A few weeks ago I mentioned that I talked to Jason at JP Customs and he said there was a new IPOD connector coming out that allows you to keep your XM and CDX players and have full acess to your IPOD.

So now it's out, it's called a Axxess IPOD interface that sells for $119.00

Here's a link to his web site home page and it's the first item listed, you can read up on it and see if it help's you out.

http://www.jpcustoms.com/store/customer/home.php

I have one on order should be here in a few days I'll let you know how it work's after it's installed.


Diesel Dragon

.

Thanks for the info. I have been waiting for one of these.

Just so all of you know you can make this work just fine with the USA Spec one as well... Ill tell ya tomorrow how well.

Drew

Just so all of you know you can make this work just fine with the USA Spec one as well... Ill tell ya tomorrow how well.

Drew

The advantage of Axxess interface is the ability to display the song titles on the head unit display.:cool2: I don't believe the USASpec unit or the Ipod2Car units have this capability.

Curious.......did you get the Axxess unit installed yet?

Yes I did but I'm waiting for my HU to come back from repair.

I'll let you know when it's all back together.

Right... It just thinks it is looking at a DVD changer so no song title information... In Axxess has this it would be better than the USA Spec model...

Drew

Yes I did but I'm waiting for my HU to come back from repair.

I'll let you know when it's all back together.

OK, I'll ask the obvious question.

Why is the HU out for repair? :D

OK, I'll ask the obvious question.

Why is the HU out for repair? :D


There's always one trouble maker in the group!!!!:D :D j/k

The Head Unit was out for repair because like a fool I bought it off E-scambay and paid by check to some one who sold a few other of the same Nav HU's and even spoke to him and he sounded alright.

But when the HU showed up the ID sticker off the side was missing so I can't even tell if it's a newer 05 model or not.

And the reason for the repair was because the CD player wasn't working. It ate my CD and wouldn't play it or eject it, so naturally no Nav with no Nav disc that's supposed to go in there.

Got it back from the local place but they couldn't fix it. So now I have to send it to a Delphi repair center and spend who knows how much to repair the CD player on a supposedlly brand new Nav unit.

I bought 3 "used" item's on E-scambay and all 3 were bad.

Last time I use E-scambay, next time I just buy it new .

Ok I'm done ranting.

The Nav display does in fact list the song title and artist when it's playing off the Ipod.

The steering wheel controls and radio controls will change songs and if you have playlists it can switch between the diffrent playlists with the preset buttons.

There's no control from the ipod anymore so you can put it in the glove box if you want out of sight, it still gets the battery charged up.

Still trying to figure out how to scroll thru the songs to pick the one I want to play instead of random.

And it works with the XM, there's a relay that you have to wire in near the XM tuner that switch's the XM power on and off via the ipod controller ot switch between the 2 players.

I'll let you know what else I find.

will this ipod controller show the song title on the regular headunit or does it have to be a nav unit and how do you connect the ipod to the axxess controller? Thinking of getting this setup instesad of trying to find a 6 disk bose for my truck

Yes the regular 6 disc head unit should show the song title and artist but like when the HU is in XM mode it will only show artist or title one at a time so you have to push the tune button in to see the rest of the info, and then it will go back to which ever info you prefer.

The ipod is connected to the controller (which goes behind the HU) by a 5 foot or so long white cable, so you can mount the ipod pretty much anywhere you want

I have the usa-spec in mine, xm and cdc still work, but i put it in the mode where I can still use the ipod, I have 6 thousand songs on mine and it would be hell to find a song without the wheel. But the quality is awesome, I love it

wait so does the USA-spec one display song title and artist info?? Thats nice that you can still control the ipod manually...thats the real bugger about the Axxess adapter. Otherwise i'd call it (the Axxess adapter) perfect...oh well...cant have it all...

--Ben

nope no display on the usa-spec, just keep the ipod close to where you can see the display. Not a big deal for me to not have the display but prolly a selling point for the axxess for a lot of people.

Ok so I still can't pick the song I want.

I called the manufacturer and we tried a bunch of stuff and came to the conclusion that the NAV touch screen display must have some diffrent software in it that won't let me go through my songs which are listed in alphabetical order by song name on my ipod.

He said it works with a Non touch screen HU the way it's supposed to but not a touch screen and mine was the first they heard about a problem with.

Rep said he would have the engineers look into it and there will need to be a software change in the Axcess controler to fix it.

But there in no rush I guess, he said to call back in 3 months. WTF

DD

.

I may have found the problem with being able to choose the song.

I'll let you know if it's fixed in the PM

Ok all is good with the world again.

Disregard post # 17.

It seems that some how even though my ipod screen lists my songs by title alphabetically, when I plugged my ipod into my computer it showed my list in alphabetical order by artist. So after I put the songs in order by title again on my computer screen it reset my ipod again and now my Nav unit will play the song titles in order.

I also made some playlists to break it up more. playlist 1 is A's, B's, C's song titles playlist 2 is D's, E's, F's and so on. Now my preset buttons on the HU will acess the playlists.

So all in all after figuring out how to get it to work right, the Axxess Ipod controller works the way it's supposed to.

DD

.

ok glad you fixed the problem. I know you said that it would work with the 6 disc HU but will it work with a single disc bose unit? do you think i would be able to have multiple playlists and such or just scroll one song at a time with the radio buttons ? I also have the steering wheel controls. I think this would be cool because the Ipod could be hid in the glove box or under the console or anywhere out of sight and all my cd's are gone making room for diffrent junk in the cab.m

This really sounds like a better solution to wanting my mp3's to listen to in my truck and looks like it would be cheaper too.

Should work with the single too, but I can't say for sure.

Call Jason at www.jpcustoms.com and ask him or he can give you the number for the manufacturer tech line and you can ask them.

I also wondered if the Axxess controller would work with my HU. Here is my configuration: 2004 Bose single CD / Cassette Player. I do not have the 6 disk changer, nor do I have XM. I decided to buy the controller off of ebay and see what would happen.

After a very simple installation, here is what I found.
My steering wheel controls (and the buttons on the HU) could change between the first 6 playlists on the ipod. These are indicated on the radio display as D0 thru D5. Seek would change 1 song at a time (forwards or back). If you want to know the name of the song and artist, you just press the disp button and it will show up in the display on the HU.:cool2:

Seems to work exactly as described in the advertisement literature. I have only used it for 1 day, so I am still trying to learn all of its capabilities. If you have a question, I would be happy to try and help you answer it!

Chris

Is the Axxess unit an easy install? Looks like a great unit.

I just picked up an Axxess unit today on my way home from Diesel Thunder in Spokane.

The unit is a no-brainer to install. I did mine in the parking lot of Circuit City in less than 20 minutes. I think this unit is the best buy for our trucks. It's among the cheapest interfaces out there for the Ipods, and it's also one of the fullest function units as well.

I have the single disc non-Bose head unit, and it works like a champ. For what it's worth, I also looked at the new Monster unit, but I think it's a total ripoff. It's $250 for the module, another $100 for the interface, and roughly $30 for a required cable. After all this, there is no text display--that's another $100 add-on unit that looks pretty cheesy to me. The Monster has less features with a roughly $380 price tag!

The only wire you have to connect for the Axxess unit is a 12 volt constant supply. Everything else is contained in the harness that comes in the box. Just plug the connectors into the correct sockets and you are all set.

does it have an Aux input like the USA Spec unit?


Drew

I just picked up an Axxess unit today on my way home from Diesel Thunder in Spokane.

The unit is a no-brainer to install. I did mine in the parking lot of Circuit City in less than 20 minutes. I think this unit is the best buy for our trucks. It's among the cheapest interfaces out there for the Ipods, and it's also one of the fullest function units as well.

So, I guess you can access all the connections from under the dash, and no removal of the stereo system or other parts is required?
Does it come with good installation instructions?

Thanks

The installation couldn't get much easier. Here are the installation instructions directly off the paperwork from Metra Electronics:

1. Disconnect the vehicle battery. Remove the factory radio. Please see your local car audio professional if you have any problems. In vehicles equipped with Navigation or radio security codes, it may be better to leave the battery connected and use caution with exposed power wires.

2. Plug the iPod to vehicle T-harness into the factory radio, the factory plug, and the iPod interface module.

3. Connect a continuous power source to the yellow wire coming from the iPod interface module plug. (The orange wire in pin B1 of the radios 24-way plug is constant power for the factory radio)

4. Plug the iPod to iPod interface cable into the appropriate connection on the module and route the other end to the desired iPod mounting location.

5. Secure the module behind the factory radio and re-assemble the dash.

That's all there is to it. You do need to pull out the radio to gain access to the connectors on the back. It comes out easy. The other thing to add, is you should use a fuse between the constant 12 volt wire (orange) mentioned above and the Axxess unit.

I didn't install a fuse, but that's probably not a bad idea. Just a regular inline add-a-fuse setup should work just fine, no?

does it have an Aux input like the USA Spec unit?

I emailed tech support at Metra Electronics and got this reply when I inquired about the aux input --
"The auxiliary input requires an additional cable that is not yet available. That cable will be sold separately"

So, yes it does have an aux input like the USA Spec unit, but when it will be available to use is anybody's guess.

I would be willing to bet that the input is activated by pressing and holding one of the preset buttons...

---Ben

I thought it might be something like that too, so I tried holding each preset button to see if it would do anything. I didn't see anything indicated on the radio display that indicated it was activating an auxilliary input, but it might not work unless the aux cable is plugged into the box.

ok now that I decieded to get a ipod and a adapter instead of the 6 disc chnager and lux upgrade. I cant decide which adapter to get. I have it narrowed down to either the axxess like the one diesel dragon has or this one http://www.mp3yourcar.com/default.asp
the Neo Ion is 189.00
So you guys that have studied this which is better or are the both the same? I don't have a Ipod yet so I don't really know how they work but the steering wheel controls are a definte selling piont

thanks in advance for all the input

Old thread I know, but am curious about the playlists. If I create a playlist say Playlist 1 and I put artists name A-D on it and I search the playlists using steeringwheel controls or whatever, can I go to Playlist 1 then scroll thru all the artists then pick that folder and scroll thru those songs in that folder. I've got about 100 artists with about 20-30 songs for each artist. I don't want to scroll thru all the songs.

The Axxess adapter disables the Ipod controls (wheel). The only way to control it is with the HU or steering wheel controls. You can only go forward and backwards through the songs in a playlist 1 by 1. There is no way to jump by artist in a playlist, if that is what you are asking.

Alternative is to unplug the IPod, go to the artist, song or whatever you want (on one of the playlists) and start the song playing. Plug Ipod in and that is what will come out your speakers. Not handy!

I believe you can still use the IPod wheel with the IPod2car interface, so you could go to any playlist, artist, album you wanted. I am guessing since I don't have the IPod2Car unit.

Yep, thats what I'm asking. That sux. I guess I will elimanate Axxess. 15,000 songs on the ipod and I would have to create 10 playlists to divide them up then I would have to scroll thru 1000 songs at least to the one I wanted. That sux.

Is there no way to scroll thru artists? If I unplugged and went to that artist would I then be able to play that artists or would I have to disconnect pick the next song and reconnect it every time?

To solve all of this is a very expensive answer. Purchase an aftermarket stereo and have it installed with the iPod kit. There are some radios that will pull ALL information from the iPod to your head unit for the display and you can scroll by artist, song, playlist or whatever you want. The problem is it takes about $600.00 to complete the job. That includes a new headunit, iPod kit, instalation.

I guess I will go with USA spec. In "direct mode" you can play all using the ipod intself as the controls. Can anyone confirm that? How do you switch it to direct mode. Will I have to have the USA spec adapter handy or can I run a switch?