Ok I have been reading hear a lot and posted a couple time as a guest, figured it was time to sign on :D
I look forward to helping out here as I do have a clue and installed mine myself.
I have a crossfire. single dinn and converted the car to a doubble dinn. looks great! I'll try to host some pics later.
I have been using the parking lamp flash trick and it works great, I think I will get the kit from ducati.
Tha problem I have is I keep getting the parking brake warning and it is annoying.
I have searched here and I am still confused.
I drive an auto and really never use the park brake.
I have the wire grounded.
What do I need to do to make it so the warning does not come up?
Thanks for any help.

With my p-brake wire grounded when I would do the headlight trick, and now with ducatiboys circuit I don't get the P-Brake warning.

Thanks I'll try that again, I forget to flick the headlamps sometimes. I'll see if that does it.
I'll share what I find out.

HPP--new to the forum, so please excuse my ignorance... Did you get ducatiboys' circuit because it eliminates the p-brake warning or because it just keeps you from having to flick your lights? Just trying to understand why people are getting these circuits? Is your p-brake hooked up correctly? Thanks.

My p-brake lead is just grouned. I got Ducati's circuit so I could use all the Nav functions when in motion.

03Vic-HPP said:

My p-brake lead is just grouned. I got Ducati's circuit so I could use all the Nav functions when in motion.

Your parking brake is grounded which works for you. But I would recommend people not ground their parking brake line.

If this is a new install and if you ground your parking brake, then the flashing headlights (or flasher circuit) will not work. You will have to put in a DVD and try to watch it and then drive around, once your car notices your parking brake is on and you are moving then it realizes that your parking brake line is not connected correctly, so then it pops up that message. After that, it disregards the parking brake wire and then and only then flashing the headlights (or the headlight flasher circuit) will work.

Most people who tried this "ground the parking brake all the time" trick and realized that it didn't work, just kept hitting the "ok" on the "your parking brake is not connected" message. If you turn your car on and you get that message, then flashing your lights WILL work. But your head unit already has to know the parking brake is not connected correctly and it's normally giving you the "parking brake is not connected" message.

If you have your parking brake grounded and you don't get that message, then flashing your lights WILL NOT work. Not until you try to do something you aren't supposed to do while you are moving and then it will realize the parking brake line is not connected correctly.

I know this is confusing, but this is how the head unit works.



So I have been recommending that people DO NOT ground the parking brake wire and do a reset on the head unit. Then it will work the first time.

Does hitting the reset make you lose all personal data? or just settings?
Anyone here rest yet that knows?
thanks

Ducatiboy--then is the purpose of your circuit to avoid having to flash the lights yourself or is it to avoid getting the "p-brake not installed correctly" error message?

Anonymous said:

Ducatiboy--then is the purpose of your circuit to avoid having to flash the lights yourself or is it to avoid getting the "p-brake not installed correctly" error message?

It's overall purpose was to make it so you would not have to flash your lights when you turned the car on. Not seeing the p-brake message if you are seeing it now was just an added bonus.

I don't know for sure, but I believe that resetting the unit would lose your personal settings.

how long is the wait for one of your circuits?

Anonymous said:

how long is the wait for one of your circuits?

As it says in this post,

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 66&start=0

About a week till I can ship more.

Will the circuit work in foreign cars? I have a BMW.

Anonymous said:

Will the circuit work in foreign cars? I have a BMW.

I don't have a BMW to try it in, but I don't see why not. I'm sure there have been cars built since the beginning of time who electrical system is not compatible. But I would think that if your can can take an Avic-Z1 (electrically just about any modern car, double din physically, that's a much shorter list) and you can get the illumination wire connected to something which works for the Z1 (when you turn the lights on, that line goes to 12V or a pulse 12V signal with an adjustable duty cycle for a dimmer, these are how they all work as far as I know), then putting my circuit in between the Z1 and you car would work also.

Think of it this way, if you can install the Z1 into your car and the illumination wire works (and more importantly the headlight flashing works), you put my circuit in there, it will work. In the very highly unlikely condition where it doesn't work... if you want to work with me troubleshooting, we will make it work, or if you happen to have a car which it I can't get it to work, you can ship it back for a refund (minus shipping costs, as long as it wasn't fried or physically damaged).

OK sounds good. I'm nowhere near as savy with this electronics stuff as you are. I'm planning to let a professional do the entire install for me sometime in the near future--still waiting for a couple of parts. But in the meantime I'll order your circuit and have him put it in for me. Being that I haven't installed the Z1 yet, how do you suggest I have the shop set everything up (i.e. connecting the p-brake correctly, floating or grouding). Thanks for your help!

Anonymous said:

OK sounds good. I'm nowhere near as savy with this electronics stuff as you are. I'm planning to let a professional do the entire install for me sometime in the near future--still waiting for a couple of parts. But in the meantime I'll order your circuit and have him put it in for me. Being that I haven't installed the Z1 yet, how do you suggest I have the shop set everything up (i.e. connecting the p-brake correctly, floating or grouding). Thanks for your help!

If you have an automatic and don't use your parking brake, they can hook it up like normal. You want it floating when you use the circuit. If you don't use your parking brake it will be floating. If you want to use your parking brake, you can either have them just leave it disconnected or if they are willing to do it, have them connect it to ground though a toggle switch that you can keep behind the dash or where ever... just incase you ever need that functionality (which you shouldn't as long as the flasher works).

All the instructions and a picture of how you install it are included in the first post here:
http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 66&start=0
You have to be registered in order to see the picture.

This circuit is not guaranteed to work if you do a software update, it works now, but it's possible that if they do a software update they might "fix" this back door.

Not sure I totally understand. Is there a difference between "floating" and "disconnected"? I have a manual shift but rarely use my parking break. So if I understand you correctly, I should just have them leave the parking break wire disconnected?

Anonymous said:

Not sure I totally understand. Is there a difference between "floating" and "disconnected"? I have a manual shift but rarely use my parking break. So if I understand you correctly, I should just have them leave the parking break wire disconnected?

Floating and disconnected mean the same thing. Yes, you should leave it disconnected.

If you want to know how it actually works and interacts with the parking brake read on, there is another way, but I think it's messy. My recommendation is leave it disconnected and tape it up so it doesn't accidentally connect to anything else.

If you install it, and you have the parking brake on (grounded) then flashing your headlights won't work. But if you ground it all the time (or leave the parking brake on slightly, enough to ground the wire but not enough to stop the car) and you try to watch a DVD once you start moving, the head unit will detect that and figure you have your parking brake wire installed incorrectly, since it's impossible to be moving with the parking brake on

(they haven't ever been in any car I have ever owned then, you can absolutely drive around with the parking brake on, which doesn't say a lot for me, but it says even less for the parking brake, I changed the name of mine to the "make the car smell funny lever"... I love Mitch Headberg)... but I digress

Since it's impossible to move with the parking brake on, it figures that you have it connected inproperly. And then it will disregard what that wire is connected to. Then, once you try to do something you shoudln't and it yells at you for hooking it up wrong, then will the headlight flashing work. So it's not an absolute pre-requesit for headlight flashing to work... having the parking brake disconnected. You can ground it permanently, but you will have to try to do something you shoudn't while in motion and have the car yell at you before flashing your lights will work.

That is why I recomment leaving it disconnected.

OK got it! I'm sure you're sick and tired of idiots like me bothering you all the time, but I do appreciate your tenacity. Thanks again.

Anonymous said:

OK got it! I'm sure you're sick and tired of idiots like me bothering you all the time, but I do appreciate your tenacity. Thanks again.

That's alright. These posts are all getting so long and so "out of hand" it's hard for a person just joining the scene to understand it all with what's posted in the order it's posted in, there is a lot of our learning curves out there.

I'm going to post an entire install and Q and A document which I'll bet JasonH would make a sticky for me and hopefully everyone can just point people to it.