PhatBox to Music Keg conversion.

[image2000uk]

Hi

I got mine, loaded all the software onto the pc with all the updates, chose the kenwood firmware, said yes to all the warnings about "this firmware will not work with your head unit" (blah blah blah), let it go about its bits, stuck the dms into the phat noise, & rebooted the drive.  After about 3 mins (once the lights had stopped flashing) and all done now: vw phat noise working on kenwood head unit using keg cable.

Cheers

Image2000uk


(edited to add lots and lots of punctuation)

[Genesis]

Has anyone other than A543 managed to reflash a vw PhatBox and use it with a Kenwood Head Unit?

Yes.  I have one running on a Kenwood H/U.  You lose the artist/album/genre browse, but other than that, it works fine.

[crane007]

Just so everyone knows, pacparts will no longer ship to Canada. I tried to order the KHD-5L1 cable (Kenwood deck to Music Keg cable) last night and they send me an e-mail today saying:

"Sorry due to previous Shipping problems in the past, we are no longer providing Shipment to Canada.
As a result, your recent order will not be processed, no charge will be applied.

If you have a US Address, we will gladly ship the order out - You will need to re-place the order (enter the US Address in the Required Ship To fields, enter your billing address in the required billing fields)."

[crane007]

I called Kenwood Canada yesterday to see if I could order a KHD-5L1 cable (Kenwood Deck->Keg cable), they will not sell direct, but their Canadian distributor is Global Electronics Supply.

I called Global Electronic Supply, they had a hard time finding the KHD-5L1 in their database, the were finally able to find the cable.

You cannot order the cable through their online store, you must call 1-800-668-8776.

The cable was $67.50(CAN) + Tax & shipping

I ordered my cable today

Update: I guess I was the first person to order the cable from Global, they have now have the cable in there database:

http://www.globalsemi.com/search.aspx
Part Number: K-KHD-5L1


Crane007

[crane007]

I finally got my phatbox installed last night (VW phatbox with Kenwood HU).

Awsome unit, works like a charm.

Has anyone purchased the VOIT plugin ?
Is it worth it if you have a Kenwood HU ?
Hacks to enable VIOT ?

Crane007

[SteveC]

Phatnoise won't sell VIOT to you unless you have an actual Kenwoo Keg or a direct-from-Phatnoise Phatbox.

I've never heard of a hack to enable it, either, but anything's possible.

This is unfortunate, because I find VIOT to be VERY useful - to the point that I rarely use my PB in the "native" Kenwood mode anymore.

[sbingner]

Phatnoise won't sell VIOT to you unless you have an actual Kenwoo Keg or a direct-from-Phatnoise Phatbox.

I've never heard of a hack to enable it, either, but anything's possible.

This is unfortunate, because I find VIOT to be VERY useful - to the point that I rarely use my PB in the "native" Kenwood mode anymore.

I could write a little hack to enable SSA -- the wiki explains it and has the source code for a replacement aadec.  All you  need to do is send the following bytes over serial port 1: "0x15, 0x01, 0x01, 0xe9"

[crane007]

I think a little hack to enable SSA would be really usefull. I imagine that almost all phatbox owners would use SSA if it were free. ( I think $75US is too much for such a feature)


Crane007

[sbingner]

I think a little hack to enable SSA would be really usefull. I imagine that almost all phatbox owners would use SSA if it were free. ( I think $75US is too much for such a feature)


Crane007

http://downloads.phathack.com/sbingner/customkenwoodssa.zip

NOTE: these are files I put together, not the actual SSA files... I didn't want to redistribute that of course.  The ini files are pretty much the same but the inst.pnt is just a dummy file containing "1"

You need to extract that to "PHATSYS\" (root of phatsys drive) then remove PHATSYS\Plugins\plugins.dat if it exists.  You also need to compile "replacement" aadec from http://wiki.phathack.com/Aadec and sign it with plsign... once that's done replace PHATSYS\aadec and PHATSYS\aadec.sig with the new files (I'd reccomend a backup in case something doesn't work)

[crane007]

Thanks sbinger

I am building the cross compiler right now, I will try it out tonight and let everyong know if/how it works.

Crane007

[sbingner]

You can download one that works very well from http://www.opto22.com/products/linux/SNAPOEMIOLinuxREADME.aspx#Installation

The compilation toolchain takes forever to build, and it's got some issues.... but that one works perfectly... build it with the arm-uclibc-gcc from there with -static and it should work right

[crane007]

I have it all built, I will try loading it up later today.

Thanks for http://www.phathack.com/plsign.cgi

Thanks for all your help sbingner, I will be a very happy camper if this works


Crane007

[A543]

Fantastic job on the utility!

For those people who don't know or use Linux, would it be possible to have a version that includes all the needed files, including the aadec (precompiled) and aadec.sig?

[crane007]

I will test out my version tonight, if it works I will post it. (I presume there are no legal issues with this)

Crane007

[crane007]

Just tried it out and it works

I will send sbinger a .zip file with everything that is needed, maybe he can put it up in his files section.


Crane007

[sbingner]

Just tried it out and it works

I will send sbinger a .zip file with everything that is needed, maybe he can put it up in his files section.


Crane007

I made the aadec.c file also, I don't want to post the binary because I dont know if there could be any ramifications or not...

[crane007]

I updated the wiki HOWTO with this information

http://wiki.phathack.com/VIOT

Crane007