Hey Ducatiboy, I have your flasher unit ready to install. Before I pull the unit out for install I would like to figure out a way (resistor, diode capacitor) to soft start the music in cases where I have left the volume cranked up when shutting off. My previous Alpine h/u would slowly ramp up the volume, the Z1 comes on at once. I have the Z1 going to a JL audio 300/4 amp, Focal separates on 2 channels and a JL audio sub bridged on the other 2 channels. Thanks for the work you have done on the flasher unit :D I can't wait to get it installed.

Steve

i would use the mute wire, use a tr7 module to have to hold the mute wire on for like 5-10 seconds, enough for you to crank down the volume, then it will un mute after the timer.

Yah, you could do that mute wire, but I don't know if there is anything else. To be honest, using a TR7 to hold the mute doesn't solve the problem it just delays it, and I don't know if the mute was held if you could adjust the volume anyway. I believe you can hit volume down on the head unit while it's booting up and it will decrease the volume. But yah, if you leave it a high volume, it would be nice to have it start at a lower volume when you start the car. But then some people would probably want it the way it is now. I just turn it down when I turn the car off.

As for doing anything electonically external to the head unit... I would be a little carefull about doing something like that. And you would have to have something added to the output wires, and gradually change it over the first 15 seconds or something, otherwise, you have the same problem.

You are probably better off just getting into the habbit of turning down the volume. It's probably not impossible to try to make something, but I would think the application for such a thing would have very little interest.

You are probably better off just getting into the habbit of turning down the volume. It's probably not impossible to try to make something, but I would think the application for such a thing would have very little interest.

I gotta agree with Ducatiboy. Such a device would have to go in between the head unit and the amps in the audio path. Something homemade will be sure to degrade the quality of your audio signal as well. I used to have an Alpine and the gradual increase in volume when powered up was a great feature. I just turn the music down before shutting the car off now. With that said I have forgotten to do it a few times which made me jump the next morning when I started my car and the bass kicked in.

Well, I'm far from an electronics guru, but I have an idea how you could do this fairly cheaply, but it would be a bit ghetto. LOL

Since the Z1 will allow you to turn down the volume at bootup with the remote before you get to the main menus, you could get on of those cheap One For All learning remotes and use the Pioneer remote to program volume down. Then take the remote apart and mount the IR emitter somewhere in line of sight of the IR receiver on the Z1. Then just solder a reed relay across the volume down button on the remote PC board and use a TR7 to trigger the relay for around 5-10 seconds so it would turn the volume all the way down. You could even go all out and use a PIC or Atmel micro to drive an IR LED at the correct pulse frequency for volume down on the Z1, though the development work would probably be more trouble than it's worth.

On another note... I wonder what format the Pioneer wired remote uses for control. If we could get a hold of one of those and log the output, we might be able to do some other cool stuff. :-) I'd imagine it's just some sort of serial data pulse.

By the way--cool forum. I've been reading for a while and just got around the registering.

Yah, you could do something like that. But just cause the buttons on the front work, doesn't mean the wired remote or wireless remote work before the sound comes on. I don't believe it does. I think the front buttons will work (but with no audio "bing" when you press them) then the sound is on even before you can use the wired remote and the wireless remote.

Someone double check this for me, but I don't know if the remotes will work before the audio is heard.

I never checked before, but it looks like you have to hear audio before the remote will work. There is another way to do this if you have amps though. You could use a TR7 or make your own cheapo RC delay circuit to delay triggering the amp turn on. Then use a TR7 triggerd by one of the speaker outs on the Z1 to turn the volume down like I mentioned previously.

By the way, that was me ^^^^. Just forgot to log in.