Hey guys, I'm putting the little touches on my car now like getting my songs installed on my old iPod which I will leave in the car. <I have the media center and cable option from Porsche>.

It is very nice, just plug it in and it charges and you can do everything through the PCM. My question is simply this, does the usb power adapter on my car that powers the iPod stay on like the 2 dc outlets do? I know it's a small power drain but I would hate to run the battery down.

Thanks!

 

Should power down - you could always check after a couple of hours to make sure it's not on.

 

I have a 2010 997.2 with the ipod connector that hooks up in the rear center console (under the arm rest). My ipod seems to stay powered on even after the car has been sitting a while. I was told by Porsche service not to worry about battery drain since i drive it several times a week.

If you are leaving it in your car i would suggest either a trickle charger to keep the battery charged or disconnect it.

 

Ack! That's what I was afraid of. That's a pain. Thanks for the input though.

 

What sort of cable are you using to connect from the UAI to your ipod - the single DIN-idock one or the newer Y DIN+USB to idock one?

With the straight DIN-idock cable, once the car shuts down, the power is removed from the idock but the ipod isn't put to sleep, so my ipod just stayed on until its own battery died (no drain from the car battery, but drain of the ipod battery not being able to sleep).

With the y cable DIN+USB-idock, I'm not sure if the 5V supply from the USB port is always on or not. I'll check, but my USB flash drive I keep plugged into the USB port should tell me (via its light) if its on or not.

The point is, it may be that your iDevice isn't going to sleep and still running on its own battery power, but not running on the car's power. Can someone confirm?

 

This is one of the ipod questions I have been going round and round with P on for three years. According to the regional tech, the pcm is supposed to power down and allow the ipod to sleep. (This is how it used to work in my past BMWs so I know it can be done.) The pcm is also supposed to, on some interval, wake up and query the port to determine whether something is needing it which would wake the ipod up again. This cycle should not happen such that either the car's battery or the ipod's battery drain to zero. (In fact I have seen a pcm message stating that the pcm will force power off in x minutes.) However, using the one cable ipod cable this is exactly what happens and the ipod dies (even with the ipod back light turned off and the menu option set to its shortest "on" setting). For the last week or so I have been using the ipod thru the usb port. This is much slower to use and the initial indexing is also slower to happen compared to the direct ipod control interface. Also, the directory up/back arrow is worthless due to the ipod's directory structure. I don't yet know its impact on the ipod battery. In any event, the car's battery should not be impacted in any real way due to the differences in load. On the other hand having something rest against the seat ***** on a constant basis WILL drain the battery.

 

The Nav-TV iPod module I have powers down when the car is off and the iPod shuts off too - no car battery drain, no iPod battery drain. You'd think PCM would handle the interface in a similar manner.

 

I have the Y cable. It was an option from Porsche in 09. Everything in my iPod plays through the PCM.

 

Everything plays thru the pcm regardless of using the y cable, a straight usb to ipod cable, or the special ipod cable. As I understand it, the y cable was brought into being when Apple changed the pin out for the power pins on the iphone (?) and the originally supplied cable would no longer provide power to the device. The y cable brings power from usb and control thru the din side.

 

It used to be the case, that the iDock connector provided for two types of charge/power source: 5V DC and 12V DC. The 5VDC power is what you typically get from a USB interface, and the 12V DC is what you typically get from an IEEE 1394 / Firewire interface, or a car battery.

Then Apple decided it no longer wanted to support the 12V power/charge option and stopped using that iDock connector pin. So any cable or interface that relied exclusively on the 12V power path would no longer be able to power/charge the iDevice.

Thus the y-cable was born, as the cheapest solution to getting power to the iDock connector via 5V DC (already present on the USB port). A better solution, in my mind, but not economical, would be to add a 5VDC pin to the DIN connector outlet of the UAI, and then issue a new DIN-iDock cable that takes advantage of that added pin. Thus the USB port stays open/available. But I guess the thinking is only one item is plugged in at a time as there is limited space in that center armrest cubby.