c_hunter

The only true manual mode is obtained after you have overridden all the possible settings. In between full auto (when AUTO is lit) and full manual, you're in a sem-auto transitional state that can be frustrating. The AUTO indicator will not be lit, but some of the settings are still on auto. Maybe that's what you're noticing. Craig

It probably means you haven't really gotten into manual mode. From true manual, only pushing defrost or AC will turn it on. Anyways, once you turn it off, it should stay off. And BTW, it's not necessarily running, as we discussed above. But I understand exactly what you're thinking -- when I go full manual in cold weather, I also turn off AC unless I am worried about humidity/fogging. CRaig

I thought this was a great solution, and the instructions were a help even though I had previously torn into the radio before. I would recommend this to everyone!! My one suggestion for Jazzy would be to use a much longer piece of flat-flex cable (like 6" or so) in order to allow a lot of slack between the jazzy-board and the radio-board connectors. This would allow more flexibility in mounting the board (I used double stick tape to keep it from floating arount) and would also make it easier to plug everything in. It will certainly add a few bucks ot the cost, but I think it would be worthwhile. Craig

It's due to the fact that devices like the iPod and Sirius units have their own independent ground that is different from the vehicle ground. Even if you attempt to unite all the grounds you will still have problems. It's almost impossible to avoid ground loop problems with portable devices in cars. And if you're working with multiple portable devices, you probably quadrupled the number of possible ground "leaks". Craig

Good question -- I don't know. I suspect there's a controller box somewhere that only handles the climate control. ECUs are generally not "bothered" with this sort of stuff. Craig

Mike, it may be possible to rescale the temp sensors if we knew where they were and which ones did what. They are likely thermocouples that convert a temperature into a voltage. You can always play games with sensors like that. The trick would be figuring out how the system worked and how the sensors feed into the controller, etc. If somebody can get a circuit diagram, that would be a good start. Craig

\ That's not going to help us in North America, as we have Panasonic/Matsushita radios that do not have an external CD changer jack.

Go read centerpunch's original thread (it's a sticky) where we have discussed this in gory detail. Maybe you will get some other ideas on how to do it. Another fellow posted a thread (which got located in the entirely wrong forum) where he physically cut and switched the lines from the tuner. If you can find that one, it's worth a read as well. CRaig

This only affects the headphone jack. If you're using the dock connector, it's standard line-level out and is not affected by the volume adjustment in iTunes. If you are using the headphone jack for output, you should switch to the dock connector. The headphone level is much lower than the dock's line level, and when you crank up the volume to compensate, you're adding distortion. By using the dock connector, you are getting a clean line-level signal with the proper amplification to connect to other devices. The only time you have to use the headphone jack for external hookups is with a 1G or 2G iPod that did not have a dock connector. Craig

Well, it's possible to get general noise from power lines, but it would not be a ground loop problem. You only get that from multiple different and/or isolated ground points. Ground loop problems are very common with portable devices which have their own separate ground. Uniting that with the stereo/vehicle ground almost always results in a ground loop, especially if you also power/charge the device. Craig

You can definitely avoid taking out the armrest/bin part of the console, even on cars with auto trans. Once you lift the chrome ring off, take an allen-wrench and stick it in the gap around the shifter, and use that to pull up the trim bezel. Works great. I believe we made a note of this in one of the other audio install topics about a year ago. It's definitely a lot of extra unnecessary work to pull the whole armrest/bin part. Craig

Those of you considering a ground loop isolator -- most of these use RCA jacks, so you could easily swap L / R when putting the GLI in, to take care of this potential problem. When I did my own line in hack a couple months ago, I guessed at L/R and got it wrong. Was able to correct it just by swapping plugs at the GLI. Craig

If you're charging/powering a portable aux. device while also connecting it to the radio, that almost guarantees a ground loop problem. There really is no sane way around it. I would suggest a ground loop isolator be a recommended part of the install. I have run into the same problem over the years with a variety of FM-mod and other aux-in hacks. The GLI almost always solves the problem. Craig

It's from the factory sub, that's the ground point. Craig

Got mine today, looks real good. Nice job with the instructions too! I will hopefully get to tangle with it over the weekend, depending on what the weather does. As for the universal board, it may be possible. All the inputs (CD, FM, AM) run to the same place, and it's just the absence of two of them that allows the third to play uninterupted. If you could trick the radio/CD (or radio/FM or radio/AM) to both think the other is hunky-dory, then it would work. The thing is, that info gets passed along a data bus, so it will take a bit of deciphering to figure out. Craig

Thanks for the hard work! I still think you should get the boards fully fabbed, it would really offload a lot of work and you could probably still make a good profit. Maybe keep that in mind for the next batch, after you use up all the current boards. Craig --

I wouldn't bet that the radios are the same -- the 05+ Leg/OB radio is very different from previous Subaru units, which all used to be quite similar. We really won't know until someone tries it out.... There are 14 pins on the flex cable going to the CD-changer, BTW. Craig --

I am really impressed how small the boards are!! That should make it real easy to mount inside the radio, and is a very important advantage to this particular implementation. And I think it's important to note that this implementation does not preclude someone from wiring up a switch to mute AM/FM if they were so inclined to pursue that. Whichever implementation is used, the basic function is to mix in the aux signal with the other signals. A blank CD is one way to stifle the CD signal in this case, but mvigneau showed there are other solutions. I think there is plenty of room for innovation here, and jazzymt's board is the basic key ingredient that makes it easy to explore. We're lucky to have two choices -- a basic solution for $35 and a more complex solution for $125. There is a lot of room for tinkering between those price points! Craig

I should clarify that to mean no heat added from the heater core, which is what controls the HVAC temp directly. There could very well be carryover heating from the engine, depending on where the air gets taken in and routed. I assume you were not on AUTO right? 65F on auto is maximum arctic mode. CRaig

Yeah, in AUTO mode, 65 will seriously crank out the cold -- it's MAX AC. Try that out, and if it doesn't cool the interior down dramatically then something is wrong. In manual mode, you can still tweak it to get the AC cranking cold, but I am not confident we can communicate on that properly since there are a lot of variations. AUTO, on the other hand, should be universal. Craig

I think we could figure out a way to trick the system into "scaling" the range in the middle, but that 65/66 jump is always going to be a problem. I also agree that 66 can be too warm in many cases, especially when I am driving to go skiing and all duded up in my ski clothes. What I often do is turn the fan off and just let the vent flow push through at the 66 setting. It will still trickle hot air out, but it's not too warm. That combined with the seat heaters usually works OK. I think my wife's Acura goes down to 60 or 55, which would work better for me. Craig EDIT: maybe there's a way to throttle back the coolant flow leading into the heater core???

OB XT LTD 5EAT here.

Thanks for the kind words. Tell you what, on my previous 02 Outback with ACC, there was only ONE fan button. So you had to keep pushing it 1-2-3-4-1-2-etc to change the fan speed. That was a royal pain. They also had only one temp display -- it was either inside or outside but not both at the same time (yet there was plenty of empty space on the display for both). I liked my wife's 03 Forester, which had knobs for the ACC -- the fan knob was like a VCR jog dial -- just twist it once to change fan speed by an increment. Craig

You will still cool at 85, assuming 85 is lower than the cabin temperature. However, it won't be very cool! 85 is "Max heat". In contrast, 65 is "no heat". It won't heat for beans, though it may have some carryover heating from the engine (the intakes are at the base of the windshield). CRaig

The ACC system has three basic modes: 1) Automatic When you push the auto button, the systems does whatever it can to adjust the cabin temperature to meet the temperature(s) set by the user. In this mode, the only user controls are the L/R temperature knobs. In theory, you should be able to adjust the "comfort" level by tweaking the temperature knobs at any time -- if it gets too hot, drop the temp; if it gets too cold, increase the temp. Note that the operation of the system depends on the temperature difference between the current temperature and the desired temperature(s). With large differences, the fan will run at higher speeds and the system will choose more agressive venting modes. With small differences, the system will react to temperature inputs very gently. 2) Partial override From automatic mode, any control tweaked by the user other than the temperature control -- ie, fan speed, mode, AC on/off -- will force the system into a semi-automatic mode. In this mode, the system will continue to try and reach the set temperature(s) using whatever remaining options the user has not overridden. This is often confusing, and it may seem that the ACC system is posessed, as it appears to change something else every time you tweak a control. In reality, the system is just trying to reach or maintain the set temperatures with fewer and fewer ways to do it. 3) Manual If the user has tweaked all possible controls, the system will eventually be in full manual mode. Here, the user has complete control over the entire climate control system. In this mode, the temperature scale no longer relates to absolute temperatures in degrees. Rather, the range of 65-85 degrees maps to a general temperature scale from LOW to HIGH. Note that 65=LOW corresponds to no heat added (thus max cold) while 85=HIGH corresponds to the most heat added (max warm). To get into manual mode on purpose, the best thing to do is press OFF, and then bring the system back online by pushing the mode, fan, or AC buttons. You may then tweak any of these settings as desired and the system will remain in full manual mode from there on out. This is more or less equivalent to a regular manual climate control system, except you have a fancy LED display! Note that you can invoke a no-fan vent mode by starting from OFF, and then pushing the mode button to select face or bi-level ventilation. In this vent mode, the temperature display will not show and the temperature will remain at the previously set level (before OFF was pushed). So if you want a totally ambient vent, the procedure would be to set the dial to 65 (no heat), press OFF, and then press mode to select vent. Pretty complicated, eh? ACC systems don't have simple direct controls for something like this, unfortunately. One thing that seems to bother people is that air conditioning (AC) runs almost all the time in AUTO mode. Well sort of. The AC compressor has a clutch, and it actually cycles on and off as needed (cars have been doing this for years). It cools the air in warm weather, and dehumidifies the air in cool weather (or when defrost is activated). All the while, the AC indicator remains lit. This simply indicates that AC can come on if needed, even though it may not be on full time. In extremely cold weather, the AC indicator will stay off until the engine warms up because it is too cold for the compressor to run. Once the engine warms up or the ambient temperature increases, the AC indicator may come on, again, to indicate that AC can activate if needed. Another thing that bothers people is the fact that there is a world of difference between the temperature setting of 65 and 66. As discussed above, 65=LOW, or no heat added. So while 66 indicates a set temp of 66F in AUTO mode and it's the lowest setting for heat in the manual mode, 65 indicates "no heat". In AUTO mode, 65 actually translates to maximum cool (try it in the summer, it will frost your tootsies off). I really think Subaru should have labeled 65 as "LOW" (and 85 as "HIGH") similar to Acura. Finally, many people complain that the system gets too hot or too cold while honing in to the set temperature in automatic mode. The solution for this is rather simple -- just reach over and turn the temperature knob(s) in the direction that will make you more comfortable. For instance, if you set the system to 75 in the winter and it's getting too warm, try cranking it down a few notches until you see the fan speed drop a level or two. What you are doing is telling the system "whoa" without having to fight with it; this really amounts to an impromptu calibration. I hope this helps and saves people some grief. And for those of you who don't like the ACC at all, I respect your opinion -- I am just trying to alleviate some of the confusion that has been going around. I do agree that the system has flaws and eccentricities, and could be improved. Craig