Markus,

I have just ordered one from the same guy, spoke to him yesterday and he seems legit. The guy is called Sal and has good feedback from previous sales. The price is a lot better than the ?500 notes quoted by VW dealers.

He reckons I will receive it before Monday but has no boot changer cables, you would need to find an alternative from the bay or from a VW dealer.

Not all MKIVs have the boot changer cable preinstalled (My Bora doesn't) so you may need one if you are doing a boot install. Any existing cable should be on the left hand side (looking from rear of car) and may be coiled up under the back seat or in the boot cubby hole (back left of car).

Install should be easy, just plug into changer cable if ones there. (If not you would have to pull out the gamma head unit to attach changer cable to back of head unit). Thinking of installing in glovebox or under passenger seat in my bora.

Now I just need to swap my 6cd dash changer for a single cd and I'm good to go.

Cheers,

Ian

 

Thanks Ian

So i need to get the changer cable, plug it into the gamma stereo, route it to wherever i want the box, plug it into the box and proceed to damage my eardrums [H]

Thanks for all the help

EDIT: found the cable, only it's from Poland, close enough i guess

 

CD Changer Boot Cable 1J0051592A ?35 from Dealer

 

I bought one from this chap, the delivery was excellent, all you are doing is cutting out the middle man, ?199 from the Uk is the same item as the above, granted it is for an Audi, but the place sells VW also.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/AUDI-PHATBOX-MP3-DIGITAL-AUDIO-PLAYER-PHATNOISE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ43947QQitemZ8075723584QQrdZ1

mine came to around ?120 all in, including delivery, I bought a cable from Poland for ?18, and the job was done. I also cut the 2 "wings" of the Phatbox unit, and mounted it with strong velcro, facing backwards, and didnt have to cut holes in the cubby hole door like VW say you have to!!

SB

 

I would recommend a dealer job on this one guys as the other ones have been known to be a little hit an miss

 

I actually bought the Audi version and spliced the Audi Phatbox onto the VW Cd changer, works a treat!!!

SB

 

Stokeballoon,

Any photos of your install?

Cheers.

 

I will have a look when I get home this afternoon.

SB

 

I bought from the bloke in your link (Sal) and I did get my phatbox, it took a good 4-5 weeks tho, he originally said it was coming from the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>, but ended up coming from <st1:State w:st="on">New York</st1:State> in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">US</st1lace></st1:country-region>. The mains cable for the cradle was crap (the kit is <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">US</st1lace></st1:country-region> spec, but he changes the cradle psu to a compatible) had to buy one from maplin for 6 quid.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

<o></o>

I bought my cd changer cable from the polish guy, took 11 days and its suitable. The CD changer cable is all you need extra in addition to the phatbox kit. The short cable that comes with the phatbox converts the phatbox to the cd changer cable.<o></o>

I installed my phatbox into a gamma + single CD changer, the cd changer cable goes into the single cd player and I still have the use of it.<o></o>

For starters I would recommend pulling the headunit and cd player out, and wiring up the phatbox tempory to it, making sure it plays as the cd changer, then route all the cables to the relevant location.<o></o>

<o></o>

I used to keep mine under my seat, but the frequency I remove the cart (once every week after the initial install) I ended up moving it in the boot.<o></o>

<o></o>

Little word of advice, when you plug it all in for the first time, it takes aaages (well about 2 mins) for the phatbox to update from the cart.<o></o>

<o></o>

All in all, I love it...I hacked the DMS to take a 40 gig hard disk, which is another game in itself <o></o>

<o></o>

Any questions, give us a shout......cos the details around the forums weren?t as detailed as I needed.<o></o>

<o></o>

<o></o>

Imp<o></o>

<o> </o>

 

Thanks a lot guys[] Comments have been a great help

I found an audi one for sale with all the cables, from someone in the U.K., so i think i will go for that one.

Is Phatnoise like iTunes? Can you make lots of playlists from one library of music? or is it one long list of songs?

 

PMM is kinda like itunes.

I currently have mine setup so each album is a playlist. When in cd changer mode (eg listening to the phatbox) I press "2" on the gamma and then s elect another album via the voice prompts.

Imp

 

I took a few pics of my Phatnoise.
Unmolested door

Phatnoise with the wings machined off, makes it a much smaller unit.

Close up on the stainless plinth I fitted. The unit is sat on the plinth using self adhesive velcro, I have had it fitted for several months with no problems/skipping whatsoever. The unit powered up first time and worked straight away.

The rear showing the cable routing and room you have to leave to stop any crimping problems. I had to cut a small piece of carpet away, about 2 x 2" to allow the cable connecter to sit naturally.

One word, please be aware that if you buy the Audi one as I did, then you have to crimp the Audi Phatnoise connctor to the VW CD changer cable, not hard at all, and I will give you a hand on what wire goes where, or even for the princely sum of some Jaffa Cakes get the guys who did mine (I am a Mechanical/Structural Helicopter engineer but have Radio engineers working for me (Homs!)) for you.

Hope this helps, the hard part was cutting the wings off, the Alloy shroud comes off the Unit really easily, about 8 screws and a plastic fittimg, the actual Phatnoise unit inside is tiny!!!

SB

 

Well done on the install, looks cute without the wings.

Will get some images up of my install later,

Imp

 

I ordered from Mikan Motors as above , I think they were about ?130 inc customs and shipping.
I also cut the wings off like stokeballoon, although I fitted mine to a MKV Golf under the front seat

I have the DMS hack done and a 60GB disc working, should keep me going for a while []

As far as the palylists go I organised mine in alphabetical order for artist names
so my playlists are named
a-e
f-j
etc....
and then a playlist at then end called whole_disk.

Having them in alphabetical order allows me to zoom in quicker to a particular artist.

As the RCD300 in the MKV doesn't do "mix" across all disks the "whole_disk" playlist allows me to do this. The gamma in the MKIV does this anyway.

 

Which button is used for the "whole disk" on the gamma?

Also, would you mind disclosing what cables in addition to the gamma, you used for your rcd300 (was it just a iso adaptor loom?) as im fitting a phatbox to one in a few weeks.

Thanks

Imp

 

The parts that were used were 1J0051592A which was the cd changer cable
from my mkiv and adapter 1J0051445D.

For the Gamma, hold down the TP button for about 2 seconds.
Go to the option "CD SFL M/D" and set it to "all"
This will then play random songs across all six discs or for a Phatnoise all 300 discs []

 

The plinth is actually the one I quickly made to fit a Kenwood 6 disc changer i had fitted previously. The bolt you see in the Right foreground is a stiffener I made to stop bounce.

The machining the wings was difficult, as the noise it made, because it was difficult to mount on the miller, it chattered quite a lot.

I bought from Mikan motors and they shipped in about 7 days, thehardest part was getting it from Parcelforce, as they lost it in their well organised hub! It was tracking as being in the Uk hub at Southampton, but getting it to Fareham took 4 days! But we got there in the end.

I have still to organise my playlists better, as I did it quickly in a Sunday night.

The power supply needed is 12VDC 750-1000Ma, I actually had one at home I used to charge up a torch.

SB

 

Nice Install Stokeballoon.

Just picked up a CD changer cable from the stealer and am now waiting for the Phatbox from Sal.

With regards to the DMS Hack, I have read there may be a problem doing this with the Phatbox for VW. Has anyone had any problems with their hacked cartridges? I wouldnt mind upgrading to120Gb at some point.

 

I have had a 60gb disk in for about a year now with no problems.

I did it slightly differently than described on the hack web site but it seemed to work after an initial scare.

 

Hope this helps you.

http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1146689746/0

Imp

 

Thanks Imp,

thats where I saw the possible VW problem. I will follow your version when my new drive arrives.

IanMK

 

So i got my CD changer cable today. I started in the boot and routed it to the CD player at the front. One question, there is a little brown wire that is attached to, but not contained in, the main group of wires and it has a metal loop at the end, where does this go? The main cable plugs in fine, but i am puzzled as to where this born wire goes?? TIA

EDIT: has anyone mounted their phatbox vertically? i plan on doing this but everyone else has it horizontal and i am worried that it could cause some problems.

 

bump

 

The brown wire is a earth cable, attach it to the body of the car if possible. As for vertical mounting, it wont be a problem as hard disks dont mind.

Imp

 

Mine is installed now installed vertically in the first aid box space.

Upgraded the hard drive to 80Gb following Impossibles instructions on the Phathack - an initial scare that I had trashed both drives - but up and running the next day. MP3 collection transferred and adding about 10cds a day from cd collection.

Very happy with the Phatnoise system - just waiting to replace my 6cd changer with a single cd now.