Modeler

It turns out that the 2007 GS that I just got has not one but two VAIS Tech units: SLS and SLi. It seems that two units were installed to provide both the Sirius satellite radio and iPod integration. This seems like a ridiculously complicated set up.

I'm having some weird electrical glitches with my car's navigation and other electronics, as well as with the iPod integration. The two are likely related, and I want to disconnect the VAIS units to see if it will take care of the problems.

One of the units -- SLS -- is easily accessible behind the carpet on driver's side. I went ahead and disconnected all wires from it and removed it. I was hoping that the units were connected in a chain, and disconnecting SLS would disconnect both.

However, it appears that the SLi is still plugged into the head unit (I can see messages from it on the stereo in the CD Changer mode, although it is no longer functioning as before). Does the head unit have that many connections on the back? If someone has installed two VAIS units in their cars, please shed the light on how the units are wired into the factory stereo. It looks like I may need to disassemble the dash or find the other VAIS unit to get it disconnected as well.

This is frustrating. I didn't even know that the car had iPod integration when I bought it (nor did I really want it), and now it's causing me grief. I also thought that Sirius receiver was directly integrated with the head unit just like the XM receiver was on my previous GS. Now, given that VAIS SLS unit is used, I'm not even sure that the Sirius receiver is the OEM unit.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

what kind of problem do you have? with the ipod or sirius or nav? maybe you can elaborate more on the situation

i have done install of two units on the same car. it's just as straight forward as doing one. all the units are daisy chained together basically. they should affect one another. sls/sl2xmt and sli can co-exist. both units are plugged in to the back of the head unit

of course, there are a a lot of ways to place the vaistech units so i can't say exactly where the sli is placed. i just wonder why would the sls be placed in the driver side. i would never want anything there. if anything passenger side would be more appropriate

post up more information and see if those of us with vais can help

twylie

iTrader: (3)

I have 2 VAIS units, the SL2xmt and SL2i-UP. I installed them in September and they have functioned perfectly ever since. The only "trick" I was told by the tech support people was that you have to install and configure each one individually, then daisy chain them together.

My guess is that by removing the one unit, you broke the "chain" in the communications wiring causing the lack of functionality in the remaining unit.

General idea below:

Normal:
wiring -> head unit

w/ 1 VAIS:
wiring -> VAIS -> VAIS wiring -> head unit

w/ 2 VAIS:
wiring -> VAIS1 -> VAIS1 wiring -> VAIS2 -> VAIS2 wiring -> head unit

my drawings are overly simplistic as the VAIS wiring is actually a Y w/ one leg connecting to original wiring and the other going into the head unit or into the wiring receiver on the second VAIS.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

yup, that's pretty much what to do. install each individually and initialize, and then daisy change them (order doesn't matter) and it should work just fine

Modeler

Thank you all for the information, it has been very helpful. Understanding that the two units were daisy-chained helps.

I have gone back and played more with the system. The iPod integration is working now, albeit still in a very buggy way. I have a 5th generation Nano and the key bug that is consistently manifesting itself is this:

If I turn on the car and then connect the iPod, everything is working perfectly. However, if I switch to FM radio or turn off the Audio altogether, the system would not work when I come back to the CD Changer screen -- it is frozen on the last song title that played before I switched, no sound come out, and Folder and Track controls do nothing.

The only way to get out of this funk is to turn off the car and then turn it back on again.

Has anyone encountered such a problem? Tim from thewirelessdoctor.com checked out my car and thought it was some incompatibility with my newer iPod that could be fixed by the firmware update. He did NOT run into this problem when using his iPod Classic with my car.

I'm going to borrow an older iPod from one of the friends and see if the problem is really a compatibility issue. I'm also going to give VAIS tech support a call now that I have a concrete repeatable issue that I can describe to them.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

the sli is a very old module by vaistech, i doubt if they still have firmware support on that. i also agree with tim, it's like an ipod compatibility issue. vaistech has taken off the page for sli so i can't find the manual online anymore, but i think i read before that the sli only support certain older generation of ipod.

and the fact that tim uses his old ipod and works fine that's another clue

definitely call up vais support, talked to them before and they are always very helpful

good luck, post back and see how we can help