Dension Gateway 500: iPod for the Porsche
What with Porsche not installing iPod support from the factory, and the fact that their stereo systems are all run through a fiber-optic system known as the MOST bus, a company called Dension have released an interface that sits between the iPod and the MOST bus – The Dension Gateway 500.
I purchased two of the above, one for my Porsche Boxster 986 with a CDR23, and the other for my Dads Porsche Boxster 987 with a CDR24 – The installation on the CDR24 went smoothly and is working, though I was having some issues trying to get it working with the CDR23.
The Set-up
On the MOST bus with the CDR23 is a CDC4 6-disc multi changer and an amplifier. The Gateway 500 has been installed after the CDR23 unit. I have had to use an adapter as the car has the Yazaki plugs on the fiber optic leads instead of the Tyco ones that 90% of Porsches have.
The Problems
What was happening, was, in bypass mode everything works normally as it should. When switching over to the Gateway 500 mode, the CDR23 appears to lock up in whatever mode it was previously in before resetting the MOST bus. So, if the CDR23 was playing the single CD in the unit in bypass mode, when resetting in Gateway 500 mode, the CDR23 is stuck in CDS mode, still playing the CD, but the unit appears to be unresponsive to any button presses.
When switched to Gateway 500 mode, the connected iPod goes through the
motions of detecting the the Gateway 500 with the tick symbol, followed by the driving safety message and firmware indication screen and then reverts back to the iPods main navigation screen where I can browse and use the iPod as though it wasn’t plugged in. When switching to bypass mode, the iPod displays the Dension logo on the screen.
When in CD Changer mode before setting the Gateway 500 to iPod mode, the CDR23 still plays whatever CD was playing in the changer, sometimes I can even change the CD, although to start with the CDR23 reports that CD Zero is selected…
Sometimes when the CDR23 becomes unresponsive, if left for a while, the word “ERROR” appears on the screen.
As I have two of the units, I could confirm that they both worked fine in the 987 with the CDR24, so I can only assume that the Gateway 500 is not faulty. The Gateway 500 was delivered with firmware version 1.05 on it, I have since downgraded to both 1.04 and 1.00 and back to 1.05, none of them having any effect on the situation. The DIP switches are currently set to 0001 although when downgrading to the 1.00 firmware I set the switches to 0110 based on an old manual I found.
Diagnosis
Based on the fact that bypass mode worked fine, I can assume the fiber optic cables are fine otherwise the MOST bus would fail to function, power cables and the ext. switch are fine. And that the iPod detects the Gateway when switched over, the iPod cable appears to be ok.
After plenty of messing around with all of the components on the MOST bus, disconnecting things, moving things around, flashing firmwares, resetting the MOST bus after each change – It turned out that having both the Dension Gateway 500 and the CDC4 (CD Changer) was causing the issues, what with the Gateway 500 emulating a CD Changer.
The CDR23 is at the head of the MOST bus and is programmed to know everything on the bus and its location on the bus. When the Gateway 500 had its bypass mode switched off it was not disabling the CDC4 so that the CDR23 was then seeing two CD changers, didn’t know what to do, so crashed.
I’m not sure where the underlying issue is, though I’m assuming it is a firmware bug. Dension technical support was useless in the fact that they never responded to the three support tickets that I submitted. No response from the UK distributer neither.
I don’t have the benefit of the CDC4 any more, but with the 30GB iPod hooked up, I’m sure I’ll be fine! (The USB socket is also good for playing MP3 files stored on a removable storage device)
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Car, Gadgets, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
6 Responses to “Dension Gateway 500: iPod for the Porsche”
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December 14th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Hi, I am interested in doing same with a Boxster 2003. I do not have a CDC4. Any tips or pistures on how to wire?
Thanks in advance!
December 15th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Hi Dominic,
By not having a CDC4 installed you will have to take your car to Porsche and have them reprogram your head unit so that it expects a CD changer as the Gateway 500 emulates one.
As far as wiring tips, I can’t offer much as I didn’t take any photos of the install process and it’s a bit of a pain to go back and take them as I’d be pulling the head unit out and a panel or two!
What you can expect though, is splicing some existing cables for powering the 500, joining up some fiber-optic cables with couplers, routing some cables (and maybe drilling a hole) to where you’d like to keep your iPod and access to the USB socket – I pulled the center console apart to route the cable and keep my iPod in the little storage box between the seats. My USB extension lives in the glovebox for easy software upgrades and playing from USB drives.
Hope this helps somewhat – The user manual and installation guide is available as a PDF from the Dension website if you want to have a read before purchasing.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:08 am
Hi,
Don’t know if you can help me here…
I’ve been to a ‘specialist’ car audio outfit to get a Dension Gateway 500 ipod kit fitted to my 987 Boxster with a bog standard CDR-24.
On reading all the various threads on the Gateway I checked first with the fitter that the kit would work OK without having to mess about with fibre optics etc. Also, my radio doesn’t have a CD changer and I had heard that it would need to be ‘recognised’ before the system would work.
I was assured all would be OK. To cut a long story short the fitter was wrong and something??? needs to be done to make the system recognise the Gateway – recognising or enabling the CD changer.
They can’t do it so I had to take it to Porsche. I assumed they would just plug in the radio to some specialist kit, click a few buttons and bob’s your uncle.
90 mins later the Porsche technician still couldn’t work out what to do!!!
I notice that you fitted a Gateway to a CDR24 – do you know what the Porsche technician needs to do (as much detail as poss would be great)?
I am booked in for one last try at my OPC tomorrow morning after which if it doesn’t work I’ll haven the system taken out for a refund.
Cheers
February 21st, 2008 at 9:37 am
Hi Chris,
First of all, the only way the 500 can interface with your car is through the fiber optic MOST bus – So yes, they would have had to play with the fiber optics.
My experience with the OPC was different – They had the car for about 5 minutes and all was well! I don’t know the ins and outs of what they did, but after doing a bit of research before hand, it looks like they would have connected the car to what is called the “Porsche System Tester 2 (PST2)” or the newer “PIWIS” – Which are basically Bosch diagnostics computers with custom Porsche software.
From the pictures I have seen of the diagnostics software, after plugging into the car, the engineer selects the car model, then the CDR-24 option from a list, then adding a CD changer to the loop. This may be an over-simplified explanation though!
If they still can’t figure it out – Get them to call OPC Swindon and ask them how to do it, they didn’t have a problem with mine.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Hi Kris,
Sorry to pester you yet again, but I finally DID manage to get the Gateway 500 to work with my Boxster’s CDR24 headunit.
After my local OPC swore blind that the stereo didn’t have any fibre optics, I went back to them one final time before giving up the ghost and taking out the Gateway. Surprise surprise, they found the fibre optics and enabled the CD changer.
However, I am experiencing a problem and wondered if you came across it with the CDR23 or 24.
Basically, when I first start up the engine the system works fine and the ipod is recognised through the CD changer function.
However, if I switch off the engine briefly (say to fill up with fuel), the Gateway doesn’t work on engine restart and the CDC function can’t be accessed – only the CD player shows up.
After 5 minutes, the system seems to reset itself and the Gateway is recognised again through the CD changer setting.
I have noticed that when I switch off the engine, there is a ring of light around the headunit on / off / volume button and I can hear a low static hum through the speakers. After 5 mins the light goes off and the Gateway works again when I switch the engine back on.
It’s as though the Gateway needs five minutes to power down once the engine is switched off, before it will work again.
I’m not sure if my Gateway has got the latest firmware and I’m also wondering if it’s down to a setting on the Gateway unit or a cable in the wrong place.
Anyway, sorry to bother you again – any ideas much appreciated as you seem to know your stuff!
Cheers
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:47 am
Hi Chris,
They’ve only just noticed the fiber optic cables?! They’re bright orange!
I can’t say I have personally experienced that problem, but I have read of others getting that issue. The only thing I can suggest is that you upgrade the firmware on it and see how that goes. Dension just released a new version within the last couple of weeks, 2.08 I think – That came with a bunch of bug fixes for the Porsche version.
You can see what version firmware you have when plugging in your iPod to the Gateway, it displays a splash screen with the Dension logo on, and in the top right it tells you the firmware version.
Hope that helps!