Richard Solomon

I must have misunderstood because it seemed like folks were having all kinds of difficulty fitting these, and so I was a bit worried. Perhaps because I wasn't at all trying to keep the existing CD changer, my life was easier. The fit is tight, but I was able to get the Phatbox in place of the changer without any serious difficulty.


Before doing any mounting I simply unplugged the CD changer, connected the Phatbox cable, and booted the Phatbox up just loose in the trunk. After the initial configuration, I updated to the V7.02 firmware from the Phatbox site and reconfigured for my head unit.

In order to get the full functionality from the Phatbox software one needs to install the Phatnoise Music Manager *FROM THE SUPPLIED CD* - in my case this was V1.87. The pressed CD contains the AT&T Natural Voices Text-To-Speech engine and two voices. It also registers the Music manager and any future V1.xx and V2.xx updates. Immediately on executing, V1.87 automatically updated to V2.30. I then installed the Phatnoise *MEDIA* Manager V3.92 from the Phatbox website. Media manager encompasses all the functionality of Music manager, plus adds official support for some fancy features like generating text-to-speech song titles, pronunciation clues for the TTS engine, excluding playlists from Magazine Random mode, etc. It's generally a nicer/newer interface.

I also tweaked my phatbox.ini to remove the (annoying to me) music/previews during SSA modes. (E.g. when you go to Disk 2 for playlist, the voice says "Playlist blah" then plays a few seconds of music, then beeps, then returns to the track mode.)

Once happy with my software setup, I turned the Phatbox sideways so the DMS cartridge faced the rear of the car and tucked it into the left side storage compartment. Since my compartment is stuffed with a Libretto, coveralls, gloves, etc. I had plenty of padding for the temporary "mount".


This weekend I pulled the CD changer. This required removing 4 8mm hex-head bolts and one phillips head screw. There was one bolt on the lower left corner of the frame - attaching to the taillight area, two at the top (behind the toolkit) and one at the lower right corner of the frame. Below that final bolt was a phillips screw. I initially removed the screw, but later put it back with ~1/4" thread showing to aid in fitting the frame.

With the frame removed from the car, it was simple to remove the 3 screws holding the CD changer and set it aside. The Phatbox is slightly wider than the CD changer, so I laid the frame on some wood and hammered the raised screw holes down until I could easily slide the Phatbox in.

Not having a tap sitting around, and preferring to add new holes to the CD changer frame rather than my Phatbox, I chose to drill mounting holes in the existing frame to align with the Phatbox. I positioned the Phatbox in the frame, set the frame back in place in the car, putting in the phillips screw and the upper left bolt to hold it in place. I then set the Phatbox in the frame as far back as it would go. This left me adequate clearance for the Phatbox cable, and just barely cleared the luggage compartment cover when the DMS was installed. I used a pencil to mark the front edge of the Phatbox on the frame, then it was a matter of marking, measuring, drilling small test holes, tweaking the placement of those holes and drilling larger test holes.

Since I'm notoriously bad at this kind of free-form mechanical work (measure twice, cut three or four times) I went slowly. With the frame out of the car, I held the Phatbox in position with my marked lines, and marked the existing hole positions on the Phatbox. Then I measured from the existing hole marks to the Phatbox screw holes and applied those measurements to the frame to mark a hole. I used maybe a 1/8" drillbit to start, checked my position, corrected slightly with a larger bit, then finally drilled out a hole about the same size as the existing one.

Note that I started with the "left" side of the Phatbox and frame - the one which ends up facing the rear of the car because it had the best clearance and access, and because I knew I needed the Phatbox as close to that edge as possible to give me cable clearance against the sheet metal in the storage compartment.

I repeated my measure, drill, drill, drill process for a second hole on the left, and a third on the right. The fourth hole on the right would have ended up on top of one of the metal joins of the frame and its support members, so I called it a day at 3 holes. Again, because history proves I'm lousy at this, I test-fitted the frame with the Phatbox installed after each hole/bolt to make sure I hadn't lost my clearance or anything else stupid.

I used the slightly longer bolts included with the Phatbox as the CD changer screws are *short*. Perhaps due to overenthusiastic hammering or perhaps simply due to the fact that the frame is sized assuming the mount holes will be raised (or recessed depending on your perspective) I ended up with a ~1/16"-1/8" gap on the right side of the Phatbox, but the longer bolts covered that easily.

I reinstalled the frame and Phatbox in the car, carefully fitted the cable to the back of the Phatbox, connected it back up to the DIN plug, and closed everything up. I re-selected the radio type as per instructions, but I'm not sure that was needed.


Total time from opening the trunk to closing the car up: 2.5 hrs. Anyone with a modicum of mechanical inclination could do it in half that or less

(Sorry, no photos at this point. It's not beautiful, but will pass casual inspection.)

Press

connected it up and done....total install took about 15 minutes...

02 Silver Arrow

Likewise, THe fit was snug enough that I did not need the bolts, actually tapped it all the way in w

VONBOTTLE

and held in place with wood shims

TeddyBGame

There is a fix...and guy who can do it lives in Boston. He replaced one of the chips in my pbox when I had the RNS-D....then I sold my RNS-D to absolute20v last winter and traded pboxes with him because the RNS-E doesn't have that same problem.

FYI - It involves shipping your pbox.

drop me a line if you need to go this route.

-Ted

Richard Solomon

I can get it soldered at work....

TeddyBGame

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Gauge

After I made enough clearance to slide it in, I screwed it in place. I loaded some songs and took a drive.
I ended up with a horrible electrical buzz like there was a bad ground and the volume level sucked.
I searched the web a bit and found others with the same problem and a few elaborate attempts to fix it. I caught 1 post about the CD changer frame screwing into the body and creating a ground loop.
I ended up unscrewing the phatbox and velcroing it in place. Well not actually velcro, but the 3m duallock stuff. Its not moving anywhere with that stuff, but I can still easily remove it if neccessary.

vlad2.7T

issue was gone. I have RNS-E Nav and no issues.