Page 1 of 1

Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 5:13 pm
by alex1985blue
hey Guys,

I am trying to understand how these work.

Are both items required to fit an ipod into the car? what does each piece do?

I have seen a Alpine KCA-420 for sale and it says that this is the tool used to connect the ipod to the headunit, so what does the Intravee II do?

Am I able to just use the Alpine part?

Cheers

Alex

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 5:27 pm
by Sanj

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 6:05 pm
by alex1985blue
Ok understood now.

Am I right in saying that the hard bit to find is the Alpine part and not the Intravee part?

Somewhere I heard you could get other features unlocked by installing the Intravee like unlocking of doors and folding of wing mirrors on locking.

If I got Intravee II does it already come with these features or do I need to download them and does it cost to download these features?

Cheers

Alex

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 7:26 pm
by Sanj
The Intravee is harder to get, the KCA unit is always available on eBay.

But once you get one and plug them into the car, just a case of uploading firmware to the Intravee unit via a PC. These then give you the features.

I've been beta testing for a while, I have the autolock, folding mirrors and the unlock when car goes into P on the gear selector. Plus the OBD shows my PDC's and how far they are from the obstacle in cms or inches. Can bring that up on the screen too... Also have display of song title on the same display when each song changes.

And yes, all free - just need a lap top with a 9 pin RS232 connection (hard on the new laptops) or a converter you can buy from Maplins for less than £15 I think.

Offer always there that I will update for you - just cover your postage 'to and from'.

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 7:56 am
by Sanj
Other forum members expressed interest in the 'extras' the Intravee shows through PMs.

Thought I'd post here for all to see.

This is an extract from the User Manual - I have absolutely no credit for it:

Image

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:48 am
by ChrisLux
Do all these functions work on all models of E53 , or does it depend on the year of manufacture you have .
Mine is 05/05 .

Chris

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:17 pm
by Rusty
[quote="ChrisLux"]

Do all these functions work on all models of E53 , or does it depend on the year of manufacture you have .
Mine is 05/05 .

Chris
[/quote]
Now there is a question...... :))
If you had seen mine on Sunday after the update, there was a great feature that when you locked the car, it would lower the front two windows completely (instead of folding the mirrors) - not the safest or dry'est option I can think of.  Definitely good for a laugh though :))

After looking into it further (and with the help of Guru Sanj) a few settings were checked and corrected and the windows behave and the mirrors now fold.  I have yet to test the auto lock/unlocking, but the PDC's work well, as does the blink (after a soft indicate, the indicator continues to flash for the set number of times - useful on m-ways etc).  The song/track listing on the OBC is good too.
Mine is an 06, so your's should be the same :)

Sanj will see you right, he is the Intravee Demi-god

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:12 pm
by Sanj
[quote="Rusty"]
Sanj will see you right, he is the Intravee Demi-god
[/quote]

Nope - that's RichardP. I just pass on his good advice...

Newer stuff to go on but need to install newer firmware.  ;)

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:58 pm
by jaynana
[quote="Rusty"]
after a soft indicate, the indicator continues to flash for the set number of times
[/quote]

how do i get THAT  enabled?  :P

Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:45 am
by scooby1doo1
Mine an old 53 plate and does all but soft touch, sanj updated mine shortly after buying the car just over a yr ago.
I use parking sensor display on sat nav, and unlock when P is engaged.
I did use folding mirrors for a while, but not needed half the time.
There is a few good stuff on it, not sure if i did it via intravee or impa but I turned on front parking sensors when going at 4ish mph. But turned that off as I was bored of the beeps when at traffic lights.


Sent from the Iphone via talktapa

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:20 am
by ChrisLux
I've got the auto-lock on mine which was done by Jason at BW with Autologic , but it
doesn't auto-open when you stop , you have to manually press the button !!

The folding mirrors certainly sound useful , as does the PDC sensors on the OBC .
And the 'soft' indicator too .

The only thing I'm apprehensive about is that I lose the CD charger , and I have around
500 cd's I listen to . Thinking mainly doing it to get one or two useful upgrades , and so my
daughters can use their i-pods in car on long distances (They actually have some OK music!!)

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 10:12 am
by RichardP
You can still have a CD Changer with the Intravee if you want, but it needs to be an Alpine AI-Net CD Changer, CHA-S634 etc.  If you want both iPod and CD Changer you'll also need an AI-Net switch (KCA-400c, KCA-410c or Intravee switch).

Re: Intravee II and Alpine KCA-420

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 12:49 pm
by petert
...and even 500 CDs isn't that much in MP3 format - good excuse to buy a more capacious iPod!
Peter T