[Cmdrew]

Hi - I have just bought a Pumpkin Double-Din unit and have been trying to fit it this afternoon. Removing the dash panel was easy enough so I thought I would just test the unit by plugging it in to the standard wiring - no joy it did nothing. Given that the Alfa uses the standard DIN connectors and thought it would be plug and play and other posts I have read do not mention having to re-wire the plugs. I've also found that the cage I have does not fit the dash - do I need a special 'Alfa' cage? I did hope to use the standard Alfa cage after removing the middle bar as that would be very sturdy but fitting the unit in it showed that it would sit too low so I will need to use a different cage. Going to put it all back together now but I really hope I won't need to re-wire the existing din connectors...

 

[corasdad]

Hi - I have just bought a Pumpkin Double-Din unit and have been trying to fit it this afternoon. Removing the dash panel was easy enough so I thought I would just test the unit by plugging it in to the standard wiring - no joy it did nothing. Given that the Alfa uses the standard DIN connectors and thought it would be plug and play and other posts I have read do not mention having to re-wire the plugs. I've also found that the cage I have does not fit the dash - do I need a special 'Alfa' cage? I did hope to use the standard Alfa cage after removing the middle bar as that would be very sturdy but fitting the unit in it showed that it would sit too low so I will need to use a different cage. Going to put it all back together now but I really hope I won't need to re-wire the existing din connectors...

http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/ice-...ftermarket-headunit-guide-147-156-and-gt.html

and one with pics
http://www.ausalfa.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9411

 

[Cmdrew]

Well the units in if not working perfectly. Unfortunately the above links do not quite relate to the 159 it seems as some of the wiring differs but certainly helped. One issue I have found is that there does not appear to be a wire in the Alfa connector to power up the radio aerial amplifier. Other posts have suggested that the Alfa does indeed have an amplifier but for now I cannot see how it is triggered,

I also cannot get the steering wheel controls to work. although the Pumpkin seems to suggest that it should be able to connect to CAN enabled SWC this does not seem to be the case as both CAN wires are connected but with no response. I may well end up having to buy the harness adapters listed on Ebay just for the SWC as there is a separate little box which is apparently a decoder. At this time I have both the switched and permanent live connected to a permanent live but I am concerned that my flatten the battery as you have to manually switch off the unit and it still seems to be powered up but on standby. That should just be a case of running another wire from the cigarette (accessory) socket in the armrest. I'll need to read up on how to remove that. I also found that I needed to trim the hole in the dash slightly to get a cage to fit - unfortunately the supplied surround for the unit won't fit but I expected to have to buy one anyway as the corners of the dash are curved whereas most surrounds are square cornered.

First impressions of the unit as a whole though is that they have come a long way in the last couple of years. This actually feels of reasonable quality and being Android opened up a lot of possibilities. I tethered my phone ( my WiFi signal wouldn't reach to the car) and was able to get on to the Play Store, retrieve email and connect to Google maps. Still need to work out some configuration details but happy so far if I can get it to 'look' correct and switch on/off.

 

[xenkof]

Well the units in if not working perfectly. Unfortunately the above links do not quite relate to the 159 it seems as some of the wiring differs but certainly helped. One issue I have found is that there does not appear to be a wire in the Alfa connector to power up the radio aerial amplifier. Other posts have suggested that the Alfa does indeed have an amplifier but for now I cannot see how it is triggered,

I also cannot get the steering wheel controls to work. although the Pumpkin seems to suggest that it should be able to connect to CAN enabled SWC this does not seem to be the case as both CAN wires are connected but with no response. I may well end up having to buy the harness adapters listed on Ebay just for the SWC as there is a separate little box which is apparently a decoder. At this time I have both the switched and permanent live connected to a permanent live but I am concerned that my flatten the battery as you have to manually switch off the unit and it still seems to be powered up but on standby. That should just be a case of running another wire from the cigarette (accessory) socket in the armrest. I'll need to read up on how to remove that. I also found that I needed to trim the hole in the dash slightly to get a cage to fit - unfortunately the supplied surround for the unit won't fit but I expected to have to buy one anyway as the corners of the dash are curved whereas most surrounds are square cornered.

First impressions of the unit as a whole though is that they have come a long way in the last couple of years. This actually feels of reasonable quality and being Android opened up a lot of possibilities. I tethered my phone ( my WiFi signal wouldn't reach to the car) and was able to get on to the Play Store, retrieve email and connect to Google maps. Still need to work out some configuration details but happy so far if I can get it to 'look' correct and switch on/off.

Search the ICE forum instead of the generic 159 thread. Lots of info on installations, adapters etc on there.

 

[Cmdrew]

Well it's all fitted and working now but not without some messing around. I bought a supposedly plug and play wiring harness / CAN Adapter and cage/facia off Ebay. Trouble is the wiring was still wrong. I had to swap the permanent live in the plug which connects to the car and the pluig which connects to the head unit and then trim the facia adapter as the chinese units are wider than the more mainstream (pioneer, kenwood etc) units. It all works great now though and I am just starting to learn how to use it. I can recommend the head unit itself but it has a lot of features which I think I have only scratched the surface of! Now to see how to fit the reversing camera...

 

[corasdad]

Did you get steering controls working

 

[Cmdrew]

Did you get steering controls working

Yes steering wheel controls work through the CAN bus adapter which is part of the harness adapter. I did think they would work using the CAN wires in the harness themselves but no the adapter box was needed. Only issue now is the radio reception. I still feel that there must be an aerial amplifier somewhere which I am not powering.

 

[Troll]

Got any pics of it fitted. Just looked on ebay and found one for £183 from HK. Reading the spec it seems good, I been looking for a while at getting an Android HU. Tell me how many micro SD card slots does it have ? As I would want to use the DVR function too.?

Is this the one you have?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7-Pumpkin...157652?hash=item27fc180714:g:n8sAAOSwDuJWzsFo

 

[kandlbarrett]

Be aware that you will pay import duty on the unit from HK. My advice is buy from UK seller even if you have to pay a little more. Some HK sellers will show a low value on the invoice to reduce the import duty but that means any insurance will only pay out against the invoice value and not what you paid.

Mmmmmm. Just checked the website and import of Car Electronics from HK is duty free. China is 30% duty and 17% sales tax.

 

[kandlbarrett]

Forum member selling android units here:-
Alfa Romeo Classifieds - Auctions - Tuning - Powered by PhotoPost Classifieds

And loads on ebay starting at about £180 from UK sellers.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...din&rt=nc&LH_PrefLoc=1&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

 

[Darranna]

If you haven't seen it have a look at my website and you will see the unit I fitted to my Spider. I like it because it looks almost stock.

2008 Alfa Romeo Spider 2.2 JTS LE