Factory look gps on ebay

The best I can do is point you to the attached Toyota document, that covers the fitment of the JBL speakers. It helps because it shows how all the panels come apart. I should have taken some photos, but didn't think of it at the time.

I removed the upper glove box (pulls out easily enough) the two vent panels right at the side of the dash, the side curtain airbag furry panel (pull towards centre of car, don't forget the hidden fastener that needs to be turned 90 degrees inside the partially removed cover), the horizontal furry panel underneath it (which came out when I pulled the curtain airbag cover off, which was a tough job) and the front dash speaker panel. I fitted the antenna right under the windscreen, next to the front dash speaker, tucked the wire under the dash, around the speaker (under its cover), down the side of the dash (under the furry cover beneath the triangular window) and then along behind the top glove box and into the space where the radio fits.

To ease putting the curtain airbag cover back, I found it useful to slip a bit of heavy gauge polythene sheet between that panel and the furry horizontal panel where they meet at the front edge. This minimises the risk of damage to the surface and makes sliding the panel back home a bit easier, although pulling the polythene sheet out can be hard - use some strong stuff.

Some of the panels are tough to remove, but a good solid pull will always get them off. Make sure you pull in the right direction though. The top glovebox, and both side airvents (top one first) come off by pulling towards you, not up. The speaker cover (the last panel you remove) has to be lifted up at the rear edge, then angled slightly as it's removed to disengage the front fastenings.

Hope this helps rather than hinders.

Jeremy

 

Thank-you Jeremy, that was a big help. I was envisioning having to lift the entire dash pad.

I have replaced my dash speakers so am familiar with removing most of those parts. I plan on putting my GPS antenna in the center of the dash, right up against the windshield. The black cable should be easy enough to hide at the base of the windshield.

 

Hi Jeremy, Did you try to connect a reversing camera to the HU ? the ebay item descirbes "High speed camera alert function Or connect reversing radar function" So not sure what it actually means by this, but the PDF you posted does seem to indicate it can take a camera feed and display it when reversing. Any idea if the camera input is PAL ? or NTSC ? or does it take the inputs from the 4 reversing sensors to display something rather then the factory beeping.
I think i will be getting one for my prius, im in australia, so also right hand drive.

 

I just hooked up the reversing camera I had already fitted, which is an eBay one intended for a Camry and the same (or similar) to those others here have fitted. It works fine, the only slightly cryptic connection on the whole unit was that the wire from the head unit that senses you're in reverse is marked "CCD", rather than "Reverse". It's a yellow wire (I think) that comes from the camera input connector. There's also a front camera video connector. The camera works fine, as soon as you select reverse the image comes up. I have my reverse camera powered up all the time the car is on and just use the reverse wire from the reversing lights to switch the head unit mode. I can't recall whether the camera is NTSC or PAL, my guess is that the unit autodetects, as it says "PAL/NTSC" in the spec.

I can't see any input for reversing sensors, but to be honest there were a lot of connectors on the back that I didn't use. There is one that's marked as a USB output, but it's not a standard USB connector and there was no plug to fit it. I may contact the seller and ask if this is a rear USB connector and if he can supply a connector, as the unit will apparently run a USB hard drive.

One thing to watch is whether or not Australian spec cars follow the EU wiring pattern. We know that the US spec cars are different in terms of the audio wiring to EU cars. Here we have an under-seat audio power amp that is switched by a single wire from the head unit. This amp runs the front door speakers. On US spec cars this amp is switched via a CANBUS signal. Also, the antenna connector on EU spec cars is a rectangular plastic thing, with the power feed for the antenna amp integrated as one of its pins. US spec cars have a traditional antenna connector and separate wire for the power feed. The unit actually has a traditional style antenna connector but comes with a ready-wired up EU style adapter.

The seller was very helpful, so my guess is that it might be an idea to double check with him first.

Jeremy

 

Jeremy, do u know what SiRF GPS chip version is used? SiRF IV? BTW - the unit looks great.

 

I don't know which GPS the unit uses as there is no information on it. What I can say is that it acquired 6 satellites very quickly when I first powered it up, much faster than the Kenwood, even though it was powering up from a cold start.

I agree, the unit does look pretty good, better than I thought it would. It still has some quirks, and I've discovered that the RDS doesn't work as intelligently as it does on some radios (in particular the AF switching threshold seems high, meaning lots of frequency changes with a slight pause as it switches), but overall I think I can live with it. I'm currently trying to get Memory Map running on it, so that I can have a proper moving map display when I'm not using the nav system, but it's proving to be a challenge. I'm sure I'll get it to work, it's just a matter of playing with settings in WinCE.

 

Good to know. i think the Chinese units have some simple, software driven FM radio module, without a good, wired RDS functionality, as there is not RDS in China/HK. For the good RDS there has to be 2 FM tuners monitoring the quality of signal to allow seamless station freqency switch.
Did you hack the unit to get inside WinCE user interface behind the factory startup screen? How about BT SW button functionality? Are you able to pickup a call via SW button (if you have it)? BTW -how much you paid including tax&duty? Do you have a 22EUR equivalent limit in UK to be duty free?

 

I am sure you are right about the RDS only using a single receiver rather than two. It explains the slight pause as the unit changes frequency. Having said that, the Kenwood did the same and would sometimes spend maybe ten seconds searching for the next frequency in a poor signal area.

I can get in to Win CE by loading CECMD.exe (CE Commander) on a micro SD card and then pointing the GPS button at that file (the unit allows you to set the file path for the GPS software). Once in CE Commander you can pretty much run anything that's on the unit. The problem I have at the moment is that the on-screen keyboard utility I'm running, jotkbd.exe, won't let me edit a registry entry that points Memory Map to the correct Com port. I'm using the Simple Registry Editor for Win CE (also loaded on the microSD card) and when I open a registry entry to edit the Com port number it lets me delete the old one but the numeric keys won't add the new one. I'm currently searching the web to try and find a fix!

I haven't tried the BT buttons yet, when I do I'll report back.

I paid a total of just under £281 (~ €312) including shipping, tax and duty. The package was valued at $55 for customs................ We do have the same €22 limit for tax and duty here.

 

Visit my install gallery, maybe you find some ideas for you install.
PriusChat Forums - PaJa's Album: Chinese HU - QL-TYT965

 

jeremy, good pricing and seller's approach + DHL fast processing=fast delivery. Try to connect the std. USB keyboard via USB port, maybe it will work.

 

It looks like these devices are actually three units internally, rather than two as I thought. This means that the USB port seems to connect only to the DVD/music playback part, as does the right hand SD card. The GPS and navigation part is WinCE based, and it seems that the WinCe system also acts as the main control and video switching interface. The radio is separate and only sent control signals from the WinCE part.

There is a USB port that seems to be connected to the WinCE side, but as far as I can tell this may be the rear one that uses a special connector.

I've had no luck editing the registry to get Memory Map yet, so may try running Oziexplorer to get a moving map display instead. I don't think that Oziexplorer needs a registry hack to be able to see the GPS com port, which should get around the problem I'm having with Memory Map.

I have used the car a fair bit today and can report that generally the performance of this unit is very good. The radio reception is at least as good, if not better, than the Kenwood and significantly better than the original Toyota head unit. RDS AF switching is OK, not perfect, but acceptable. My only slight criticism of the radio is that there is a little sibilance on speech. Maybe the equalizer needs adjusting. The nav system performance is excellent, it acquires lock much faster than the Kenwood and iGO8 really does work very well indeed. Sound quality when playing MP3 files from the microSD card is also excellent, with no trace of the slight sibilance that's noticeable on the radio. The only slightly unusual feature is that the sound mutes when the reverse camera comes on. It's not really a problem, just a bit odd. The display is good, nice and sharp and bright enough even in sunshine. The high display resolution of 800 x 480 (compared to the Kenwood) makes for a great image but does make the poorer quality signal from the rear view camera noticeable. I wish I'd invested in the CCD version, as that may well give a better picture.

Overall I'm very pleased with this unit. The only things I'd like to improve are the radio sound quality and the way that the RDS AF part works, but neither issue is a big problem.

Jeremy

 

Thanks for the updates, looks like this made it onto my shopping list.

 

I can let you have a customised version of iGO8 with UK/Europe mapping that will be plug and play on this unit if you want it. The alternative is to faff around for an hour or two setting configuration files in iGO to make it work (which is what I had to do).

Overall I don't think you will be disappointed with this unit, it seems to offer good value and works well. The only slight flaw is the way it handles RDS radio, but this is a small flaw in an otherwise very good unit for the price.

Jeremy

 

I'm guessing that Soling (the manufacturer) has focussed on their domestic market and established sales areas, which means Hong Kong, Australasia and maybe Japan and the UK. There are already two other manufacturers making essentially very similar units for the LHD market, Fly Audio and Rosen/Caska, although at the moment there seems to be a rather inexplicable price differential between them.

It might be worth doing some digging around to find where the Fly Audio and Rosen units really come from, then see if you can buy direct. I'm guessing that you'd probably get the same unit for half the price if bought direct from China, albeit without the benefit of a proper warranty or support from a local agent.

FWIW, this seller has emailed me today to check that I'm still happy with the unit and to ask if I have any problems. I gave him decent ebay feedback last week, which he acknowledged, so I'd say that he's trying hard to provide as good a customer service as is practical from so far away.

Jeremy

 

Thanks, i appreciate the offer and may well take you up on it!

Did you have a go with TomTom at all as that's the system i am used to?

 

Yes, I have the same response from him. He is a nice guy, but could not offer more for LHD world.

 

I haven't tried TomTom on this unit, but it worked fine on the 2 DIN Chinese HU I had fitted for a while, so I can't see why it wouldn't work. If I get a spare half hour I'll load it on a card and see if it will run.

To be honest, I was a die-hard TomTom fan until I first used iGo8. It's so much better than TomTom in many ways that I doubt I'd change back now.

 

Ok, interesting, that makes me a little more confident in iGo8. I tried a friends' garmin the other day and didn't like the UI at all.

 

One other quick Q, does it have pre-outs on this HU? i've got a sub my wife keeps asking me to install in the prius but i didn't want to mess around with the high level outputs from the original HU.