RichardP
05-28-2012, 12:49 AM
Hi, some of you may recognise my name from other forums, I’m a member on quite a few, but here is a short introduction and a bit of background.
I live in the UK, so no ZHP’s over here, the nearest is the 330i M-sport. My day job is as a computer software designer/programmer which has lead me to an interest in the electronic systems that are used in the E46 generation cars.
I bought my first BMW, an Brilliant Red E30 325i Touring, in 1990 and have had BMW’s ever since. The E30 was followed by a Boston Green E36 325i saloon and then a Montreal Blue E36 328i Touring. In 2002 I changed to an Oxford Green E46 330i M-Sport Touring and then in 2004 to a LeMans Blue Individual E46 330d M-Sport Touring. In 2008 I picked up my current car, a Carbon Black E39 M5 and although I kept the 330d for more than a year after I picked up the M5, I received an offer I could not refuse and sold it in December 2009.
With the purchase of the 330d in 2004 came a significant increase in annual mileage, including some trips to Germany which were a lot of fun! With the increase in time spent in the car came a desire to increase the music repertoire to more than could be provided by a 6 CD Changer, and so began my use of the Intravee. I was searching for anything that would allow decent navigation of MP3 CD’s in an Alpine CHA-S634 which I had connected via an ICD iBus interface (my, that was a poor device!) and stumbled across the Intravee project which the owner had shelved. I managed to persuade him to resurrect the project and received Intravee serial number 000002 on 12th November 2004. It did not work! After a lot of late nights sending information and getting firmware updates I think the first working version was installed about 2 weeks later.
In 2005 Alpine introduced the KCA-420i and the CD Changer was ditched for an iPod and I had access to a whole 20Gb of MP3’s. I’ve had an iPod in my car ever since and have been in regular contact with the Intravee designer ever since. As a consequence of all this, I know quite a lot about the BMW iBus, Nav systems and other related BMW electronics and about everything there is to know about the Intravee and associated Alpine AI-Net components.
Hopefully some of my knowledge will be helpful to other members; so many thanks for letting me join.
Richard
I live in the UK, so no ZHP’s over here, the nearest is the 330i M-sport. My day job is as a computer software designer/programmer which has lead me to an interest in the electronic systems that are used in the E46 generation cars.
I bought my first BMW, an Brilliant Red E30 325i Touring, in 1990 and have had BMW’s ever since. The E30 was followed by a Boston Green E36 325i saloon and then a Montreal Blue E36 328i Touring. In 2002 I changed to an Oxford Green E46 330i M-Sport Touring and then in 2004 to a LeMans Blue Individual E46 330d M-Sport Touring. In 2008 I picked up my current car, a Carbon Black E39 M5 and although I kept the 330d for more than a year after I picked up the M5, I received an offer I could not refuse and sold it in December 2009.
With the purchase of the 330d in 2004 came a significant increase in annual mileage, including some trips to Germany which were a lot of fun! With the increase in time spent in the car came a desire to increase the music repertoire to more than could be provided by a 6 CD Changer, and so began my use of the Intravee. I was searching for anything that would allow decent navigation of MP3 CD’s in an Alpine CHA-S634 which I had connected via an ICD iBus interface (my, that was a poor device!) and stumbled across the Intravee project which the owner had shelved. I managed to persuade him to resurrect the project and received Intravee serial number 000002 on 12th November 2004. It did not work! After a lot of late nights sending information and getting firmware updates I think the first working version was installed about 2 weeks later.
In 2005 Alpine introduced the KCA-420i and the CD Changer was ditched for an iPod and I had access to a whole 20Gb of MP3’s. I’ve had an iPod in my car ever since and have been in regular contact with the Intravee designer ever since. As a consequence of all this, I know quite a lot about the BMW iBus, Nav systems and other related BMW electronics and about everything there is to know about the Intravee and associated Alpine AI-Net components.
Hopefully some of my knowledge will be helpful to other members; so many thanks for letting me join.
Richard