ZedZed

@Foosh I think we have more in common than we have differences, buddy. I suspect we'd enjoy arguing the night away over a few beers. Our commonalities bind us together, but it's our differences that make life interesting.

Foosh

Enjoying the banter, but we should probably stop boring other folks.

I guess one of my main points is that the first HU installation seems to be the first of many for a lot of folks. I recall at least one person who's had 3 different HUs in and out more times than I can remember, and there are multiple other similar accounts of multiple HU installations trying to fix various problems with brightness, sound, etc. Sounds like you were lucky and/or willing to ignore certain shortcomings.

And yes, any day I can spend 4+ hours driving my Turbo S is a very good day indeed, regardless of the purpose.

ZedZed

Agreed - time to end this episode of the Foosh-ZedZed show I hope it's not been too boring for the others. Some good points made on both sides.

oumizx

Hi I got my CHSTEK model installed in car toys. The installer said he connected the aftermarket backup camera to the model, but it is still black screen on it. He believed the wire setting is correct. He said what he used to do for other unit is to do some setting in the system to make the after market camera replace the original camera from factory(which my car does not have). But he could not figure out how to set it for this unit.
I tried to contact the seller on Aliexpress but got no response.
Any suggestion for it? Thanks!

andy2111

Is your car PDK or manual?

oumizx

It’s PDK.

ZedZed

Are the guide lines showing or is the screen completely black?

If the guide lines are showing but no image, then the HU is switching to the backup camera input, but there is no camera video there. This suggests the camera video feed is not plugged in properly. Check the camera lead is plugged into the correct RCA 'cam in' jack.

If the screen switches from radio (or whatever you were displaying before going into reverse), but shows neither guide lines nor image, then the unit is switching to the backup camera input but the camera probably does not have power. Check that the camera is powered.

With PDK cars, I'd expect the HU to be switched to the backup camera input when reverse was selected. So if the black screen is all you get, then check the camera power wire is connected properly.

Check that the camera video feed RCA is correctly plugged to the harness. Check that the 12v camera wire and camera trigger wire are connected.

Remember that the car must have ignition on, be in reverse gear and have the parking brake OFF or the camera does not work. Check that the parking brake was off when tested. Quite a few have missed that one since it is not really logical.

ZedZed

^^^

Your installer might be thinking of the Isudar-style unit, where there is a setting which has to be switched for OEM or aftermarket camera. In the CHSTEK unit, I do not think there is such a setting, but I do not have that unit so ICBW. @andy2111 @ratt359 ???

mamick

Well the above banter is one of the reasons I got off social media

Anyway back to HU replacement (or modifications)

@andy2111 @ratt359 since you guys went under the hood and adjusted the brightness down on the Chstek HU any issues? I have to go pay for my AGMA since the free trial ran out, it is rather annoying when that happens I guess that is the point. While I was in there I was going to mess with the brightness settings.

Thanks!

andy2111

Changed my settings earlier today and it's all good. They password protect it to stop people accidentally blanking their screen, but it's fine. Not driven in the dark yet but you can see the greater range of brightness you get.

I stuck at 21 as the lower level and will see how it goes.

BTW pressing the car button rotates through 3 different brightness settings if you weren't already aware - thanks @ratt359 for the tip!

andy2111

Did your installer take a power tap from the brown wire on the harness for the camera? Or did he power it from another source? Needs to be from the brown wire...

ratt359

Same as @andy2111 - no issues for me. I'd recommend that you don't touch the upper limit (for fear of screen burn) and tweak the lower limit to 21 and no lower, as we all have. Just be extra careful not to drag the sliders around. There are (+) and (-) buttons to adjust incrementally.

I suspect that enabling USB debugging in Developer Options (3368) before making the change would offer a "break glass" method to change the setting if the worst happened, but I haven't been able to test this yet. Don't let this freak you out, though, as the change is low risk.

bmxtreme

What do we lose with the PCM gone? Sport Chrono stuff and what else that might stop working without the PCM?

andy2111

You lose the navigation and radio/media info from the multi-function display in the instrument cluster. Most of us go into settings and remove them from the list of active options so you don't have "blank" screens.

cjrhoades

This was my biggest concern when swapping out the PCM, but after thoroughly looking into it, I didn't really have anything to be concerned about. Sport Chrono still functions as normal through the instrument cluster display, you just lose the functions of it only accessible through the PCM, which isn't much. Also, as Andy said, no nav or audio information will be available in the cluster display, but those maps are dated anyway. That's pretty much it. There can't be much locked behind the PCM because Porsche sold cars with just a shelf in the head unit spot if you wanted. All the needed controls are available in the instrument cluster display, and the aftermarket head units can also control vehicle functions via CANBUS.