sound like an installer issue...... recheck and be patient, you'll get it....

Wow....... Tacomaboy, you have been here posting for some time and you are almost always a postive contributor (i didnt want to quote your long list of "issues" so I grabbed this shorter post). I know the problems with that model of the Avic-F must be real. Your frustration can be felt in the words, and your posting history lends credibility. I hope that somehow pioneer can correct the problems at least enough to make the units tolerable.

Tacomaboy, I do like pioneer so please allow me an anecdotal story... I order one specific dish from a very high end restaurant in New Orleans. It is my most favorite dish on the planet. Well, one day it was not very good. I weighed the many servings of excellence versus the one poor dish. I decided to the tell server (and chef also) that it was below par, but refused any attempts to "fix" the order..... I ate it and knew full well that the restaurant (pioneer?) would be back to their established level of quality upon my next meal...... we may have to eat this one, but lets not stop visiting the restaurant....

I ordered my copy and noticed when ordering it that there is a small message that stated the update won't ship until August. I think it will be a while before any of us get the actual update.

 

Not surprised. Pioneer won't trick me again! I am waiting till this test is well vetted before even considering trying to torrent it.

illuxion, You bring up an interesting point.. if you go to "THE" htc user site..... you can find 50- 100 pages of members/users finding problems with a single cooked ROM and this happens over and over again. In 99.999% of the cases the Chef usually corrects the issues and does not take his toys, cry and go home... the HTC community also helps to solve "PERSISTENT" issues by offering their own experiences in a way that usually helps solve the problem..... a common reccuring issue is not to be ignored as just "user error".... you find the reason or actually correct the misuse of the hack/mod. If this guy wants to leave, then go..... it is ridiculous, and for all you babies and suck-ups.... to bad for you too. There are many others who will find this great site and contribute along with the wizards already here... I am not the one that encounters problems with hacks and mods, so I have no complaints about "THE MOD" itself, but to ignore a prevelant problems is bad practice and calling out the people who have a nonfunctioning unit when they obviously only want a working unit is bad practice also.... I say the problem exists, and I say good riddance to babies no matter who you are. I DONT PRAISE BABIES. ALSO, when the venon is unleashed, I will not respond.... grow up ahead of time......

and to the Chefs and Modders............. thanks, there is great stuff here and more to come...... AVIC411 rocks...................

It's a shame........................................I'm more of a lurker than an active participant because of the same troubles CMH is going through. I cook firmwares for HTC phones and used to share them with the community until I had 1 too many morons come crying to me after they couldn't follow simple instructions. I'm sorry to see you stop helping the community CHM, and will dearly miss your work, but I'll raise a glass to your efforts!

 

 

TLDR??? Cliffs??? If you're an idiot and can't follow instructions, please stay away. If you mod your unit, do so at your own risk, and DO NOT blame the modder when you screw up.

 

THANK YOU CMH for your time and effort.

Get down off your soapbox and grow up.

 

Pot. Kettle. Black.

ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.... ROFL

Do you have the unit hardwired or just using the auto ac adapter? I had the same problem and found out that you must have it hardwired and the antenna connected. I do not want mine wired so I am doing without.

Correct....... the system knows the difference..... I played with it back and forth..

On DC adapter.... NO MSN KEY (actually no MSN all)...

On cradle power.... yep MSN info shows....

funny how we all say "AC" adapter, when in automobiles it is DC..... and thus "DC" Adapter..... funny

The front screen only has a single ribbon cable, so you could get creative and extend it. It is actuall quite easy to remove the whole front section that folds down as a single unit.

You are correct, the folding down screen is all I would need to remove and extend... ahhhhhh...... but are there any tricky switches that know the screen position...... well I guess there has to be because the display changes when the front folds down..... I am getting more interested in this....where are the switches located?

and remember..... we still have never cracked the wav file encoding on the AVIC's, it stands today as the holy grail of the AVIC's ( I was personally dissapointed that the community threw in the towel a good while back)..... lets see on this upgrade... the supergeeks that reside here will tell...soon

Just ordered mine about 15 minutes ago. I keep hearing people talk about serial numbers and activation key requirements for this update but I was never asked for any of that information upon placeing my order. I think this update will be easly redistrubted and will look into it as soon as I receive it. My bigest concern is the possible loss of testmode...

 

They dont need to ask you at the time of purchase. They could simply have the single purchaser go to a link and enter the AVIC serial number. This would generate the serial key...... if they do it on the pioneer site and there is nothing on the card for this key generation formula then it may be tough to crack. If they were smart they would have anticipated this and have the serial/key confirmation check on a separate chip on the AVIC MB which would not be accessible by us. Microsoft, for instance cant do it this way because they dont build the computers...