ipod locks up with Autocom

[git-r-dan]

I have the 30 gig ipod purchased at Sam's Club. It was a great choice to purchase there because Best Buy (where I purchased my wife's ipod) would have made me send the unit back to Apple for repairs. After locking up several times during 1-2 hour cruises, I tried ALL the fixes that Apple provided on their website with no success. Then, returned the 6 month old unit back to Sam's Club where the traded me for a brand new one with proof of purchase. Back on the bike again and more lock ups. :angry2: So, I call Autocom (great folks) and talk to a techy dude telling him the story and that I was using the special cable w/ the noise cancelation filter. He said to try using the plain cable that was provided in the main kit (Autocom Super Pro AVI). This last week, I have been working on the Nautilus Compact horn install and have had my ipod hooked to an amp/speakers with NO lockups after a ton of hours of music. Then last night on my 2-3 hour test ride, it locks up immediately, I do the two button reset to unlock, locks up again, reset and then locks up again. I am waiting on a call back from Autocom techy's but am wondering if there's a kilowatt dude out there that has an idea as to what's causing it. Might trade it in for Microsoft's latest due out in November or just settle for an 8 track. :lol:

 

[Fred H.]

Your lockups have nothing to do with how the Ipod is electrically connected. They are caused by vibration of the hard drive while the Ipod is trying to read the drive. I bet you find they occur most often at higher speeds. This is due to the increased vibration amplitude and frequency.

Try finding a different place to mount your Ipod and I bet your lockups will go away. Put it in a tank bag or on a soft sponge or find a way to isolate it a bit from the road vibration.

 

[pmoscoso]

I have the 30 gig ipod purchased at Sam's Club. It was a great choice to purchase there because Best Buy (where I purchased my wife's ipod) would have made me send the unit back to Apple for repairs. After locking up several times during 1-2 hour cruises, I tried ALL the fixes that Apple provided on their website with no success. Then, returned the 6 month old unit back to Sam's Club where the traded me for a brand new one with proof of purchase. Back on the bike again and more lock ups. :angry2: So, I call Autocom (great folks) and talk to a techy dude telling him the story and that I was using the special cable w/ the noise cancelation filter. He said to try using the plain cable that was provided in the main kit (Autocom Super Pro AVI). This last week, I have been working on the Nautilus Compact horn install and have had my ipod hooked to an amp/speakers with NO lockups after a ton of hours of music. Then last night on my 2-3 hour test ride, it locks up immediately, I do the two button reset to unlock, locks up again, reset and then locks up again. I am waiting on a call back from Autocom techy's but am wondering if there's a kilowatt dude out there that has an idea as to what's causing it. Might trade it in for Microsoft's latest due out in November or just settle for an 8 track. :lol:

My wife has similar problem with her Ipod while I don't. The difference between hers and mine is the way in which they are mounted to the Bike. Mine is velcroed my tank bag, while hers is on an RAM Ipod holder attached to the brake fluid reservoir. Remember that Ipods are hard drives that store music or any other kind of information and therefore susceptible to the vibration of the motorcycle. I don't know how you attach yours?, you might want to try a different mount and see if makes any difference. If you are inetersted I will post pics if I can figure out how to.

Pedro

 

[jwilly]

Fred's right on this one. If I put my 60gb iPod on a mount on the handle bars it locks up within a few miles. If I put it in the pocket of my tank bag I can ride all day with no problems.

-jwilly

 

[git-r-dan]

Excellent! I have mine located loosely in the locked compartment w/ accessory outlet. It's inside the protective cover Apple provides but not isolated from vibration. I have some 2" soft foam that might do the trick. Thanks Fred. I'll report back. Oh yeah, Autocom called back and said this is the 1st time someone's had this problem. He said to isolate the ipod/Autocom away from the bike 1st to try that. Just called him back and told him that the problem is probably solved via the forum.

More chocolate donuts w/ sprinkles, Fred?

techy-computer-geek-killowatt-engineer dude

 

[TalioGladius]

Your lockups have nothing to do with how the Ipod is electrically connected. They are caused by vibration of the hard drive while the Ipod is trying to read the drive. I bet you find they occur most often at higher speeds. This is due to the increased vibration amplitude and frequency.
Try finding a different place to mount your Ipod and I bet your lockups will go away. Put it in a tank bag or on a soft sponge or find a way to isolate it a bit from the road vibration.

This is the correct answer. I have the iPod RAM mount and I'm trying to find a way to line it with foam or some gel substance to absorb the vibration.

 

[Penforhire]

I've had no problem with it in my tankbag either.

 

[bramfrank]

That´s why I went to a 4 Gig Nano. Solid state memory.

NEVER USE A DEVICE WITH A HARD DRIVE ON A BIKE.

 

[git-r-dan]

That´s why I went to a 4 Gig Nano. Solid state memory.
NEVER USE A DEVICE WITH A HARD DRIVE ON A BIKE.

You must be correct on that one. My ipod's holding about 13 gig of music and it would be a real drag to loose two-thirds of it for a smaller unit.

Here's what I did: found a 3" sponge, razor cut it to the size of the ipod, made a slit down the center of the foam but left about a 1/2" at the bottom for the ipod to be surrounded, pushed it down into the accessory outlet box, pushed play and plugged in the autocom lead. Headed out and went almost 40 miles before the first lock-up. Man, I really thought I had it but as Fred said, the vibration amplitude and frequency at 65 mph with rough road conditions seems to be the culprit. After the 2nd lock up, it will take another strategy. Next attempt is to find a better location, taking the original lead with noise suppression filter, coming out of the bottom of the seat where the autocom lead is to the helmit and running the lead into a side pocket of my leather jacket. Maybe this would be a location where the vibrations wouldn't be as intense. If it works, I could make the same plug-in connections with 1/8" stereo jacks in the same location as the autocom leads and put a powerlet off of the blue sea fuse block located under the back seat for the power adapter. (do you hear the gears churning? )

Pen, Pedro & J - hadn't ruled out the tank bag, just trying cheap stuff now.

Tal - can't see any gel or foam lining working with it mounted directly to the bike unless you stick to really smooth roads.

Just want one ride w/ no lock-ups. Two hour ride to Corpus happening this evening.

 

[Fred H.]

I have my 20GB Ipod mounted in the glove box surrounded by foam similar to what you described, and it works ok most of the time, but does occasionally lock up. I find that the Ipod needs to be free to move and needs to not be touching the inside of the glove box anywhere. This is paticularly difficult if you are using an Air Click remote module and/or are powering the Ipod with the connector on the bottom, as it makes the Ipod longer and it can rub the lid or the bottom of the glove box. It really needs to be free in all axis so it can move so the road vibrations don't get transfered to it. The glove box is a bit cramped for the Ipod and I am considering a new 2nd Generation 8GB Nano to solve the problem, though like you, my 20GB Ipod is full and I really would hate to be limited to only 8GB.

For what it is worth, I have a 20GB Ipod on the Wing for over 100,000 miles with zero lockups, but the glove box on that bike is larger, and I just have it laying loose on a piece of foam and can float around freely.

Also, don't put it in the bottom of a magnetic tank bag, or you may ruin the hard drive. Another option might be to mount it in the trunk or a saddlebag on a foam mount, but that is not as convient as the glove box. If the glove box were just an inch or two deeper and wider, I think it could ride in there better.

It is also worthwhile to note that the 60gb (and new 80gb) Ipods have twice the amount of onboard RAM as the other models do (32mb versus 64mb), and I suspect that this means they would be more shock resistant, as they would not have to access the hard drive nearly as often.

 

[git-r-dan]

As the knife throwing-chef dude :assassin: at Ginza's Japenese Steak House in Orlando, FL says, "Happy, Happy!"

The connection going to the jacket pocket worked fine and the ipod did not lock up. The jacket zipper zips up to the connector on the ipod which gives confidence that it's not sliding out unexpectedly. Plan B should work just fine with installing the power outlet under the seat to power the charger adapter (for long trips) and adding a length of 1/8" stereo extension to go from the ipod to the connection that extends out from under the seat. The problem with the length it is now is that it's too long and has the possibility to lay across a hot exhaust after dismounts. Making it the same length to where it's connecting where the autocom connection is makes sense.

Thanks for all responses! it's all good.

gitterdan :beach:

 

[Warpdrv]

+ 1 on the Ipod Nano.... they have a 8gb one out now.....

Never had a problem with mine, although I never had it mounted, just put it in the convenient pocket in my jacket... Works great !!

 

[jdog109socal]

Get it away from your Handle bars. It has to due with electromagnetics and the hard drive. Mine works fine in tank bag but towards the bars it locks up.

Jdog

 

[Rickster]

or get solid state (creative zen has an 8 gig for under $200)

 

[worldbound4now]

8GB, that's too small.

I've used my iPod on my bike since it was delivered in 04 without any chronic incident. The only issue I had was one day, after 8 hours on the bike, I was almost back home and the ipod got a bit too hot. It was 114 outside though and the iPod was in my tank bag.

Learning from my mistakes, I keep it in my 'stitch when it's hot out to keep the device off of the hot bike.

 

[Feejer/Weejer man]

I have ridden with mine in my tank bag for about 5 months hooked up to my autocom and have had no problems there. I bought a backup hard drive unit and backed up all my music. Cheap insurance. I also bought the three year extended warranty from bestbut for like $40 or so. So if the hard drive fails I get a new one for the next three years.

 

[ejworthen]

I try to stay away from MP3 players with hard drives. I had a Dell DJ that crapped out after using on the bike. Replaced it with a Sandisk Sansa e200 series player. Cheaper than an iPod Nano but similar in size and function. They can be had in up to 8 Gig.

I bought one of those armband type MP3 holders. You can place it on your upper arm or you forearm for easier access. Seems to be a good way to keep it on your person and still have easy access to it. Plus you are isolating it from the vibrations of the motorcycle.

 

[RadioHowie]

8GB, that's too small.

????

That's like 2200 4 minute songs!

Too small?

 

[git-r-dan]

That's like 2200 4 minute songs!

my itunes:

487 songs = 12.72gb

most purchased songs in mp3 files are around 5-6mb which would probably get you 2200.

copied songs off cd's into wave files run into 20-25mb for each song (depending on preference settings). So, looks like I could go back and re-format but with 30gig really wouldn't need to.

Thread officially solved and hijack in progress! :lol: