raphy3

Wow that is generous. Definitely above and beyond. I still have only the display problems so am not in as dire need as some of the people without climate control. I will wait for your thread and take a place in line after the more urgent ones have gone.
Really above and beyond. cheers.

J_Owens

sorry guys been to busy to come on here, i am down to send mine around as well how ever version 1.1 update just recently gave me some errors, i did the update and everything was working great, however the other day i realized the ac and heat buttons were not functioning anymore, i did not realize this until i went to use it, the reason i did not notice is because before when it would lock up the green led light on the fresh air button would always be locked on, so i always put it to recycle air, and the orange light has been on ever since the update so i figured it was working since it was always on, but i went to use it the other day and it was not working, also the display went all crazy on me the other day as well pretty irritationg when you can tell if your defrost is on or not, espescially the rear, atleast the front you can tell.

But i got an email saying that update 1.2 is available, so i am going to update it again and hopefully have this issues go away, i also emailed them my current issues with 1.1 and asked if they will be fixed with the 1.2 error, i dont know who is sending the cables or what the selection process is but im just glad i am on of them lol, it was someone on here that pm'd me saying they were the designer of the product, maybe they only had so many to ship? i dont know.

hey roller did you get the same email about 1.2? if so have you updated yet? and have you had any issues yet? i would like to update asap but dont know when i will be able to, i have just been super busy, maybe this weekend if i get some time i will try it and let you guys know how it goes, and yes i will be glad to send it around once i have a stable update

raphy3

lol how hilarious. let's face it: we're guinea pigs.
Funny because one of the metra tech support guys I talked to said that they were shocked to see these issues pop up and that nothing showed up during their testing... must have been pretty "extensive"
A separate tech support guy told me it was difficult to reproduce these "incredibly rare" errors that we all here on the RX8 club are getting....

rollerbldes

J_Owens: Uhh.. I did get notified on the 1.2 update, but as far as I know it only fixes issues with the bugs I reported. (Time being fast, and micro display glitches). Perhaps your unit did not successfully update to 1.1? I do not have your glitches and you don't have mine. This makes me wonder..

raphy3: yeah metra is not very good at these issues. However, the designer of the board had no problems recognizing and working promptly on the bugs. As far as testing.. their testing of one or two cars can no way reproduce the potential problems of hundreds of RX-8 owners. Murphy's law.

J_Owens

hey yeah roller your right, i went ahaead and just did the 1.2 update, was totally different then the first time i tried the 1.1 version lol, it actually brought up the bootloader screen and updated and said successful update to version 1.2, i did it on a different computer last time and was in a rush, took my time this time and got it right, i will stick it in the car and see what happens. didnt want to wait till this weekend so did it while at work =) lol, well ill keep you guys updated.

J_Owens

before i put it back together i have a question, has anyone thought of just leaving the plastic off the board and just sticking the board in there by it self with out putting the big bulky box to make more space and have it fit better? would this be a good idea to leave the board in there with out the plastic box or no?

raphy3

Well, as to whether it is a good idea or not, I'm not sure about that. But the purpose the box serves is to basically protect the PCB, especially from any of the metal parts touching anything else. What you can do is pry off the top part, but leave the PCB sitting on the flat bottom part, then use electrical tape and wrap it all the way around the PCB plus plastic bottom part to do two things: 1)fix the PCB in its plastic holder so it won't move, and plastic holder will give it some rigidity so the PCB won't easily snap in two, and 2) isolate the top of the PCB from any potential shorts when it's sitting there under the dash. The top part takes up the most space. Taking the bottom of the box off as well would free up a little more space, but then I'd be worried about rigidity of the PCB stuffed under the dash there.

Roller you are too right about murphy's, lol

Toxic Gecko

J_Owens and Roller, are you the only "testers" on the board? I wonder how one is able to become a tester. (hint hint, nudge nudge to the person that decides this )

Also, when you update the box, does the updater program connect to the internet and use the most recent version or do you have to download the most recent version prior to each update? I'm asking because if I can use a local installers cable, I can just take my laptop with me and do it there. But if an internet connection is needed, that changes things up a bit. I guess I can find a Starbucks or McD's and jump on their WiFi instead of going all the way back home to do it.

Holiday

Ok, I broke down and ordered mine today, got tired of burning CD's... For those of you with the Bose system, was there any problems with the install? Someone else was speculating it might be a pain dealing with the Bose amp vs. the built in amp of aftermarket headunits.

rollerbldes

Well the program you download from metra is the updater. You run the updater and it downloads the most recent bootloader. That bootloader is what updates your device. So you do not need a constant internet connection, but you do need it to download the most recent bootloader.

J_Owens

got some news, it is indeed ok to just leave the board in there but yes wrap it with electrical tape, or you can wait as extensions are in the works =) i am very excited about that, after doing the 1.2 update last night i went to use my ac today and i was getting hot air and not cold air, my ac was working fine before so i know its not my ac, yes the ac light is on and yes its set to cold, but no cold air.

also i talked to the guy about sending the cable around and asked if it was ok to do so, because i didnt want to just send it around and have them be expecting it back and send me a bill if i didnt send it back, but he said that it was fine to send around but wait for a stable update before i did so which i am going to do, so once i get a stable update i will be glad to send to who ever needs it.

um i think thats it for now, im not sure yet how the extensions are going to work, weather they will be selling seperate to people who already bought it, or sending them out free to who already bought it, or adding them in the new kits that are being produced.

as for updating you go to the site to download the firmware, download it, then plug the usb cable into the computer and it will use the internet to find what it is, so yes you will need internet when you get ahold of the cable to the computer can recognize what it is, run the usb bootloader and it will update, how ever i dont know what version is on the web site, for version 1.2 i was sent them via email and copied the files into the bootloader file on the computer and pasted them there and ran bootloader and it picked up version 1.2.

however version 1.2 the clock still runs fast, the 2 people working on it they werent in sync, they are in sync now and are expecting to have another update sometime after the weekend.

Holiday

Hopefully there will be a 1.3 update available by the time I get the kit next Wednesday. Being the impatient person I am, I actually bought the USB cable from installer.com. Once I'm able to apply a stable update, I don't mind passing the cable around to someone else that may need it.

nuke0907

iTrader: (2)

my buddy works at F.A.R. down there in Jax. he said he'll hook me up with an update when i come down there this weekend. BTW, holiday, we're having a meet at Sonic on Beach Blvd on Sunday at 1pm. check out my thread in the SE section.

Toxic Gecko

Ahh, got it, thanks.

bureau13

Can anyone confirm that the actual cable really looks just like this? If its only four wires then I don't think they have any security in that cable. If its really just a standard .010" 4-pin header that it plugs into, there might be nothing special about this cable at all.

jds

matthew121

so does anyone have 1 of these in there car yet?

DeViLbOi

iTrader: (1)

Nope...all of the pictures were photoshopped and all the bugs that have been reported are fake.

raphy3

If you simply mindlessly follow the directions that come with the metra kit, as you might do because you expect it all to just work, you will end up driving your Bose amp with your HU's amp. The result is your speakers' volume will be through the roof and you will need to turn your HU volume way down. Some HU's like mine come with built in level offsets in addition to the normal volume control. This allows you to have your volume at perfectly reasonable levels and not have to have your HU volume setting to some really low number. But you're still going to hear white noise when everything is quiet because you're still dumping two amps into your speakers. The solution is to hook your preouts from your HU into the speaker leads in the metra kit, bypassing the powered speaker leads in your HU harness. This will provide the Bose amps with a much lower input level and should bring your volume to reasonable levels. So for one thing, not that anyone on here would do otherwise, but if you have the Bose system do not buy an HU that doesn't have preouts. Well, I dunno if you can actually buy HU's without preouts anyway.

I lold at that one.

J_Owens

yes i can confirm that

that is what the usb cable looks like

J_Owens

even tho that is what the cable looks like im sure you cant replicate it because when you plug it in to the computer the pc says new hardware is found and ask's if you want to install it automatically which is recomended and ask's if you can connect to internet to find what it is, you click yes that you are connected to internet and it finds it for you to install it properly, if you just get a usb cable and put a 4 pin connector to it i dont think it will find it or install it correctly, like roller said im sure there is a chip in it or somehting for the computer to recognize what it is when you install it, you install the cable first before pluging it into the board then once the cable is installed thats when you plug the usb into the board and open bootloader and update it, unless you know a way around it i dont know, just my opinion

rollerbldes

REGARDING THE CABLE PLEASE READ MY POST

https://www.rx8club.com/showpost.php...&postcount=511





^^No you went too far.. Click on the link above^^

DeViLbOi

iTrader: (1)

And in case you missed it. :P

bureau13

I actually did read that before, but forgot about it. Based on what J_Owens said about "installing" the cable however, I would guess its a bit more than just a serial-to-usb converter. Many USB cables have a one-wire device but those are easy to read. However, if they've incorporated some of the anti-cloning capability that might be a problem. I was talking to one of my guys who does USB development though, so I wouldn't rule it out just yet...

jds

raphy3

Ok forget my previous info about just using the RCA connectors if you have the Bose. I went ahead and hooked up my RCA's instead of my speaker level outs and everything sounded great at first. BUT the low white noise level was still there when everything was silent. It's like the Bose amp is driving the speakers too hard or something. EDIT to add: Ok I went back to the speaker level inputs from my HU and the white noise coming from the speakers is more noticeable with this configuration than it was with the RCA inputs. So going with RCA inputs is going to help on that side of things.

And there were more problems: I opened my car door and then shut it. I got mid frequency noise out of my speakers that eventually dies off. Ok, I though I could live with that. But then when turning on the lights, if using the dimmer I got some nice ugly mid frequency noise that only went away when I turned off the dimmer.
Last, when turning on the lights I got a nice high pitched noise coming out of my tweeters. The actual music sounded fine. I don't want to know what happens when i turn the engine on though.

Ah well, looks like I'm going back to using the speaker level outs. I don't want to go buy ground loop isolators and then actually try and fit them back in that cramped space. I can live with the white noise level I guess until I can dump the Bose amp+speakers in front. It really looks like bypassing the amp is going to be the only solution.

Update: I think the sound with RCAs is better (less white noise, see above), so we simply need some ground loop isolators to get rid of the noise that comes in when turning on lights, dimming, and opening doors.

And to install the ground loop isolators, I ain't doin that myself, lol. I've spent too much time on this install already. Next time I get around to doin something about it, I'll take it to a shop and have them put in the isolators for me. I'll probably get my firmware updated at the same time. The white noise level isn't that noticeable and is bearable till then.

rollerbldes

I think you're thinking too much into it. I have received confirmation that my info is indeed 100% correct.