Replacement of Alpine IVA-NAV-10

[dpeilow]

Connect the reverse input on the Pioneer's loom to the existing reverse input in the Tesla loom. On my car it was a short length of red wire with a bullet connector on the end. But after a few centimetres in the Tesla loom it was spliced to an orange wire coming from the Alpine reverse camera interface.

Then in the Pioneer's menu there is a setting to automatically switch to the reverse camera which is available after you have turned the option for a reverse camera on. That's all there is to it.

 

[markwj]

Hi David,

I put the Pioneer in several months ago. The installer could not get the reverse camera activation working (although I can select it manually). I think it's probably a voltage level issue. How did you fix it?

Had a lot of problems with mine (but that was a Parrot). We thought it was voltage level. Messed around with diodes. In the end, the issue was a setting buried deep in the head unit configuration menu to enable automatic activation of the reversing camera display when reverse gear is enabled. Doh.

 

[dpeilow]

So yesterday I embarked solo on part 2 of the radio install. I had to get the DAB antenna installed and resolve the issue with Android Auto not working properly through the phone holder. (For our North American friends: DAB is basically HD radio in the rest of the world, but it operates at ~200 MHz rather than existing FM frequencies.)

I read on a Lotus forum that they glued a strip of alu foil down the inside of the A pillar to get a ground plane. That seemed cheap and sensible so I did the same. I folded mine over to make a 4 ply strip for strength.

Now I was able to stick on the glass mount antenna and connect it to the alu foil, then pass the other end of the foil under the washers of some structural bolts I found near the fuse box. With hindsight I should have put the antenna closer to the A pillar but it was stuck tight pretty quickly.

Next I had to recover the other end of the USB cable on my phone holder which Neil had connected to the extension cable under the lower part of the centre console. This was the longest part of the job as I wasted well over an hour trying to find the last screws holding the upper part of the console in place - turns out there are a couple of M6 bolts either side of the VDS screen that were well hidden by some wires in there.

Anyway, once I got that out I was able to recover the phone holder and confirmed everything worked well when plugged directly into the radio.

I then found a more direct and very easy to thread route up into the radio bay to the right of the VDS location. Not even Neil knew about this one! (See white cable in pics below)

After that it was just a matter of reassembling everything (20 minutes when you know how) and then sticking the A pillar trim back in with double sided tape.

Here you can see the location of the phone mount and Android Auto doing it's thing. It all seems to be behaving itself now and you can see that as soon as I put the phone in its holder I got the cards for the route to work and the weather at work. The DAB reception was fine all the way to work (apart from under one bridge where even the Ampera's excellent factory radio drops out).

This is a revelation in sound quality and UI compared to the old Alpine and overall I am very happy with the result.

Now all that remains is for Tesla so send me some more air bag clips (the first attempt failed as only 2 made it through the post - I suggest a better envelope) and to trim a couple of millimetres off the fascia around the radio to get it to sit flush...

 

[dpeilow]

Solved the background image file issue.

 

[dpeilow]

I mentioned before in the thread that my reversing camera had stopped working about a week before I even started looking at the radio swap.

Well last night it decided to work - just one time. I'm not sure if it was because it was raining or because I was reversing down a slope, but either way it proves that the stock Alpine camera interface definitely does talk to this Pioneer unit ok.

 

[dpeilow]

One more update so others can avoid the pitfalls.

Once I had plugged the phone holder in directly, I got all functions working but the Android Auto stuff would sometimes lock up ten minutes after starting, other times it would run all journey. Starting two functions at once (say Google Maps and Music) or using the voice recognition would often cause a lock up.

I wondered if Android Auto needs USB 3.0 and if it was a bandwidth issue with the cable on the phone holder, so I popped the head unit out again and plugged the USB extension back in to the Android Auto enabled port. Then I used my phone's supplied USB cable to plug in to the radio directly.

Sure enough after 4 hours of driving this weekend, it was operating flawlessly.

So the conclusion seems to be that the Brodit phone holders - at least the one I got two years ago - do not have a high enough quality USB cable to run Android Auto without issues. I may now remove mine or at least upgrade it.

 

[Mark77a]

Fabulous Info David - this, positive sharing, is what makes TMC (and UK) forums excellent communities. THANK YOU !!!

 

[Jonathanm]

Thank you David for this great write up...I am now at the same stage using an Android 6.0 double din head unit. The camera is working fine with no modification. I don't understand the wiring connections in the ISO unit as on the Alpine unit all the connections (apart from the modules) seem to come from the ISO connector - its very easy to see the speaker wires as they are twisted as a pair, the power supplies are all fine - but for the life of me don't seem to be able to get any sound from the speakers.

Referring to the attached image where do the wires " Pin no. 2 Audio interrupt in Lead" and pin No 10 "Remote turn on Lead" connect? I cannot make head or tail of neither the Alpine wiring instructions and also the Tesla wiring plan...

Thanks for any input you may have.

Jonathan

 

[supersnoop]

Thank you David for this great write up...I am now at the same stage using an Android 6.0 double din head unit. The camera is working fine with no modification. I don't understand the wiring connections in the ISO unit as on the Alpine unit all the connections (apart from the modules) seem to come from the ISO connector - its very easy to see the speaker wires as they are twisted as a pair, the power supplies are all fine - but for the life of me don't seem to be able to get any sound from the speakers.

Referring to the attached image where do the wires " Pin no. 2 Audio interrupt in Lead" and pin No 10 "Remote turn on Lead" connect? I cannot make head or tail of neither the Alpine wiring instructions and also the Tesla wiring plan...

Thanks for any input you may have.

Jonathan

I wouldn't worry about wire 2. Wire 10 is the wire that tells the amp to turn on, which would enable the speakers. Assuming, of course, that there is an amp running the speakers.

 

[Jonathanm]

Thanks for the reply - yes there are amps running the speakers - somewhere in the bowels of the car....I do have 1 amp cable on the head unit...BTW do you know if wire 10 is looking to see +ve or -ve...

Thanks,

Jonathan

 

[supersnoop]

Thanks for the reply - yes there are amps running the speakers - somewhere in the bowels of the car....I do have 1 amp cable on the head unit...BTW do you know if wire 10 is looking to see +ve or -ve...

Let me be clear; I have no experience with the head unit you're installing or the original Alpine head unit. I'm speaking from my past experience with stereo systems in other vehicles.

I'm under the impression that the image you included is the pinout for the Alpine head unit. It should be sending a 12v+ signal on wire 10. It should connect to the amp, likely to something labeled "remote." It's used to signal the amp to turn on. This wire is sometimes labeled "power antenna," because it's used to raise a power antenna when the radio is turned on.

 

[Jonathanm]

Thank you very much - thats exactly the sort of information that I was after...

 

[katiecota1229]

does anyone know if a

DMH-1500NEX would fit in a 2010 Tesla Roadster sport. The dimensions right now says the alpine IVA-NAV-10 dimensions are 10.7x10x8.7 inch and the pioneer stereo is reading at 11 x 9.5 x 6 inches? its a little larger in one section would that make that big of a difference?​