i used catalog number 211 the first one u suggested and took one side to constant and one side to ground then the middle tested with the negative side of the dmm and brought the voltage to 2.5 into the pin. The only thing is that u have to test when the vehicle is running the batt rests at 12v and when running 14v so there is a bit of difference......seems to be working how long did it work before going into lock out mode before?

I don't care how many hours it takes you, please please oh god please punctuate and re-read to make sure it makes sense. If this is legit, it will help many many people, if it's not, we'll be able to figure that out faster with clear information.

That said, I have serious doubts about this. Can you take us through your testing process and results? How did you figure out what the pot needed to be dialed to? How did you know it would be different when the car is running? (shouldn't be, since it has hardware voltage regulation). How long did you test each iteration of adjustment? Since like ducati and others have said, resetting the unit with the p-brake grounded will work for a short while regardless of any other adjustments.

Ok, it looks like PHATTY260 used this part:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2062297

What he did was take one side of the pot and put it to ground and the other side to the car's +12 (or power). Then dialed it in so the middle point was 2.5V.

Of course you need to do this:

1. with the car running cause when the car is on but not running it's 12V and when it's running it's 14 volts.

2. with the middle wire hooked to the Z2's wire because there is a pull up resistor on that pin so if you tweaked it for 2.5V with the middle wire not connected and hooked it to the Z2 the voltage would change cause you just changed the upper resistor (if only slightly depending on the value of the pull up)

If this even works longer than 100 miles without constantly resetting the Z2, this is a sloppy solution for 2 reasons:

1. to set it up you need a volt meter because the value needs to be set and every car is different

2. if you get 2.5 volts when the car is running you won't get it when the car is on and the engine is not running.

What we need to do is to have someone get the same pot and hook one side to ground and the other side to nothing and the middle wire to the Z2, then measure what voltage you get and twist the pot till you get 2.5 v. Then turn everything off and remove the middle wire from the pot from the Z2 and measure the resistance between the middle point to ground (preferably at the point on the pot you hooked the wire). Then post the resistance here. Then no trim pot needed, no voltage meter needed and it will work with the engine running or not.

The other idea I had was to take the 12V out from the amp turn on wire from the z2 which is regulated and not the car's alternator/voltage regulator output and put a divider on that point. But electrically that's no different that getting the correct resistance and putting it on that wire to ground. We just need the value.

Of course, people already reported that they tried this and it doesn't work. Either they were mistaken or whom ever posted this here did this and didn't test it more than a couple miles.

I'll give this a shot as soon as it stops raining here in sunny FL.

Let me get this straight, this is what i need to do.

1 Move one wire on the Z2s plug to the secret location.

2 Install pot center lead to sectet wire

3 install one of the other pot leads to ground

4 Hook a DVM to center lead and adjust it to read 2.5 volts

5 Reset unit and see what happens

I'll post the setting of the pot for you guys but my question is what level of reset do i have to do as well as about how long does it need to be tested. I think resetting mine doesn't bypass it at all. well just let me know what reset to do.

Sorry for the puncuation..... Ok yesterday we drove over 100 miles with no resetting and then today took her out on the town for lunch. There was full navi and full vid with no problem. Hopefully everything is as it seems and if so there wont be any crappy (posts) good luck guys!!!!

*sigh*

Has anyone checked to see if any of the pins put out 2.5 volt and if there is a pin that does, use it to power the other pin

Has anyone checked to see if any of the pins put out 2.5 volt and if there is a pin that does, use it to power the other pin

No they are either 12V, 5V or ground.

I'll give this a shot as soon as it stops raining here in sunny FL.

Let me get this straight, this is what i need to do.

1 Move one wire on the Z2s plug to the secret location.

2 Install pot center lead to sectet wire

3 install one of the other pot leads to ground

4 Hook a DVM to center lead and adjust it to read 2.5 volts

5 Reset unit and see what happens

 

I'll post the setting of the pot for you guys but my question is what level of reset do i have to do as well as about how long does it need to be tested. I think resetting mine doesn't bypass it at all. well just let me know what reset to do.

Yes I believe that's the gist of it....

That and ground the parking brake. I would start with a level 1 reset.

As of 6/2, I am removing my $100 pledge, bringing the current total back to $500. I decided not to wait, and I went with another unit. I amended the title to reflect that I won't be changing it anymore, but perhaps someone else will maintain a running total at the end of this thread. Good luck to all of you who are waiting for the bypass!

Well i tried it and it's a no go for me.

Installed a 1meg pot, tied one side to constant power other side to ground, moved the wire on the Z2 to the secret location, set the center pin to 2.5 volts, unplugged my VSS from the z2, reset unit.

It works until the unit figures out where it is and as soon as it does i get the parking brake improperly connected and then it shuts off the video. I experimented a bit with the voltage but couldn't get it any better. It does delay the video over ride a bit with all this connected but video only stays on for a mile or 2. Let me know if there is anything else i can try or did wrong to test it. The DVM was connected black to center of pot and red to constant power from car.

Oh, I checked the ohm reading on the pot and it was 955k. I also tried this with the constant power off the pot and couldn't get the volt reading below 9 volts with the 1 meg pot.

hope this helps

ahh looks like we wont be sending our checks afterall

Well i tried it and it's a no go for me.

Installed a 1meg pot, tied one side to constant power other side to ground, moved the wire on the Z2 to the secret location, set the center pin to 2.5 volts, unplugged my VSS from the z2, reset unit.

Unplugging the VSS wasn't part of the deal anyway.

Been busy the past 2 weekends, so catching up on the latest and greatest. First, forgive me if my engineering skills are quite dusty, but why all this talk about pots? Seems to me if there is a 5VDC (or 4.88VDC as was pointed out) then it should be a simple matter of tapping that with 2 resistors of approximately equal value to half the voltage. Run that into (pin 20? / bottom right) of connector 2. There should be no need to deal with unregulated vehicle voltage , which obviously will fluctuate based upon load and alternator (hence a volt meter on most dashes with a wide range).

Not knowing the load is the issue, but we can guess it's a relatively low load. That said, attached is a sample circuit that might work here to keep the tolerance as tight as possible to the 2.5VDC rumored to be the sweet spot. This circuit would allow for fine tuning the VDC, keeping it in the general range. It's possible you don't even need the pot if the tolerance (+/- of 2.5VDC) is wide... Anyway, my point is we should be using the Z2's own regulated voltage as input.

Unfortunately, I have no time until next weekend to test any of this out , so hope we have some takers here. When stumped, many times it's helpful to tread old territory. Often we take complex avenues to solutions because the simple solutions where ruled out on based on bad data (faulty test conditions, etc..).

Cheers

Actually there isn't a regulated 5V out like that. The pin that people claimed should be 2.5V is the 5V out. But there is a resistor on the "top" to pull it to 5V. 4.8 actually if I'm not mistaken. So we need to just get a resistor value which pulls down that pin to the 2.5 that is reported to work and reported not to work. We have 2 people who have tried this... one says it works and one says it doesn't work. But I don't think we need to get to complicated making the 2.5V.

Hey guys what if u were to use a light dimmer switch to adjust the voltage going to the 5volt wire and a djust it to the 2.5volts thats needed...I dunno if it would work just trying to help..

Hey guys what if u were to use a light dimmer switch to adjust the voltage going to the 5volt wire and a djust it to the 2.5volts thats needed...I dunno if it would work just trying to help..

Depends on the light dimmer switch. Some are very large pots. Some are pulse modulators. The new pulse modulators are much more common with newer vehicles, they can dim much more power and don't burn off much in the way of heat.

Once we figure out the pull up resistor... All you need is another resistor of the same value between that wire and ground. No variable, no setting... nothing. We just need to figure out what that value needs to be.

I'm in for $50.00 on the bypass

Hi all-- I'm new here so please be gentle. I'm working on installing a new Z2 so I've been reading as much Avic411 content as I can.

But if I interpret this thread properly, a -possible- solution is a stable 2.5V level held on that input wire, correct?

Instead of fiddling with resistors alone...why not use something like this:

http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDet ... -LD1084V25

now if for some reason the input voltage were to drop too much, you could always just tap 12v from the car instead, no? but I would think 4.8v is more than enough to adequately power a linear regulator to only a 2.5v output.

anywho, I'm willing to try it on my Z2 if someone thinks a voltage regulator isn't crazy

Hi all-- I'm new here so please be gentle. I'm working on installing a new Z2 so I've been reading as much Avic411 content as I can.

 

But if I interpret this thread properly, a -possible- solution is a stable 2.5V level held on that input wire, correct?

 

Instead of fiddling with resistors alone...why not use something like this:

http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDet ... -LD1084V25

 

now if for some reason the input voltage were to drop too much, you could always just tap 12v from the car instead, no? but I would think 4.8v is more than enough to adequately power a linear regulator to only a 2.5v output.

 

anywho, I'm willing to try it on my Z2 if someone thinks a voltage regulator isn't crazy

not sure if a voltage regulator is going to work in this case, since the wire rests at 4.8v inputting a 2.5v constant voltage to the wire is not going to make it always 2.5v, its going to take on some voltage from the 4.8 unless you pull the 4.8v down past the 2.5. looks like a simple 1000k (1mohm) 1/4w resisistor might just do the trick all together. <- can someone try this. one side of a 1000k (1mohm) resistor to the pin and the other side to gnd.

While a regulator will probably work, you would have to get one that will output 2.5 V. It's a little overkill when the correct resistor would do the same thing.

And where would you pull power? The car's 12V-15V electrical system? If so, some people will be blowing up regulators. They have a maximum input voltage of 30V and some cars have voltage spikes in the 80V range. Can this take it? Maybe, some will have these things popping or blowing up and "letting their smoke out". You would need to add another resistor and voltage suppression diode for protection.

Can you take it from the regulated 12V out of the amp turn on? You can, that would be safe as a voltage regulation standpoint but maybe the processor needs this 2.5V input sooner than that 12V comes alive.

You can't power this off 5V because the pin people are saying needs to be 2.5 V is the one at 5V. You would have to take power from somewhere else.

And I think someone posted that with a 1M pot without having the one side tied to the car's + line, they couldn't get 2.5V. But I don't know if I believe that.

not sure if a voltage regulator is going to work in this case, since the wire rests at 4.8v inputting a 2.5v constant voltage to the wire is not going to make it always 2.5v, its going to take on some voltage from the 4.8 unless you pull the 4.8v down past the 2.5.

Not really. The 5V or 4.8V on that pin is pulled up with a very large resistor. It would not take too much current to pull that down to 2.5V. And a regulator will do that unless it was pulled to 5V with a low enough resistance such that it would require more current than the regulator could produce. I'm pretty sure the regulator would overpower that pull up and force it to 2.5v.

But I agree it's a bit of an over kill for this solution.

looks like a simple 1000k (1mohm) 1/4w resisistor might just do the trick all together. <- can someone try this. one side of a 1000k (1mohm) resistor to the pin and the other side to gnd.

The necessary resistor would be (my guess) a 1 meg or more. Just a guess. With a car's power system you can make a pull up with a 10K but I don't know if they did.

ok, well i have been playing a bit after looking at all the posts. I posted what i did but it looks like it was wrong. I went back and measured the output of the wire were trying to pull down and that wire to ground with a DVM is 4.8 like stated. I was measuring like i had said to power not ground. So this being the case i went back and readjusted the the pot to ground insted of power to 2.5 and the vid is working when the car is moving but it seems to be mesing up the nav. It knows where it was but never moves other then in circles. i have also noticed for some reson it there are vibration problems in the info screen. I'm still trying to see if it dammaged the unit or what happened. I will let you know.

Oh and with change in how the DMV is hooked i can get 2.5 volts with just grounding one side of the pot and the center to the z2.

Got it all working again and at 2.5 volts it's still a no go. As soon as the unit figures out where it is i get the improper brake connection warning followed by loss of video.

Welcome to the no go club......let's all up the ante. Surely, there's a "magical price" someone is willing to release information or put their time into figuring out this problem.

Surely, there's a "magical price" someone is willing to release information or put their time into figuring out this problem.

Yes there is.... three hundred TRILLION dollars! (pinky finger touching the corner of my mouth).

Hey guys...I got this link Pioneer asking me how happy I am with with my purchase of my Z2..........how should I respond??? I have several but they all involve explicatives.

http://pioneer-usa.rsys1.net/servlet/we ... nshIHsDgLm

Please respond to the above as well, if you can.