Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420i in and 2001 E53

[yo_clarkie 0]

I relented and ordered the Intravee from toysinyourcar.com in the UK to go with the KCA-420i I got from trademe for $90 and the 5M AI-Net cable (not needed) also from trademe for $25...

10 days later, a very nice postie asked me to sign for it on a Saturday morning (who knew they delivered parcels by bike on Saturdays?)

Long story short, the C23 BM Oceania tuner on my NZ new car, some of the menu choices cause the unit to loose contact with the tuner and the tuner to default back to radio, the C23 was designed to support only 6 disks, where the C43 or BM53 units support the address space for 10.... So bugger.

The guys at Intravee (I will assume there is more than one, but maybe not) have not encountered the C23 tuner before and have made me three custom software loads in the last 24 hrs over the weekend! I now have a not perfect (not their fault) solution and I guess I am in the market for a new tuner.... The C23 has all the NZ frequencies and was a new NZ unit, it could be for sale very soon So, any concerns over the support for this product from Google or other sources are complete bollocks, these guys rock!

The custom firmware also does a bunch of other things like fold in the mirrors and tell me in cm how far objects are from the parking sensors, and let me adjust the speedo (which is handy as its out by about 5%), and..., and...

SO, I have to fit a chip from the UK to the KCA-420i to stop the ipod going into hibernation and therefore not waking up when I turn the car on, in the meantime I have alarms set on it which will do roughly the same thing, but might run the battery down/out if I don't use the car for a few days, and I need to get a 5V charging adapter from ebay so more modern iPods work OK, (I have a v5 30G Video in there at the moment).

Anyone have a C43 or BM53 going cheap(ish) or want to buy a C23 tuner that works perfectly in NZ - unless you plug it into a Intravee?

Next project begins when the ULM arrives in time for next weekend... And I will order a reversing camera from a forum member this week.... Then maybe the Nav computer... When will it stop?

[jochen 4]

Just remember the C23 oceania radio model (which is what you have) is a direct plug and play replacement for people with a C23 JAPAN tuner

And there are lots and lots of Jap BMWs on the road with C23 Japan radios, so you will find a buyer for your old radio very easily.

[yo_clarkie 0]

update: The very kind folks at Intravee are rewritting their software to support the C23 Radio (will probably pick up support for the Japan version by accident while they are at it (thanks Jochen - didn't realise that) - will have to find someone with one to test to be sure).

I have the first version of the high level menu's already and they are making the menues no more than 6 items long (not 10) to accomidate the C23. Very cool!

I expect this to take less than a week. Anyone with the C23 Japan radio module in AKL wanting to waste an hr to see an Intravee working (or not) in their car a week or two from now let me know?

[yo_clarkie 0]

Just remember the C23 oceania radio model (which is what you have) is a direct plug and play replacement for people with a C23 JAPAN tuner

And there are lots and lots of Jap BMWs on the road with C23 Japan radios, so you will find a buyer for your old radio very easily.

Thanks Jochen, didn't realise that, good news! Intravee are also remaking their software to suit the C23 I have (and I expect that will pick up suppoprt for the C23 Japan), but will test it to be sure.

[hybrid 1043]

Nice work! .. I should really update mine too.

You will love the intravee, its even better on a 16:9 nav screen. Allows FULL control of your ipod and 99% perfect integration with the OEM Nav software.