If you have a Z1 and haven't installed Ducati Boy's flasher, your crazy. I've had my Z1 for a couple of months installed the flasher yesterday and now I feel the Z1 is worth the money. Being able to utilize all the features, "no I don't watch DVD's while driving", but POI's etc., is great to be able to do without stopping the vehicle. Drove into NYC to see the Mets last night and the Z1 got me to and back home to Albany without a glitch. Thanks Ducati Boy.

AMEN brother im waitin on my avic-z1 to come in

I bought TWO of the flashers prior to my Z1 install. Now I have a spare just in case any questions about it EVER arise in MY mind or my installer's. :) Don't forget, it's not like you can run down to Radio Shack for one if a "situation" ever comes up.

Dude where have you been? The flasher is not needed any more. So the crazy if you dont have one statement is silly :roll: .
Any way, I am loving mine too :D .

Well, if you have a June 06 or older unit, I think you would be crazy not to have one. :)

tjdehya said:

Dude where have you been? The flasher is not needed any more. So the crazy if you dont have one statement is silly :roll: .
Any way, I am loving mine too :D .

What have I missed? Why don't you need it anymore?

Mac3150 said:

tjdehya said:

Dude where have you been? The flasher is not needed any more. So the crazy if you dont have one statement is silly :roll: .
Any way, I am loving mine too :D .

What have I missed? Why don't you need it anymore?

Because the july 06 units can be bypassed the same way the d1/d2 are bypassed. So no longer is it nessessacry to flash the parking lights to do the bypass.

I just bought a second Z1 from Tweeter and it was made in April so they are still out there, so I will need another Ducatiboy special......Steve

needspeed said:

I just bought a second Z1 from Tweeter and it was made in April so they are still out there, so I will need another Ducatiboy special......Steve

Well the web site is up and I'm still taking orders and making them. Not as many as I was before, but I'm going to keep making them and supporting them as long as possible, I figured there are some pre-July units still floating around. www.sminntech.com

I have a post June unit, installed by the dealer. The funny thing is, once I got it, I had three days to research it before it was installed. I found out about the p-brake feature lock, and was worried about it. I figured that I would have to just open it up and check it out after the installation.

Colour me suprised when I went back to the dealer, turned on the car, and saw the "parking brake lead" improperly connected message!

I can do just about anything except watch DVDs while driving, just what I was used to with my Aviator.

I guess the installer got tired of people complaining after he installed their units.

classic said:

I have a post June unit, installed by the dealer. The funny thing is, once I got it, I had three days to research it before it was installed. I found out about the p-brake feature lock, and was worried about it. I figured that I would have to just open it up and check it out after the installation.

Colour me suprised when I went back to the dealer, turned on the car, and saw the "parking brake lead" improperly connected message!

I can do just about anything except watch DVDs while driving, just what I was used to with my Aviator.

I guess the installer got tired of people complaining after he installed their units.

Not that I do it but I can watch a DVD if I want to with the pre July units......Steve

classic, if you want to get everything working all the time, they need to ground an extra wire. You should NOT get the parking brake warning screen. If you do, something is not hooked up right.

I have a 2000 Mercedes S430 (with auto-on lights) and just had my Z1 installed today. I have tried the headlight-flicker trick and it indeed does work. It is just a pain to do every time. Plus, it only works if I diasble the auto-on headlight feature on the MBZ.

So, I have a coupla questions:

1) Will Ducati's new Z1 bypass work for me? If so, i will buy one tomorrow.
2) Now that the unit has been installed, how do I find out if it is a pre-July 06 unit or post July-06 unit, without ripping it out from the dash (my installer did a FANTASTIC job)?
3) However, my Bluetooth unit will arrive tomorrow and my installer will need to go back into the dash to put it in, so I may have an opportunity to have hime install the Ducati bypass at the same time, BUT, in case I don't need the bypass and just have to ground the two wires as explained on Ducati's excellent Web site, will I risk disabling some of those Bluettoth/Phone features (as happened in the "old days" when you just grounded the brake wire)?

Thanks in advance for what i know will be erudite answers!

SClassy said:

I have a 2000 Mercedes S430 (with auto-on lights) and just had my Z1 installed today. I have tried the headlight-flicker trick and it indeed does work. It is just a pain to do every time. Plus, it only works if I diasble the auto-on headlight feature on the MBZ.

So, I have a coupla questions:

1) Will Ducati's new Z1 bypass work for me? If so, i will buy one tomorrow.

Yes it will. If you can flash your lights and that bypasses the unit then it will work for you.

But lets make sure that you are actuall flashing your lights and THAT is what is bypassing the unit.... if you hit MENU - SETTINGS - HARDWARE - CONNECTION STATUS and look at the parking brake setting. If it's OFF, then you are indeed flashing your lights and that is what is bypassing the unit. Make sure your parking brake is reported as off (and goes on and off with the parking brake itself), if it's on all the time then he grounded the parking brake all the time and that's not good.

So try flashing the lights one time and make sure it's bypassed and then try not flashing the lights and make sure you are locked out. I don't want you to buy something that won't work for you and I want to make sure you are flashing your lights and that is what is bypassing the Z1.

SClassy said:

2) Now that the unit has been installed, how do I find out if it is a pre-July 06 unit or post July-06 unit, without ripping it out from the dash (my installer did a FANTASTIC job)?

It's on the box, but if you can flash your headlights and that bypasses the unit then it's a June or before unit.

SClassy said:

3) However, my Bluetooth unit will arrive tomorrow and my installer will need to go back into the dash to put it in, so I may have an opportunity to have hime install the Ducati bypass at the same time, BUT, in case I don't need the bypass and just have to ground the two wires as explained on Ducati's excellent Web site, will I risk disabling some of those Bluettoth/Phone features (as happened in the "old days" when you just grounded the brake wire)?

Thanks in advance for what i know will be erudite answers!

If you can flash your lights and that is what bypasses your unit, then the 2 wire ground won't work for you. If you want something automatic you will want my circuit.

I'll have a few on me so that if I get some orders with fex ex shipping, I can ship them out today for people to have them on Friday.

tjdehya said:

Dude where have you been? The flasher is not needed any more. So the crazy if you dont have one statement is silly :roll: .
Any way, I am loving mine too :D .

I ended up getting an AVIC-Z1 in September that was stamped "JUNE". The bypass worked as advertised. Thanks a million D'Boy.

just installed my bypass filter and it works great! thanks.

ya know i just thought about something else ducati, even if every version of the future models of z1s dont need the bypass you made, there are still tons of units out there that your bypass works for. And in time people will sell there unit to other people but forget the bypass or people will by a unit used at a pawn shop or whatever. The second hand market will be a big boom agian for you.

UMM I don't havve one, So does that mean I'm crazy? or Is it because I don't have a z1? A question for the ages I guess. On a side note, how long is the delay between the flashers output pulses? and how long do they last? I' m thinking I might beable to use one of them things for another project I'm working on.

silveradojeff said:

ya know i just thought about something else ducati, even if every version of the future models of z1s dont need the bypass you made, there are still tons of units out there that your bypass works for. And in time people will sell there unit to other people but forget the bypass or people will by a unit used at a pawn shop or whatever. The second hand market will be a big boom agian for you.

Yah, there were a bunch made before July 06, I don't know how many, but the sales trickle in here and there. I don't know if the sales will ever boom again, but they will probably trickle in here and there for quite a long time.

cntrylvr79 said:

UMM I don't havve one, So does that mean I'm crazy?

Yep, pretty much.

cntrylvr79 said:

or Is it because I don't have a z1? A question for the ages I guess.

Well, if you don't have a Z1 then you might not be that crazy. I think if you have a June 06 or before Z1 and you don't have one of my circuits, then you might be crazy. I guess that was the jist of things :)

cntrylvr79 said:

On a side note, how long is the delay between the flashers output pulses? and how long do they last? I' m thinking I might beable to use one of them things for another project I'm working on.

Well, it depends on the "version". The latest version is 250ms pulses with 500ms pauses (to keep the reaction of the Z1's dimmer to a minimum and still record it as a transition). But I would highly recommend not using it for anything else since it's pretty tuned to this application and it's also current limited on it's inputs and outputs. What were you thinking of? I can modify the software to put any timing you would like into it (if the application is not that far off).

If I were to wire a switch inline with the trigger wire for the flasher unit, could I "turn off" the flasher unit and would the actual state of the illumination wire pass through?

Thanks,

Mo-D said:

If I were to wire a switch inline with the trigger wire for the flasher unit, could I "turn off" the flasher unit and would the actual state of the illumination wire pass through?

Thanks,

That would be quite a weird wiring. But you could do it with a DPDT switch. You would want to turn switch the ILL wire in and out oppisite of the wire from the circuit. And once the car was started and running, you would have to shut off the car to make it so the lockouts come back. Oh and then you will need to switch in the parking brake on a 3rd pole, so you would need a tripple pole switch or have the parking brake hooked up and not used. I guess I could draw it up and find a switch if this was something people really wanted.

Appreciate the offer, but the customer of course didn't want wait for me to get your circuit and make the needed addititions. As far as the current limits go anyway. You think it would have been able to handle about an 11ma draw on the output?

cntrylvr79 said:

As far as the current limits go anyway. You think it would have been able to handle about an 11ma draw on the output?

Sure, there will be a slight voltage drop, maybe 1/2 a volt or so, but it should be fine.

Why would you need to switch the parking brake wire? I guess it's hard to imagine what needs to be done without knowing how the flasher module wires up. I'm guessing that there's +12v, GND, an output to the Z1 and some type of trigger to let the module know when to "fire".

Mo-D said:

Why would you need to switch the parking brake wire? I guess it's hard to imagine what needs to be done without knowing how the flasher module wires up. I'm guessing that there's +12v, GND, an output to the Z1 and some type of trigger to let the module know when to "fire".

I guess I was thinking you wanted to take out the flasher circuit and have a switch between "z1 is bypassed" and "z1 operates like it was supposed to".

The circuit has 2 functions, the first is to flash the lights during the first 10 seconds, then it passes through the illumination state to the car. I made it control the ILL wire so that if you turn on your headlights during the flashing, that won't interupt the flashing. Then after the flashing is done it will pass though the state of the ILL wire of your car. The problem is there are only 4 wires, 12V switched, ground, ILL sense to your car, ILL out to the Z1. And it technically doesn't "connect" the ILL in to the ILL out, it watches the ILL in and REPRODUCES it on the ILL out. Those 2 wires are never connected.

So if you wanted to "stop it from flashing" you would need to remove 12V switched from the circuit. Well then with no power, the ILL wire won't ever go to the Z1.

So at the very least, you would switch out the power, and when you do you would bypass the circuit will the ILL wire.

So if you looked at the bottom of a DPDT switch, there is 6 pins, lets label them:

1 2 3
4 5 6

2 and 5 are the common and the toggle switch will connect 2-1 or 2-3 and at the same time the switch will connect 4-5 or 5-6. So if you flip the toggle switch to the "left" 1-2 will connect and 4-5 will as well. You flip the switch to the "right" and 2-3 are connected and 5-6 are connected.

So now lets take my circuit's installation:


A switch to take the circuit out of the picture, you would take the red wire from my circuit and connect it to #2 on the toggle switch and nothing else. Then take the 12V swithed wire from your car and connect it to #1.

Then take the white wire from my circuit and connect it to #5 and to your ILL wire of your car.... and then take the orange wire and connect it to #6 and to the ILL wire of the Z1.

This way, when the switch is to the "left" then power is connected and the orange and white wires of my circuit are not connected to each other. But you flip the switch the other way, the power goes away, and the ILL is connected "around" the circuit.

But if you do this, then the unit will be "locked out" and the only way to access the locked out features is to ground the parking brake ONLY WHEN STOPPED. But you don't want the parking brake connected normally. If you don't want the Z1 to access any of the locked out features "ever" when you flip the switch to take out my circuit, then you can leave the DPDT switch like I said.

If you do want to include the parking brake so that you can operate it like pioneer intended, then get a 4PDT switch (you only need a 3 pole, but I don't think they make them).

That will look like
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
A B C

You won't use ABC, but hook the light green wire from the Z1 (the parking brake sense wire) to #8 and then connect #9 to the parking brake of the car.