Tom_ES300

I've bought the Aux input adaptor for my 2000 ES300. I've had some success with it but there is still a problem. See here:
click for the Autotoys formum

The sound of my mp3 player is so much better now.

Tom

docrings

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Tom_ES300

I don't get it. What does that message you posted mean?
Tom

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

That's the message he (and me and everyone else that isn't registed on the autotoys forum) gets when they try to access the link you put in your first post. Might be easier if you copy/pasted your comments here.

Tom_ES300

Novice
Posts: 6
(6/16/03 7:55 am)
Reply | Edit LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,

A little info please on this Aux Input converter:
store.autotoys.com/cgi-bi...storefront

Hmm, that link get's me to the storefront; try this:
LEXUS AUX CONVERTER NON NAK

1 - Does 1998+ mean 2000? Specifically 2000 ES300 Pioneer radio with CD controller, but no CD in place in glove box. The two CD cables are there.
2 - "Requires CD changer port" That means the two cables, but no CD player attached, right? Or does it hook to the back of the HU?
3 - Is that picture of the cable set real? I ask because I have 2 seven pin connectors for the CD player, not the 10 pin conn you are showing. See page 14 here:
CD Cable Conn

4 - the back of my HU has two connectors; a 12 & a 20 pin. See here pages 1 & 2 :
Pioneer_KEX-M8196ZT_Connectors


Thanks

Tom
cust ID s43240


Edited by: Tom Audiotron at: 6/18/03 7:27 am

autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2386
(6/16/03 5:57 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our converters are Y adapter cables, removing one cable from existing plugs behind the factory radio and then plug back in the other end of Y adapter.

We cannot use the factory prewiring, it is NOT compatible with any aftermarket changers.

Keep in mind, there is an NAK and NON NAK adapter. The pictures are correct as posted.

1998 will work through 2002 - We have not tested in 2003 vehicles yet.




*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



Tom Audiotron
Novice
Posts: 7
(6/17/03 7:49 am)
Reply | Edit Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh boy, now I'm confused!

I have the "non-NAK" configuration. That is, I have the stock OEM HU by Pioneer. Model KEX-M8196ZT. See the HU label on page 12 of my removal guide. I took those pictures, that's my radio. The connectors on the back of the HU are NOT a pair of 10 pin connectores. They are a 12 & 20 pin set; see page 11. The cable pictured does not go on my HU!

Where's the mix up here?

Tom

autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2388
(6/17/03 8:42 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We'll shoot some more shots of the NON NAK cables in a bit, perhaps there was a mixup with the online NAK and NON NAK pictures.

We'll get better shots posted here shortly.




*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



Tom Audiotron
Novice
Posts: 8
(6/18/03 7:32 am)
Reply | Edit Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks, you guys offer great support!

I looked at the NAK version, just to see if it was a simple picture swap. I can't see a thing with that blurry picture. Time to buy your photographer a new Instamatic.

I'll check back in a few.

Tom

autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2394
(6/22/03 6:25 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We need about 48 hrs on this. The manufacturer is backordered on Circuit boards and there is a hold on our stock order, we should get it up shortly.

We can redo the NAK picture tonight. That is in stock.




*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2403
(6/26/03 5:50 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
store.autotoys.com/cgi-bi...RTERNONNAK


store.autotoys.com/cgi-bi...USAUXINPUT


*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



Tom Audiotron
Novice
Posts: 9
(6/27/03 7:41 am)
Reply | Edit Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK! The non-NAK looks like it has the correct # of pins on image2. The image1 is a surprise though. Is this a two cable adaptor? Image1 is the Y and image2 is the RCA converter?

If the answer is yes, I'm ready to buy it and spread the word on the Club Lexus forum.

Tom

autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2407
(6/29/03 11:56 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, the package, image 1 and image 2 is part of one complete set up.

Image 1 is the Y adapter cable (since it probably takes a port being used)

2 female, 1 make on image 2

Image 2 cable should plug into one of the mating plugs on image 1 with the remainder of a male and female end Y-ing into the back of your radio.

Does this make sense?



*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



Tom Audiotron
Novice
Posts: 10
(7/16/03 5:29 pm)
Reply | Edit Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, the converter arrived today.
First, a business suggestion here. It came packaged & looking like crap. An inside out FEDEX bag. A cut & stapled poly bag. An instruction sheet that was literally "torn out" of someplace. The directions look like Korean translated to Polish then to English. (No offense intended to the Koreans & Poles). If you want to be taken seriously, clean up your act!

Now, the converter. It looks very well done. There are no directions in the install sheet on what to do with the red, black and yellow wires. What's up here?

In step 5 - "With radio "off" turn the ignition switch to the "ON" position, turn radio on" Please explain why this is so. Does the converter or radio lock-up or get damaged if this turn-on sequence is not followed?

Tom

autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2439
(7/16/03 5:51 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, the converter arrived today.
First, a business suggestion here. It came packaged & looking like crap. An inside out FEDEX bag. A cut & stapled poly bag. An instruction sheet that was literally "torn out" of someplace. The directions look like Korean translated to Polish then to English. (No offense intended to the Koreans & Poles). If you want to be taken seriously, clean up your act!


Agreed. That is the manufacturer packaging you are describing. It is also their info sheet (xeroxed about 10,000 times by the way)...

We can rewrite it, print it on nice paper, get the unit heatshrunk in some nice poly bag "for them" -- but why? Do you want to pay more for it?

The inside out bag is something we do to protect the converter during shipping, its should have been a bubble wrapped bag (correct me if I am wrong, if I am wrong - I apoligize)

Now, the converter. It looks very well done. There are no directions in the install sheet on what to do with the red, black and yellow wires. What's up here?

Red goes to ignition
Yellow goes to constant power
Black to ground




In step 5 - "With radio "off" turn the ignition switch to the "ON" position, turn radio on" Please explain why this is so. Does the converter or radio lock-up or get damaged if this turn-on sequence is not followed?


The converter may lock up. It only makes sense. Your radio and/or the converter is very sensitive and a lot of data flows in/out.

People were probably leaving the radio on with the car on. Then when you turn off the car, and back on, the radio will see the converter in the wrong sequence (locking it up)

So by turning the radio off FIRST and then turning on your car (ignition), the converter has time to power up and by the time your radio comes on (when you turn it on), it can be sync'd properly.




*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



Tom Audiotron
Rookie
Posts: 11
(7/20/03 2:46 pm)
Reply | Edit Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I installed the converter using your directions from above and the manf's directions. The plugs all mated up well.
I turn every thing on according to the sequence and ... nothing.
The unit isn't working. The HU will not click over to CD.
The external music just plays over the top of existing radio stations or the tape. The HU basically continued to operate as though there was no CD in the setup. Your adaptor is not fooling the HU into thinking the external source is a CD player.

Have you tested or used this adaptor before??

What now?

Tom

autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2447
(7/21/03 7:38 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is the correct sequence of wiring.


REMOVE RADIO FROM THE DASH; PLUG THE LEX/AUX DMX V.1A ELECTRONIC INTERFACE TO THE BACK OF THE RADIO.
CONNECT:


· RED WIRE TO SWITCHED (+12V)
· YELLOW TO BATTERY (+12V)
· BLACK WIRE GROUND (-)


THE AUDIO WILL PLAY BACK TROUGH THE CD SECTION OF THE RADIO BY PRESSING THE CD BUTTON ON RADIO.


WITH RADIO “OFF” TURN THE IGNITION SWITCH TO THE “ON” POSITION, TURN RADIO ON.

PRESS CD BUTTON ON RADIO

With the car off - you may try to disconnect the power from the factory radio and then insert the converter. This way when you replug back in the power to the factory radio, it will see a CD changer connector. This has to be done in many cars including 2001+ audis, etc.

Make sure you know the radio code before you try this.

We have not tested this converter 'ourselves' in a NON NAK application, we have tested in a NAK application. It is a similar converter except for the plugs.




*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



Tom Audiotron
Rookie
Posts: 12
(7/27/03 11:51 am)
Reply | Edit Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's what I found out:

It's not a "HU reboot" issue as you thought. I reconnected it and turned it on
according to your directions and it worked. I scratched my head for a while then
realized that now I have a seperate accy connection for the red wire. Last time
I had joined the red & yellow together. Although that has never made a
difference before on anything else; it does for your module.

The module itself has some logic design problems.
If you have an email contact at the module manufacturer I can
talk with them to help them improve it (I'm an Electrical Engineer). Have them
contact me at tjabox1 at adelphia dot com. Change the "at" and "dot", I don't
want any more spam.

Here's the issue I've uncovered.

The current design seems to continously (every 7.5 seconds) re-initialize
the HU to fool it. This causes an annoying problem. Somthing in the module
is sending a pulse every 7.5 seconds. On my HU, it quiets/mutes the HU for
a half second every 7.5 seconds.It happens on AM/FM or tape. It only happens
after the HU has been on CD at least once and then to AM/FM/Tape. It stops
if the power is removed from your module.

I think the HU mutes the output, in any mode, when it gets a "change mode"
request from the front panel or when it gets the "I'm here & ready" digital
word (faked by your module) from the CD over the data bus. The HU must have
a 10 second time out if it figures out that the CD isn't really there.
Your module resets the time out every 7.5 seconds to keep it fooled.

This is a problem because the only way to listen to FM or a tape is to shut
off & restart the car after an external source has been played.

Tom


autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2454
(7/29/03 8:35 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We'll pass on the info to the engineers (your email address)


*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



autotoys
BOARD WEBMASTER
Posts: 2455
(7/29/03 8:39 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We see them AT LEAST once a week (face to face), if they give us any news on this, we'll change or revise the unit you have.




*** Please tell your friends about AUTOTOYS.COM - A company founded by real installers. 7+ years of excellence online ***

ALL INFORMATION PROVIDE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ACCURACY:
Use at your own risk. Because of the evolving nature of cars, data may change at any time
Information provided may be outdated or inaccurate. Use proper installation techniques to verify.
When in doubt, see a professional installer.



Tom Audiotron
Rookie
Posts: 13
(7/29/03 11:35 am)
Reply | Edit Re: LEXUS AUX INPUT CONVERTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks. It looks like they're close to a working design.

Tom

CrazeeSC

Ithink this is the longest post ever???????????????

Tom_ES300

Why, Thank you.
Just to make it a little longer, here's today's stuff.

Tom

=========================================

Hello,

We spoke with them today.

They said your theory is off target and really doesnt have anything to do with the 'fooling' the head unit, rather one particular model radio which needs some fine tuning on the databus.

ETA around 3-4 weeks

--------------------------------------------

Sounds good, I'll wait for their answer. BTW, will you email me when they have someting to try or just mail it to me?

Here's the Pioneer KEX-M8196ZT HU label & front side if they need more info.

Tom

-----------------------------------------

They already have the radio (as pictured) for their engineers.

They currently have close to half a dozen different Lexus radios including the NAK unit we provided to them for prototyping.

Unlike other cars, 'each' Lexus radio model has slight communication and plug differences.

We'll post more info as it is provided to us.

lexusaudio

yes they released the adapter thinking there were 2 lexus radios nakamichi and non nakamichi . there are so many variations of 98 up lexus headunits that there is no 2 the same in the entire lexus line. forn instance the 98 to 2003 gs300/400 non nakamichi radio doesnt even have a 12 pin cd changer port on the back of the radio or anywhere in the entire system.there is no where to 12 pin plug the from the adapter into the stereo system.. another example is the 98 to 2000 sc400 nakamichi system has a 15 pin cd changer connector in the trunk to plug into the 6 disc changer so how could a 12 pin adapter have enough connectors for the 4 extra wire serial communication system. also i have one of the clublexus members 99 sc400 nakamichi radios sitting on my bench that the adapter company blew up trying to make their 12 pin adapter work. that is why the adapter company posts say they are not responsible for damage due to the complexity of the stereo systems..sounds like they are out of circuit boards because of all the changes needed to have the adapter work. i think the adapter conmpany has bit off more than they can chew trying to figure out lexus stereo systems. just yesterday i finally got a lexus dealer to admit that they wont sell the 98 to 2003 gs300 cd changer cable alone. they will only sell it with the 1000.00 new changer. the 98 to 2003 gs300 isnt prewired if not ordered with a cd changer from the factory.

Tom_ES300

Just so you don't think I've fallen asleep; There has been no answer back yet from Autotoys on the "revised" converter which doesn't mute the HU every 7.5 seconds.

Tom

Blanco

iTrader: (8)

So after trying to decipher all this. Autotoys is working on a aux input for factory systems(ie, mp3 players, XM/Sirius sat radio rca hookups)?? I'm dying to put Sirius into my 98GSw/NAV,without using the fm modulator/tape player hookup.

Does anyone know it there is even a product out there for my situation??

Thanks

Tom_ES300

This Aux input adapter has now moved down a notch on my list. The Autotoys guys say they met with the supplier, but they have offered no fix yet. I now don't have any confidence that the supplier intends to fix this problem.

Don't spend you money here yet. I'll keep you informed.

Tom

Tom_ES300

At Autotoy's request, I emailed Blitzsafe to tell them my problem. No answer for a week now. At this point, Blitzsafe seems like a company to stay well clear of. They may have good intentions, but they seem to be a bunch of hackers. They launch "best guess" products at us then abandon them when problems crop up.

Tom

jeremyp111

Tom,

I called Blitzsafe last week to tallk to someone in their tech support dept about this adapter and the person I spoke to knew nothing of any problems. He also didn't seem to know too much about the product either. Not a good sign of any company.

JP