2012 Prius 5 - upgrade deck so it will play digital movies while parked?

Ya, tape an ipad on top

 

Wait, so your 2012 is a 5, so you have the 7 inch nav display that folds down to insert discs, right? I have one of those on a shelf right now, waiting for warmer weather to see if I can transplant it to my 2010.

It will already play DVDs just fine when parked. I take it by "digital movies" you want to be able to play stuff from some other content source?

I believe it already can accept a composite video input, but doesn't have a convenient jack provided to connect it. You'd need to get a shielded cable with a yellow RCA jack at one end (preferably balanced, that is, two internal conductors for the tip and shell of the RCA jack, and a shield that isn't just connected to the shell), and three "0.64 III" female terminals (sold by Toyota as part 82998-12870 pre-crimped on short lengths of wire) to connect to the other cable end, for the tip, shell, and shield wires.

Then you need to get behind the headunit, unplug connector L130, open the secondary retention bar, click those three terminals into cavities 13, 14, and 12 (respectively), click the bar back down, and plug the connector back in. Put the RCA jack end of the cable some convenient place for connecting things ... maybe back in the console where the audio aux in jack already is. (That's where you'll hook up your audio when using a video source.)

The headunit won't show you the option to select the video in unless it believes you have a source connected. It decides that by looking at resistance between two other terminals of L130 (25 and 11). Those are already wired back to the audio aux jack in the console (terminal 11 is the shield of that cable). There is a switch built into that jack. When nothing is plugged in, there's no connection. When you insert an audio plug, the circuit is closed with a resistance (and the headunit says, "hey, I have aux audio available to select").

Apparently, when you want to connect video, you close that circuit with no resistance (so, short it), and the headunit says "hey, I have a video source available to select"). Maybe just add a little switch for that.

Now, I haven't personally tried any of this yet; I found the info here. That post shows an already-made-up adapter you can buy; it just has the necessary cables connected to a male and a female version of L130, so you unplug your original L130 from the headunit, plug it into this thing, and plug this thing in where the original went.

Either way, you'd then just need a converter to composite video from whatever phone/laptop/player you were going to use, if it doesn't have composite out already.

-Chap

 

just go to a car audio store and ask, or check out crutchfield.com

 

Chapman F - Does your oem deck thats going into your car have navi? I want to update my 2010 IV which has NAVI and JBL. I just want a newer OEM deck that has HD radio and such but has to have navi and works with jbl sound system.

 

Yes, my car originally had nav (which, in 2010, meant only one choice, the unit with the 7 inch screen, made by Denso). So I wanted to get the 2012 version that's the closest match. In 2012, there's more than one nav choice, the 7 inch Denso or the 6.1 inch Harman Kardon, but I looked for the 7 inch one to keep the look as original as possible. That one's the 86100-47390.

It still won't be a perfect match; I think the front panel is a lighter shade of grey. I haven't dropped it in the dash yet to see how badly that will stick out.

It's also definitely not a simple plug and play replacement. They changed the wire harness connectors a lot. Looks like I won't even just be popping the terminals out of the old shells and into the proper positions of the new shells: the terminals used in the shells are mostly different. The 2010 uses a combination of 0.64 II, 1.0 III, and 2.3 II terminals, and 2012 uses a bunch of 0.64 III and some 2.3 II. So even the 0.64 mm terminals are from a different family and probably won't just click into the newer shells. I haven't tried, but my luck isn't usually that good. (There are some 0.64 III terminals in the 2010 too, but only in the connectors for the external XM box, which won't be needed with the 2012 headunit, which has XM built in. Yay, extra space under the driver seat!)

It would be great if someone sells an adapter harness that works, but I'm not sure how to find out. Otherwise, I'm in for some really tedious wire-by-wire adapting.

Also, 2012 introduced the JBL 'GreenEdge' technology, which supposedly involves more power-efficient amp and speakers that are specially designed for each other. I'm hoping the headunit won't mind if I just feed its output audio to my 2010, non-GreenEdge amp and speakers. On the wiring diagram, it looks promising enough. The so-far-untested risk is that I get it all wired up, turn it on, it chats with the amp over AVC-LAN and says, hey, that's not a GreenEdge amp you've got there.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the 2010-11 unit is actually easier to update maps on. You just get the new map DVD and slip it in, done. The 2012 has much more intrusive copy protection where you have to see the dealer for a unique activation number to enter with the new map data. (Another, more human-factors, unquantified risk is whether the dealer techs will even be able to figure out what to do if they need to get a 2012+ activation key for a 2010 car....)

But it does have HD radio, and play DVDs, and have improved USB music browsing.

-Chap