A great alternative to a car PC if you just want all your music at your fingertips. The Pioneer DEH-P690UB head unit has a built-in USB port/cable on the back, which can read USB drives up to 250GB. So I bought:
1 Pioneer DEH-P690UB head unit $189
1 Western Digital 250GB 3.5" ATA hard drive $72 locally
1 Coolmax 15314 USB ATA External hard drive enclosure $33.88 at Amazon.com
1 Sharp 12v Regulator Digikey part#425-2287-5-ND $1.71
1 Heatsink Digikey part#345-1021-ND $0.60
1 Thermal pad Digikey part#345-1080-ND $0.53
1 generic PCB board with copper pads (radio shack)
1 small plastic project case (radio shack)
The Pioneer deck can put out up to 500ma via USB, and it could not power up my 0.7 amp laptop hard drive in its external case, so I figured external power was the only way to do this reliably.
I chose the coolmax case because it only requires a single 12v input, unlike most others that have two ports for 12v and 5v. I opted to use the Sharp voltage regulator to maintain a constant 12v for the safety of the hard drive. I soldered this chip to the PCB board with the heatsink attached and the thermal pad in between(instead of white head-sink grease), then glued board into the case with holes drilled to vent heat.
Important notes! :
- This head unit ONLY reads USB drives in FAT32 format, which sucks because it is highly inefficient and requires software like Powerquest Partition Magic to format drives to FAT32 (Windows will not do this)
- Because the FAT32 format is so inefficient, my 250GB drive became 191GB after formatting. I figure that at 320GB hard drive would show around 249GB so it might work with this deck.
- You can ONLY use mp3's or wma's. I was hoping for uncompressed .wav capability but it cannot.
- Sound quality is NOT as good as on the old high-end pioneer decks. I pulled out my old Pioneer DEHP-9400 CD player which had a Burr-Brown D/A converter, and the difference is rather noticeable if you are an audiophile using top-notch speakers. It sounds a bit more thin and digital with a higher noise floor than an audiophile head unit. Most people won't know the difference but audiophiles will.
- My hard drive has my entire CD collection at only 40GB of mp3's at 320kbps bit rate, so even an 80GB drive is plenty for me. The head unit will show "format read" for about 25-45 seconds every time I turn the ignition on. Once this is done, access to the hard drive mp3's is instantaneous if changing from radio or CD, or off. If major changes have been made to the drive or if it is the first time connecting it, it can take several minutes to scan the drive. The cool thing is, you can play a CD or listen to the radio or even have the deck off(but getting ignition power), and it will scan the drive in the background.
Pioneer currently offers high-end sound quality decks with the famed Burr-Brown D/A converter but no USB capability. I'm crossing my fingers that the 2008 lineup will offer a deck with all these features. Hopefully Alpine or Pioneer will offer this.
1 Pioneer DEH-P690UB head unit $189
1 Western Digital 250GB 3.5" ATA hard drive $72 locally
1 Coolmax 15314 USB ATA External hard drive enclosure $33.88 at Amazon.com
1 Sharp 12v Regulator Digikey part#425-2287-5-ND $1.71
1 Heatsink Digikey part#345-1021-ND $0.60
1 Thermal pad Digikey part#345-1080-ND $0.53
1 generic PCB board with copper pads (radio shack)
1 small plastic project case (radio shack)
The Pioneer deck can put out up to 500ma via USB, and it could not power up my 0.7 amp laptop hard drive in its external case, so I figured external power was the only way to do this reliably.
I chose the coolmax case because it only requires a single 12v input, unlike most others that have two ports for 12v and 5v. I opted to use the Sharp voltage regulator to maintain a constant 12v for the safety of the hard drive. I soldered this chip to the PCB board with the heatsink attached and the thermal pad in between(instead of white head-sink grease), then glued board into the case with holes drilled to vent heat.
Important notes! :
- This head unit ONLY reads USB drives in FAT32 format, which sucks because it is highly inefficient and requires software like Powerquest Partition Magic to format drives to FAT32 (Windows will not do this)
- Because the FAT32 format is so inefficient, my 250GB drive became 191GB after formatting. I figure that at 320GB hard drive would show around 249GB so it might work with this deck.
- You can ONLY use mp3's or wma's. I was hoping for uncompressed .wav capability but it cannot.
- Sound quality is NOT as good as on the old high-end pioneer decks. I pulled out my old Pioneer DEHP-9400 CD player which had a Burr-Brown D/A converter, and the difference is rather noticeable if you are an audiophile using top-notch speakers. It sounds a bit more thin and digital with a higher noise floor than an audiophile head unit. Most people won't know the difference but audiophiles will.
- My hard drive has my entire CD collection at only 40GB of mp3's at 320kbps bit rate, so even an 80GB drive is plenty for me. The head unit will show "format read" for about 25-45 seconds every time I turn the ignition on. Once this is done, access to the hard drive mp3's is instantaneous if changing from radio or CD, or off. If major changes have been made to the drive or if it is the first time connecting it, it can take several minutes to scan the drive. The cool thing is, you can play a CD or listen to the radio or even have the deck off(but getting ignition power), and it will scan the drive in the background.
Pioneer currently offers high-end sound quality decks with the famed Burr-Brown D/A converter but no USB capability. I'm crossing my fingers that the 2008 lineup will offer a deck with all these features. Hopefully Alpine or Pioneer will offer this.
