BlueBus: A fully integrated A2DP Bluetooth solution

[t3ddftw]

ted,
if you don't mind....what is the latest on Wave2 orders.

Should all be out by Monday . I have 116 left to go out the door and all are programmed, so just testing and boxing / labeling is what they need.

Thanks!
Ted

[BubbaTree]

Here's an update on that A/C cutoff issue. Took a short drive yesterday, local temp 110, and for the first time in about 2 weeks, the A/C shut down. Both the blower fan and compressor shut off, but continued to run fine after a manual restart.

[Alpine White Drea///M]

Hi guys. Just installed my BlueBus into my 2004 Alpine White M3

Loving the functionality — Bluetooth music and telephone. Just what I needed and was hoping for.

A few questions:

I am using analog now. I was reading here on one of Ted’s posts that the digital sounds better. How can I tell if my car has digital/DSP? If it doesn’t, can I upgrade to it?

What does the Comfort Locks feature do other than unlock the car when you turn off the engine?

I was reading up on the recall related to the fan and AC compressor turning off intermittently. I received my BlueBus yesterday, so I believe I am in the clear with regard to this? My car is also a 2004, so I think I wouldn’t have suffered this problem anyway?

I decided not to remove the TCU and I simply Velcro-ed the BlueBus to the outside of the CD changer. Any risk of electrical sparks/shocks? Sounds like the BlueBus case itself is insulating. I just want to make sure leaving the TCU in and plugged to power (little round purple cable) but disconnected from the 54 pin cable isn’t a sitting duck/susceptible to causing a fire.

Are there any known issues with the latest version (received August 8, 2020) depleting the battery? Though I daily drive it, it will go undriven for a week at a time here and there.

Thanks to any/all for your replies!

[calmelb]

Hi guys. Just installed my BlueBus into my 2004 Alpine White M3

Loving the functionality — Bluetooth music and telephone. Just what I needed and was hoping for.

A few questions:

I am using analog now. I was reading here on one of Ted’s posts that the digital sounds better. How can I tell if my car has digital/DSP? If it doesn’t, can I upgrade to it?

What does the Comfort Locks feature do other than unlock the car when you turn off the engine?

I was reading up on the recall related to the fan and AC compressor turning off intermittently. I received my BlueBus yesterday, so I believe I am in the clear with regard to this? My car is also a 2004, so I think I wouldn’t have suffered this problem anyway?

I decided not to remove the TCU and I simply Velcro-ed the BlueBus to the outside of the CD changer. Any risk of electrical sparks/shocks? Sounds like the BlueBus case itself is insulating. I just want to make sure leaving the TCU in and plugged to power (little round purple cable) but disconnected from the 54 pin cable isn’t a sitting duck/susceptible to causing a fire.

Are there any known issues with the latest version (received August 8, 2020) depleting the battery? Though I daily drive it, it will go undriven for a week at a time here and there.

Thanks to any/all for your replies!

RE: DSP, your car won’t have it. It was a thing only for the 5 series and above at the time.

Comfort locks lock/ unlock the doors for you so that you don’t have to push the button.

The recall is different to the AC playing up, unsure whether your unit is affected by the Recall however, Ted will have to answer that

Your TCU isn’t powered up at all, the purple cable is the antenna. The 54 pin has the 12v line. However no, one of the devices are going to cause sparks (as long as the cables remain inside some sort of connector and not free floating pins)

As far as we can tell it’s fine. Make sure you are running the latest firmware (1.14 I think). That seems to have solved the issues for everyone though again, Ted can confirm

[Alpine White Drea///M]

RE: DSP, your car won’t have it. It was a thing only for the 5 series and above at the time.

Comfort locks lock/ unlock the doors for you so that you don’t have to push the button.

The recall is different to the AC playing up, unsure whether your unit is affected by the Recall however, Ted will have to answer that

Your TCU isn’t powered up at all, the purple cable is the antenna. The 54 pin has the 12v line. However no, one of the devices are going to cause sparks (as long as the cables remain inside some sort of connector and not free floating pins)

As far as we can tell it’s fine. Make sure you are running the latest firmware (1.14 I think). That seems to have solved the issues for everyone though again, Ted can confirm

Thanks for your awesome reply!
So there is no way to get DSP on the E46 M3, huh? No adapter or anything ... :/
Maybe I need to upgrade speakers

for the unlock feature, when does it unlock?

[Orphee]

Thanks for your awesome reply!
So there is no way to get DSP on the E46 M3, huh? No adapter or anything ... :/
Maybe I need to upgrade speakers

for the unlock feature, when does it unlock?

Replace it for an M5 E39 😎

[Alpine White Drea///M]

Replace it for an M5 E39 😎

Maybe add it to the stable in the future

[Alpine White Drea///M]

Also: anyone having issues with Waze? The thing that happens for me is that whenever an audio instruction is provided via Bluetooth, it seems the signal to cut over from music to Waze is a little too slow, resulting in the first word or two being cut off from the instruction. “... on Main Street” is what I hear, when it should really be “In 50 feet turn left on Main Street”

[Tangomeister]

I installed the BlueBus slaved off of my Sirius receiver but moving pin 2 to the pin 3 position on the slave cable as Ted indicated here caused the BlueBus to not work at all. I moved it back and all is good with no static or interference noise.

[t3ddftw]

Here's an update on that A/C cutoff issue. Took a short drive yesterday, local temp 110, and for the first time in about 2 weeks, the A/C shut down. Both the blower fan and compressor shut off, but continued to run fine after a manual restart.

Is there any correlation to you using the blinkers, that you can tell? I have an E39 owner who has directly correlated the IHKA dying to the use of blinkers.

I was reading up on the recall related to the fan and AC compressor turning off intermittently. I received my BlueBus yesterday, so I believe I am in the clear with regard to this? My car is also a 2004, so I think I wouldn’t have suffered this problem anyway?

I decided not to remove the TCU and I simply Velcro-ed the BlueBus to the outside of the CD changer. Any risk of electrical sparks/shocks? Sounds like the BlueBus case itself is insulating. I just want to make sure leaving the TCU in and plugged to power (little round purple cable) but disconnected from the 54 pin cable isn’t a sitting duck/susceptible to causing a fire.

Are there any known issues with the latest version (received August 8, 2020) depleting the battery? Though I daily drive it, it will go undriven for a week at a time here and there.

The recall was for a poorly sourced MOSFET which dealt with the telephone functionality. The IHKA issues are wholly related to software, so they can be fixed remotely via software upgrade once I find the cause.

Also: anyone having issues with Waze? The thing that happens for me is that whenever an audio instruction is provided via Bluetooth, it seems the signal to cut over from music to Waze is a little too slow, resulting in the first word or two being cut off from the instruction. “... on Main Street” is what I hear, when it should really be “In 50 feet turn left on Main Street”

I'm gonna assume this is happening when you're not listening to Bluetooth, right? If so, the lag is in the radio kicking on TCU mode and there's nothing I can do about it.

For cars with DSP who are making use of the digital coax input, I can actually fix this by cutting over to the digital input for HFP when NOT in Bluetooth mode. Of course, this won't help any of us E46 guys

I installed the BlueBus slaved off of my Sirius receiver but moving pin 2 to the pin 3 position on the slave cable as Ted indicated here caused the BlueBus to not work at all. I moved it back and all is good with no static or interference noise.

Odd... Maybe your slave cable was pinned differently? I definitely found this issue when I added an op-amp to the DAC output stage, which I removed before the production revision. It's possible this is no longer necessary.

Thanks!
-Ted

[Tangomeister]

Odd... Maybe your slave cable was pinned differently? I definitely found this issue when I added an op-amp to the DAC output stage, which I removed before the production revision. It's possible this is no longer necessary.

Thanks!
-Ted

I suppose it's possible that this was corrected in later Sirius receivers. Mine is 65120416377 3rd generation from mid 2006.

[ujjbd16]

Ted, I also noticed some weird AC behavior after I installed the BlueBus, but it was only on one trip and I don't recall the details. I think the AC turned off or lowered the fan speed on its own. I don't drive the car much right now so I don't have a lot of miles with the BlueBus. My production date is 6/02.

As mentioned on a different forum, this is also happening to me. I have a 2004 e46 M3 SMG vert.

[t3ddftw]

As mentioned on a different forum, this is also happening to me. I have a 2004 e46 M3 SMG vert.

Did the facelift happen after 2004 for Euro M3s?

[Good]

I'm having a problem with my Bluebus, for some reason it will not play audio out. It displays metadata, but no audio. Radio audio works, just not anything from bluetooth.

[t3ddftw]

I'm having a problem with my Bluebus, for some reason it will not play audio out. It displays metadata, but no audio. Radio audio works, just not anything from bluetooth.

We can troubleshoot this here just in case it happens to anyone else, but it's easiest to email me at [email protected]

First things first: Nav or Business CD?

Either way:
1. Do you hear clicking as the metadata scrolls by? If so, likely the audio input from the CD Changer harness is disconnected from the radio.
2. If you don't hear clicking, then can you check your glove box for an iPod cable of any kind?

Thanks!
-Ted