DICE Silver - Can anyone figure it out?

It is pretty crazy and not well documented (I think they don't want you to know until you buy it and it is too late). Pay attention to page 4 of the manual "Understanding the iPod hierarchy". I don't have it all figured out, but you have to keep switching modes (playlist, track, artist, album) as you navigate down to what you want to play. For example, I listen to podcasts, so I have to select PLAYLIST, then find "air america", then switch to artist (I think) and select "Rachel Maddow", then I think switch to TRACK to select the date of the podcast I really want to hear. Yeah, and you have to keep pressing TEXT to select whether to read the title/author of what is selected or see the preset choices. It is a royal pain.

Their design is limited to what Toyota's radio/controls emit on the bus for DICE to pick up, but it is very unnatural.

I do have several questions:
I have a 2007. Should I use SAT or MP3? What are the differences?
What the heck difference is between SHORT SCROLL, LONG STAT, LONG SCROLL? I don't see any.
What is the max line length for artist, title? Can I change it? Is it the same in SAT/MP3?

Just to repeat. The documentation is barely enough to install the unit, much less use the unit.

 

You got a manual. All I got was an invoice.

I have a 2005 and have had a DICE since 2006. I knew how to make the swap, but that's were it ends. I can't figure out how to go into the SAT mode. Right now all it does is work in the CD2 mode (same as before), but now I can't operate the iPod directly.

I put the old DICE in until I can figure out the sequence.

EDIT: I did a search and found a post where Vagabond explained the settings.

 

Has anyone looked here? is this included with the unit?
http://support.diceelectronics.com/files/users_manual_rev_B01.pdf

Steve

 

When I got my original DICE, yes, but not with the Silverline. Besides, it says the Car Switches are currently inactive, yet that's what changes it to SAT mode.

 

I am getting so frustrated with the DICE unit, that I am seriously thinking of getting an iPod Touch and just using the larger screen of the Touch and going with an Aux-In connection. If the Aux-In connection doesn't have the same volume/gain level as the rest of the stereo options (FM/CD/Satellite), then there might be an argument for the DICE controller, since it has an Aux-In port with adjustable volume/gain as well as bass and treble settings.

 

The sound quality for the Prius' AUX is --definitely-- lower than through the DICE unit. Sorry that you are so frustrated.

I have some issues with the original dice unit not keeping the text on the display. I just hit the audio button on the MFD twice and it comes back.

I just received the Silver dice unit yesterday. I'm hooking that up tonight (Friday) or tomorrow.

---------------

UPDATE: I tried replacing my old DICE unit with the SILVER on Saturday. I only got the Invoice with the unit, no install instructions.

Since I didn't have any instructions with the unit I tried putting it into the same settings as my old unit. Meaning (with the label with bar codes facing the floor) DU UU. I plugged it in and turned on the car and tried playing my iPod. It said "No CD".

I tried UD UU and DD UU and UU UU. The only one that worked in this configuration is UD UU which is MP3 mode.

I then played with the right switches and the best I got was UD DU, the latter two switches putting it into "iPod mode" where you can't do anything on the iPod anymore but have to do everything at the radio and steering wheel controls.

Problems:

1) On the previous unit (Feb 2007) SAT mode was easily the better mode. This is not functional on this unit. The only option is MP3 mode.

2) No matter which way I play music, all of the music itself plays in alphabetical order. I'm not talking about the menus but the songs themselves and I definitely don't have the songs in playlists in alphabetical order.

3) The tuning nob doesn't do anything in UD DU mode.

I called and talked to DICE and they said this is a bad unit and they will be e-mailing me and possibly calling me to swap out this bad unit.

 

I have an 05 w/o nav.
Mine works good. I just put it in friday @ lunch. About 15-20 minutes. Took more time to read info & figure it out than install.
As far as the switches go- sat seems to be the best selection ( I tried cdc then sat). also others have had switch issues and I might note they are toggle switches not slide switches but I did use a safety pin to not break them off.


You are limited in function by the way the ipod sorts & stores misic.

This is how I found it to work....
Sat mode/ sat 1
there you can choose songs, artist, playlist etc. from the channel screen.
If you push text > from there you can read info & scroll through the list and when you stop that is your selection. you can go up from the end or down from the beginning of any list.

From there if you select text again you return to the song/artist /playlist screen. if you select song then text you can scroll through your selected playlist, album or artist.

I have a brand new touch & have not made playlists etc - this is my first ipod & I am still adding music.

As far as scrolling you can use the ^ v or the tuning knob.

For my install I was able to remove the GB, then the right center vent, move the harness for access to plug in the connector. from there I routed the wire along the hinge area of the GB. I wrapped the dice in foam to keep it from rattling and poked it into the area outboard of the GB. In the part of lower gb there are 2 oval holes - I enlarged one just big enough to enable me to push the connector/ dock cable through.

It is a bit awkward to have to push text to see info - but once you get used to it it seems to work great. The sound is much better than am/fm but obviously less quality than the cd's direct. My system does sound pretty good & you also have the female connector to allow your toy-sci/ sat option in the future.

Overall I am very happy with it.
Steve

 

For me it's first in alphabetical order by album, then by song. I cured that by putting a number (01-, 02- and so on) in front of the album in the order I want the songs to play. I have the switches for SAT mode and it works fine now. I can use the knob to select song, playlist or album and the songs play in the order I set them up originally.

Let us know how that comes out. If it's a bad unit and it solves the problem I might do the same.

 

OK, I'm being REALLY dense. I just got a Silver model and I want to put it in Satellite/iPod mode. What switch settings do I use? Please use something like xx xx using u for up and d for down. I need it really simple. It's been a long week.

PS: When they sent me the Silver they didn't include any instructions. I don't remember where the instructions are for my original dice unit. I went online to the dice site and all I could find was the BWM instructions and they were not clear at all for "me" as to what the DIP settings should be.

 

SAT for my 2005 is dd uu. It looks like the first 2 determine if it's CD2, MD, MP3 or SAT, while the last 2 determine how much control the DICE has over the iPod.

 

Thanks.

 

Hi everybody.
I have got my Silverline since a week now.
I live in France and it works on European Prius (MD and CDC mode in my Prius)

If that can help, I've scanned some pages of the owner manual :
"Dice.pdf" shows how to browse in different modes (I did'nt put MD, it's exactly the same as CDC).
"Switches.pdf" shows the switches configuration for silver line.

I"m pretty happy with my Dice, but I find the level of sound through the Dice is far weaker than the other inputs (radio, CD).
How about you ?

 

For some reason, I can't open your PDFs.

I did notice that I have to increase the volume when I'm using the iPod. It used to be comfortable at 30; now I have to increase it to 40. This difference is between my original DICE and the Silverline.

 

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. With the car off I made sure the switches were set to dd uu, plugged the unit into the car, turned on the car, hooked up my iPod and pushed the button for CDs on the car and is says, "no CD found".

I have the DICE Silver until with the flat side with the serial number pointing to the floor with dd uu. I can get it to work in MP3 mode but people say that isn't as good. Any ideas?

 

You have it set to work in SAT mode, so you need to hit your SAT button or AM. I have a 2007 Touring base model, which can do SAT if I hit the AM button when the DICE is set to SAT. I went back to using CDC emulation, though, because I found it easier to navigate.

I purchased my DICE unit about 2 weeks ago. I think I have this thing figured out in my car. It's not perfect, but I've learned to work with it. With the DICE in CDC mode and IPOD locked (switches uu uu), I can navigate the ipod completely from the steering wheel:

Mode to CD changer.
Hit "Title" on the MFD.
Hold up or down to change "discs" (to playlist or artist then album)
Select a playlist or artist
Hold up or down to go to "track"
Hit up or down to navigate tracks.

I use playlists extensively in Itunes and on my Ipod, so my library is pretty well organized. The interface is cumbersome, but I like it much better than having to look at the Ipod and have the crappy FM transmitter sound.

The things I am most annoyed about are the short text lines (about 19 characters from what I can tell) and the fact that shutting off the car does not stop the Ipod. I have to turn the radio off before shutting down the car.

Other than that I haven't experienced anything out of the ordinary. I am not looking forward to some of the experiences I have read about here, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the DICE will continue to work for me.

----
Nate
2007 Touring
Barcelona Red

 

Thanks Nate,

We have the same year and model that you do and the same color.

I'll try it your way (CDC mode). I too almost only play PlayLists and not by album, etc.

What irritates me most is that it didn't come with any instructions and the instructions on the website are for a BMW and it looks like a committee wrote them.

Bill

 

That sucks that you didn't get instructions. The pages that panoupanou graciously scanned are the only ones that actually help. Figureing out the interface is a matter of hunting and pecking as the "manual" is very general and lacks details that would be nice to know.

Playlists are the easiest way to go. I also have success choosing Artist, then Album, then Track in that order. Otherwise I get lost.

Some other observations:

Hitting Random on the MFD randomizes the playlist.

Pressing Disc Repeat on the MFD causes the playlist to repeat.

The up and down buttons on the MFD fast forward and rewind a few seconds for each press, or hold for continuous ff and rw.

The repeat and random settings need to be deselected before turning off the radio or the Ipod will have repeat and shuffle selected in its settings.

One thing I forgot to mention, I am using an IPod Classic 80gb with the most recent software update.

 

Are you using "Sound Check" on your IPod? If so, deselect it and try that. Or is it the Aux input level that is lower?

 

Yes, actually the problem was with my Ipod settings. I don't use level features anymore and I normalized all my mp3 at 0dB.
Now it sounds good.

Thx.