OK ICE gurus, need help...

[grtpumpkin]

I installed my Pioneer P3100DVD today and it went really well, took about two hours. However; I cannot get the video bypass to work. I was reading about installing a toggle switch in line with the green parking brake wire (AVIC411.com FTW) but am not sure if this will work. Have any of you with Pioneer non-AVIC HUs had any trouble doing a video bypass? And if so, how did you wire it? Please bear in mind I am no wiring genius, I can follow basic wiring diagrams but thats about it. TIA
Ross

[Kouki]

All I did was wire a switch between my green video wire to a ground. Not the parking brake.

[grtpumpkin]

I was just on the caraudioforum board and it sounds like a toggle in line to ground on the green wire will do it. I just have to switch on-off-on whenever I wanna watch a movie and drive. I'll try it in the morning, Lord i hope this works! BTW, thanks Kouki +rep to ya...

[MetalFit630]

The toggle switch method does work. I've done it for a number of the 3100s and the 4100s. It's really nice that you don't have to bother with relocating pins and such as you do with the AVIC models. Get a toggle for 99 cents and give it a good ground. You'll find you'll have to flip the switch twice or three times to get it to go.

[grtpumpkin]

Well it isn't working for me! Dammit! Ok here is what i have in the form of a crude drawing. --------parking brake switch----------- This is the factory green/orange
_ wire
light green wire
_
_
_
_
switch
_
_
_
ground
Now where have i gone wrong? Am I switching in the wrong place? Or do I just need to make triply sure that the ground is good? When i remove the toggle from the equation with it wired this way the video plays with the PB on but it shuts off when you release the PB (as Pioneer intended) Nothing I do with the toggle changes this with it wired this way. It makes me think I have done something wrong with the wiring, especially if is working for others. Me so frustrated.....

[MetalFit630]

If I'm reading you're drawing right, you have the parking brake wire in there somewhere? If you do, you don't need that. Just take the light green wire from the Pioneer harness, connect it to the switch. Take the other side of the switch and connect it to a good ground. That should take care of it.

[SteveInNC]

What he said.

If you still have the parking brake in-line with that, if the brake is off/free, it will open the circuit to ground. Think of it as having two switches in the wire from the HU to the ground: one that you open and close, and one that the Pbrake opens and closes. Even if yours is closed, when you free the Pbrake, its switch opens, so the circuit to ground is open (aka not connected).

You want to wire from the HU, to your switch, then directly to ground. That way, when you close your switch, the HU thinks that the Pbrake is on, regardless of what the PBrake is doing at the time.

[grtpumpkin]

I had that part figured, I'm just thinking i must have a bad connection in there somewhere. I had the switch wired in after I split off from the green/orange and that didn't work, so I tried the switch on the light green only, with the light green on the far side of the switch going directly to ground. With this set-up the HU wouldn't play video no matter what i tried, PB on, off, toggle on, off didn't matter, no video. I assumed at this point that the toggle i was using was garbage so I replaced it with a better one and STILL it wouldn't work! At that point I gave up and reconmected the light green to the green/orange and called it a day. Is there even a remote chance that my HU (which was mfg in May 2008 according to the sticker on it) has some sort of software in it that won't allow the bypass to function based on a ground interrupt only? AVIC411.com was talking about having to build a relay that uses the switched 12v power line to fool the HU. If I need to go that route then I say screw it I'll watch movies while I'm parked instead of while I'm driving. Thank you all so much for all the help, I appreciate it a lot!

[MetalFit630]

Yeah, that's kind of weird. One thing you should check is for a new firmware upgrade on the Pioneer website. There might be a problem in the firmware since it is an older unit. Otherwise, who knows. All I know is that I've done the toggle switch on at least 10 of those units and I've never seen that type of problem. Though, the Pioneers are famous for little glitches like that.

[grtpumpkin]

What would I do with the firmware upgrade? Download it to a thumb-drive and then plug that into the USB on the HU? Again, I may just resign myself to NOT watching movies while driving. Fortuneately this HU kicks ass in other ways and I love it, movies on the go or not.

[MetalFit630]

You'll download it and put it onto a cd or a dvd. They're typically in the 300-400 mb range. I'm not sure if you can put it onto a flash drive, but you probably can. If you have an SD card slot, you can usually use that as well. Even if you don't see any change in the bypass situation, all Pioneer in-dash units are Windows CE based machines. Hence the boot times. The updates can help with making the unit run faster, booting faster, better response times when you select something in a menu, increase the compatibility, and add/remove features. It's usually one of the first things I do whenever I install an in-dash, be it Pioneer, Alpine, Kenwood or anything else.

[grtpumpkin]

Is there any chance that resetting the HU will allow the ground switch to function? Could I have confused the processor with all this screwing around? I just spent two hours putting about half my music on a thumb drive BTW, did I mention that I love this HU?

[MetalFit630]

Originally Posted by grtpumpkin

Is there any chance that resetting the HU will allow the ground switch to function? Could I have confused the processor with all this screwing around? I just spent two hours putting about half my music on a thumb drive BTW, did I mention that I love this HU?

You can see what happens if you reset, it certainly won't hurt anything. But it probably won't fix anything. And yes, the 3100 is awesome. I like the 4100 better, of course, but it's not really worth the extra money.

[grtpumpkin]

Heres some pics of the Pioneer in its new home! Thanks again for all the help everyone.

Shot with KODAK C360 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2009-08-27

[Fat Ping Cat]

I'm thinking about just soldering the green parking brake wire to the ground wire on the harness so the head unit always thinks the parking brake is on.

this should work right??

[Fitting]

You need a switch so you can ground then unground and ground again. Constant ground will not do it.

[grtpumpkin]

And on my particular HU the switch method is not working either. I have basically written the whole thing off and left it wired so that i can watch movies when parked for now. Later i may explore the "build a relay" avenue, but I'm not sure if I really feel like it.

[MetalFit630]

Originally Posted by grtpumpkin

And on my particular HU the switch method is not working either. I have basically written the whole thing off and left it wired so that i can watch movies when parked for now. Later i may explore the "build a relay" avenue, but I'm not sure if I really feel like it.

Man that stinks. Too bad you don't live in California. It bugs me so much that I want to troubleshoot it for you.

[im the fit]

I love my avhp3100 I installed it about a month ago and it puts out awesome sound with stock speakers!!!

[Fat Ping Cat]

well yeah that really sucks a whole lot then... i guess i'll just put a switch in next to the side mirror adjustment controls then

this is what i ordered:

Sony XAV-W1
I like sony, it seems to have a nice smooth interface, and by the color it should blend into the dash seamlessly

do you guys think i should hook up my remote wire and RCA cables ahead of time so I can add a sub woofer later? I'm not sure how easy it would be to plug those in later once it is all installed.