HU + hard drive

[tatanka 10+ year member]

New here, (but I can take it).

I've got an Alpine 9886; never been real happy with it because of the sucky operator interface, but I'm willing to play.

Tuner is fine and I run it a lot with a 4 Gig Kingston USB memory stick. I'm trying to get it to play with a 60 Gig hard drive. No luck.... It powers the hard drive fine, but no tunes. I've got the drive formatted FAT32, but tried NTFS too -- both are a no-go.

Any ideas?

Are there any HU's out there that handle this really well? Or is there a secret to this?

Click to read more...

 

[Symon_say 10+ year member]

New pioneer handles up to 250gb.

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

So 60 gig is too big for the Alpine?

 

[95BlackGA 5,000+ posts]

You have to format to either Fat16, or Fat32. I'm guessing you're using the KCA-620M USB adapter? I have read that there has been A LOT of compatibility issues with this. If you are using this, I suggest you sell it, and buy an iPod and the iPod cable. That's what many people have said that this was their resort in their reviews.

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

No - the 9886 has USB built in. I'm trying to avoid the iPod route because they're so expensive (for what they are). It looks like others have gotten this to work, so I'll keep playing. I've got it formatted FAT32, but will try a different formatter.

The 9886 says "Searching" and that never goes away. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

Looks like the Alpine isn't putting out enough juice to run the hard drive. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[gymfreak101 10+ year member]

Looks like the Alpine isn't putting out enough juice to run the hard drive. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

Bingo the hardrive powers up but you are right the head unit does not give it enough power to work in you car ran into this issue.

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

Yeah...

I've got an idea for a small (hidden) module that'll fix this. Parts on order and it should be generic enough to work with any HU. Power ANY 5V hard drive. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[azimuth 5,000+ posts]

Yeah...
I've got an idea for a small (hidden) module that'll fix this. Parts on order and it should be generic enough to work with any HU. Power ANY 5V hard drive. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

what part and where'd you order it?

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=oc52yH%252bc6pXbMBQXD6wg3w%3d%3d

Requires a 1472 ohm resistor to set it to 5.0V.

I gotta check something, though. I don't know if the USB port on these HUs is powered up all the time or only when USB is selected. If I have to control the power (on/off), I might have ordered the wrong one.

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

FWIW...

Got the parts yesterday and threw it together during lunch at work today. Here's what it looks like:

The "thick" white cable is the USB in and out -- I hacked up a USB extension cord for this. The red/black is where you inject 12V to get some real power. Yeah, that's a 2A minifuse soldered to the board.

"Blinded by the flash" quarter for size comparison. Looks like it has a shot at working. I powered it up on a bench supply, and it runs the Maxtor just fine. After 10 minutes of running the drive, the little plastic box isn't even warm.

With the cover on:

It'll probably be the weekend before I get a chance to play with it in the car, but I think this is gonna work.

 

[travanx]

did this end up working???

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

Yes... and no.

The powered USB cable works fine, but I gave up on the 60 Gig Maxtor OneTouch III Mini hard drive. On my 9886, it would play ~15-90 seconds of a track or so, and then the HU would say "UNSUPPORTED" and skip to the next track.

I just (today) bought a Seagate 120Gig "FreeAgent" drive. It looks like this will work fine -- I'm powering it with the powered USB cord and so far, it just works.

The only problem I'm seeing (probably not a problem for most folks; I probably won't bother with it) is that if I turn my car to ACC, it works. If I then turn it to ON, the HU loses the connection with the drive. If I just start the car, everything is fine. This is on a 2007 Altima.

So... looks like I'm good to go; just needed a "better" hard drive (and the power solution).

 

[sdmtnbiker420 10+ year member]

How much did the seagate cost ya?

 

[tatanka 10+ year member]

$59.99 at BestBuy. Must have been having a sale or something -- it said $71.99 on the shelf.