Losing Connection to Phatbox

[Phil]

Hello,

About once or twice a week when I start up my car, my connection to my Phatbox is lost.  When I try pushing the CD button on my radio it says that no CD player is found.  This occurs at random times, but only when I first start up my car and has been happening since I installed my Phatbox about a year ago.

My solution to fix this is to take out the cartridge, wait a minute and then reinsert cartridge.  Everything is ok, until the next time it loses its connection.

Any ideas on how to fix this.  I have a 1999 VW Jetta GL (Mark IV).

Thanks,

Phil

[Steveo369]

I had this issue happen to me.  At first I thought it was the cable connection, but I swapped the PB from my A4 to my Jetta, and the problem followed the PB.  (Different cables between VW/Audi).

I returned the unit to the dealer and got a new one.  It's been working fine for over a year now.

Others have suggested that it may be something in the internal ribbon cable, but you may not want to take the PB apart.  If it's a VW/Audi unit, I'd take it to the dealer.  As it's a "genuine" VW/Audi part, they should have a 1-year warranty on it.  Unfortunately, they may want/try to charge you to 'diagnose' the problem.  My dealer was cool about it.

Hope that helps, good luck.

[cheese]

Has anyone figured out how to fix this?  Mine is out of warranty and intermittently fails to connect.  Unplug the cable, plug it back in, and all is OK for a few more days.

[zero cool]

Just out of curiosity....Have you ever put a Volt meter on the power line that feeds your PB??

 I wonder, if what is happening is that when you start the car, the voltage drops just enough to confuse the PB and cause it to loose sync. You might be able to have someone watch the red light and you crank the car up, then again, the red light might not go out all the wya, it may just dim for a second.

 You could try putting a capacitor on the power line to ground. like a smaller version of a car stereo capacitor. that should hold the line voltage up during cranking and add a bit of filtering to your unit. 5-10,000Mfd at 16 volts should be enough. make sure to connected it with the correct polarity. and remember, these units store electricity, they are still charged with 12volts and substantial power when there disconnected. a 12 volt light bulb works well to discharge them.

 Radio Shack and other electronics stores sell these. should be less then $5

 Let us know what happens


Zc

[judb]

Zero Cool maybe onto something there.  I have had issues with my aftermarket gear in my Jetta (04 year model) due to cranking the car droping the voltage in the dash to 8 or 9 volts for long enough to make some head units think they were disconnected from the battery.  (I ran a new wire into the battery wiring harness and that solved the problem I was having.)

So since the phatbox gets power from the head unit which is using the wiring harness that I was using and seeing a steep voltage drop you may have a similar issue.

Another possible solution is to try a battery with a higher CCA rating.

[rksmith]

I also have been fighting this problem for 2 years. done everything, I shut the radio off before shutting car off, would this low voltage affect the radio if shut off? When mine does this I go into trunk and both the red and green lights are on bright and I unglug harness and they go out, plug it in again and they both come on for 15 seconds and go off then it works for a few days again. TIA

[zero cool]

Well the PB stays on all the time. and when you crank the engine, the voltage drops down to 8 or 9 volts probably, maybe lower if your battery is weak. that low voltage could confuse the PB. Plus the starter pulses the current draw. and there could be back EMF spikes many times higher then the batt voltage when cranking. that could be confusing the PB as well.

 It would be interesting to put a Digital Oscilliscope on the batt and crank the engine. doing a short duration time capture and then looking at the what was recorded. you would be able to see what was going on.

 In any case. adding a capacitor to the PB as close to the PB as you can get it wouldnt hurt. worst case it does nothing and your out 5 bucks and some time. best case, it fixes the problem and then we all know!

 I havent yet gotten my PB installed yet. but i will add a cap to my unit just in case.


Zc

[thestrag]

I have the same problem!  Except that now, the volume on my Monsoon system is screwed up.  When you lower the volume (and the volume bar falls below about a quarter of the length) the volume stays the same - it doesn't get any quieter!  What's worse... is if I put the volume ALL the way down, I can't get the volume to come back up.  I have to turn OFF the stereo and then turn it back on again before the volume will respond!  Did I screw up my stereo by installing PB?   I love PB when it works!  I'd hate to get rid of it!

[judb]

I would have the dealer look at it.  there are codes in the HU that may be jacked up ... volume is handled within the head unit, not at the phatbox side.. so if there is an issue its head unit related/

[sooty]

I have the same problem as reply #5, gets old unplugging and plugging back in every so often.

[Phil]

I have the same problem as reply #5, gets old unplugging and plugging back in every so often.

And you have the same problem as #1 although I just remove the cartridge for ~20 seconds then reinsert and it's ok for some random amount of time.

[cheese]

After experiencing the Phatbox connection problem for some time my Monsoon head unit's tuner stopped working intermittently.  When the Phatbox worked the tuner would not pull in a signal.  When the tuner worked the Phatbox would not be recognized.  Since it was just inside warranty the dealer replaced the Monsoon head unit.  The tuner works now.  Still TBD if the Phatbox continues to misbehave.

[danowhere]

This seems to be a really common problem with the PB.  I've heard several different theories from the battery issue to a 3" cable clearance issue to need for alternative firmware at http://www.dailyphat.com/install/f701_2004-08-02_noPD.zip (the link apparently doesn't work anymore though).  Anyway none of this has solved the problem for me.  If anyone has a legitimate solution please help!