Installed my Zenec NC2010

[Aurange_Tiguan]

There's a couple of threads around already named Zenec NC2010. One's a promotion from a retailer and the other is a discussion about possibly getting one.


Plenty of info can be found about the headunit on this forum and the Zenec website, but I'm hoping to have this particular thread aimed at answering questions from members on this forum about usage of the NC2010.


I had help installing the head unit into my Tiguan from Nationwide Auto Electrical on Marshall Road in Malaga. While I was up there, I also had the Zenec RCE2001B reverse camera wired and installed.


The GPS antenna is located in in front of the glovebox, under the far left corner of the windshield.

I've opted to have the USB port located in the top console tray under the headunit, rather than the suggested location inside the glovebox. This tray has rubber lining and is ideal for connecting an iPod via the cable, or perhaps a passport-style portable USB hard drive for music and movies.

My Tiguan already has Bluetooth and MDI as standard, but the Zenec cannot utilise these. I've only just had the new setup and not yet spent time playing around with the features. I bought the unit from ACR in Germany and shipping took two and a half weeks. More on the different options I looked at here.

All I can say so far is that with the default European street maps and POIs installed I don't see much on the navigation screen when driving. According to the headunit, Perth and WA are pretty green this time of year! I'm going to download Australia and NZ map coverage later and see if anything else needs updating. I'll also post any photos here if anyone is interested in the installation process.

---------- Post added at 07:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:12 PM ----------

The NC2010 comes shipped with its own 4Gb FAT32 USB thumbdrive. It is bombed up with all the electronic versions of the hard copy manuals that are included in the box, and in addition it has a "Brief Instruction" PDF for the Naviextras Toolbox software.

The Naviextras website is where you need to go to get maps for Australia and New Zealand. In order to do so, first the Synctool needs to be downloaded and uncompressed onto the root directory of the thumbdrive. The first speedbump in this process is that the Naviextras link to downloading this sponsored software no longer has the file. Apparently it has been "temporarily removed" since 19Aug11. The Zenec website comes to the rescue, with a version of this Synctool software. Unsure if this is the latest, but I'll jump through the hoops to get the thumbdrive prepped for initialising the headunit and to update it with local street map data.

---------- Post added 12-12-2011 at 07:26 PM ---------- Previous post was 10-12-2011 at 07:56 PM ----------
Update:
A few days down the track and I'm really enjoying the features of the NC2010...


The mapping datasets (streets and POIs) are from Whereis (Telstra), so essentially the same source as the one that the RNS510 uses. It's currently at R18.3 for the NC2010, which apparently is third quarter 2011.

I had to purchase the maps for Australia and the software on my computer made it easy to select the coverage I wanted. It gave me the option of transferring the 43 European countries to my PC and just keep Australian data on the headunit. Even then, I can opt to just keep street data on and remove the POIs if I wanted to. The software also allows for KML format POIs to be added to the collection. I haven't tried this out yet, but I'm sure that will come in handy.


Initialising the headunit was a bit of a tedious process. I had to update the firmware about three consecutive times to take it up the various updates before finally being able to install Australian map data. It took about 45min getting that sorted, requiring the supplied USB thumbdrive to swap between being updated with upgrades from the server and plugging into the NC2010 to apply the upgrades.

The NC2010 has a heap of navigator languages, including four UK English voices and an Australian one. Unfortunately the Australian one is not TTS, so it won't pronounce individual street names for navigation. Not sure if this can be upgraded somehow from an online source.

I imagine the RNS510 uses speed attributes in the map data the same way as the NC2010 when it displays the speed limit of each street being travelled on. It will also verbally announce when I exceed the speed limit. I can set this to warn me when I go 100%, 105%, 110%, etc. of the signed speed limit. A great feature to see the speed limit for a road when the signs are not displayed.

Route calculation is very fast and I have four main options to select a planned route: Short, Easy, Fast and Economical. I can modify that by selecting various preferences such as avoiding tolled roads, highways or unpaved roads, etc. as with any other GPS navigator out there these days.

The verbal navigation volume can be changed separately to radio or attached media, and the music is toned down a little as an announcement is made. No issues with continued announcements while changing screens from reverse camera to main menu to media display.

The only real issue I have at this stage is that I can't get route directions to display on the MFD. I'm not sure what's causing thing, although I have not yet RTFM and done any troubleshooting. I didn't disconnect the fitted OEM Bluetooth, so I imagine that might also be clashing as it prompts me to connect to a phone when I hit the phone button on the steering wheel. This button activates BT on the NC2010, but it does not proceed with calling if I press it a second time like the OEM BT does.

So far, the NC2010 has proven to have a very intuitive interface and is very responsive.

Zenec RCE2001B Reverse Camera
The RCE2001B reverse camera has great clarity and a good field of view, but it could have pointed a bit higher up. When fitted, it points down at roughly 45deg from horizontal. The bumper is visible at the bottom and takes up almost 1/5 of the screen. It's not possible to bend/adjust the camera angle. Also, the video feed has arbitrary blue graduation lines that are meant to appear perspective, but don't help at all in guaging distance. Might as well not have those!

---------- Post added 14-12-2011 at 08:17 PM ---------- Previous post was 12-12-2011 at 07:26 PM ----------

Updated by adding some images of the headunit.

[chylld]

Good to know the unit's working well for you!

Just a couple of notes:

1) Did you get a capacitor cable? ozmale over at vwgolf.net.au needed one for his otherwise the unit would require a 1-hour rebuild if he let the unit start up before he started the engine - the brief power drop caused his unit to corrupt itself.

2) The nav functionality is all down to the software, iGo 8 (NC2010 is just a Windows CE 5 machine that runs it). You can enhance the functionality by adding "skins" or even upgrading to iGo 9 which is what I'm currently running on my digoptions unit.

[Aurange_Tiguan]

Good to know the unit's working well for you!

Just a couple of notes:

1) Did you get a capacitor cable? ozmale over at vwgolf.net.au needed one for his otherwise the unit would require a 1-hour rebuild if he let the unit start up before he started the engine - the brief power drop caused his unit to corrupt itself.

2) The nav functionality is all down to the software, iGo 8 (NC2010 is just a Windows CE 5 machine that runs it). You can enhance the functionality by adding "skins" or even upgrading to iGo 9 which is what I'm currently running on my digoptions unit.

No I didn't get any capacitor. I've never found myself in a situation where I'd have the unit on without first turning on accessories/engine. I've always turned the key before accessing the unit prior to any driving.

I'll have to look into the software version for the navigator next time I drive. The unit is built on Windows CE 6.0. Have you got any further details on the funtionality that can be added/enhanced?

[chylld]

No I didn't get any capacitor. I've never found myself in a situation where I'd have the unit on without first turning on accessories/engine. I've always turned the key before accessing the unit prior to any driving.

I'll have to look into the software version for the navigator next time I drive. The unit is built on Windows CE 6.0. Have you got any further details on the funtionality that can be added/enhanced?

Woops I meant turning the key to ACC, and while the unit is booting up, then turn the engine on. Maybe the Golf start-up sequence was different to the Tiguan... (voltage-wise)

Win CE 6 is good, for some reason ozmale's zenec only has CE 5. Either way, you can read about iGo 9 (Primo) here.

[Aurange_Tiguan]

Woops I meant turning the key to ACC, and while the unit is booting up, then turn the engine on. Maybe the Golf start-up sequence was different to the Tiguan... (voltage-wise)

Win CE 6 is good, for some reason ozmale's zenec only has CE 5. Either way, you can read about iGo 9 (Primo) here.

Looks like Zenec have fixed that issue in the unit I bought. I've done the above and there are no issues with booting the unit by turning the key to ACC and then starting the engine while it boots.

iGo 9 looks interesting, but I'd have to read up more on how to install/upgrade. At this stage I'm finding the current setup uses the available road data very well. It's very versatile so far.

[Aurange_Tiguan]

Got back from a road trip mid-last week, but unfortunately the NC2010 didn't make it all the way back.

We had an early start on Day 3 and wanted to pop down to the Stirling Range from where we were staying. Everything was set and when we got into the Tig and I turned the ignition the Zenec turned on as normal, but about 10sec later the screen just turned off. The touchscreen hotspots were still active, but no screen on any setting. The only time something came up was when I put the car into reverse and the reverse camera appeared. But even that has ceased.

Each time I start the car I have about 10sec to switch across to the reverse camera if I want to use that. As it is the only video feed that works, I tend to just have that on constantly whilst driving

I've tried a soft reset and a hard reset, but nothing changes. The NC2010 is meant to have a 2 year warranty, but I'm still waiting from a response from the German source to see what their course of action will be.

Has anyone with a NC2010 "Naviceiver" ever encountered this? If so, what did you need to do to get it working normally again?

[chylld]

sorry to hear you really should get in touch with ozmale on the vwgolf.net.au forums, so that he can determine if it's the same problem that he had (that required a 1-hour rebuild)

[Aurange_Tiguan]

sorry to hear you really should get in touch with ozmale on the vwgolf.net.au forums, so that he can determine if it's the same problem that he had (that required a 1-hour rebuild)

Taking your advice. Odd that this would happen so quickly.

[Aurange_Tiguan]

Problem was fixed. Required a ZIP file to be downloaded, saved onto removable storage and connected to the NC2010. After turning the NC2010 on, it automatically fixed itself.

I'm assured this is a one-off by the seller who sold me the kit, but so far none of the problems have returned.

The only three minor things bugging me about this headunit are:

1. iPod Nano Gen6 not recognised by the iPod mode. - The ZE-NC-IPS I thought I bought was actually a ZE-NC-IPF. I need the ZE-NC-IPS iPod cable to have the NC2010 recognise my iPod.

2. Navigation directions not displayed on the MFD. - Although the box and website imply that no VAGCOM coding is required, it actually is required. The car needs to know there's an RNS-like system installed.

3. Screen info is very difficult to read in sunlight. - I may need to resort to constructing a small cover over the top and tapering down along the sides to mitigate against direct sunlight.


Has anyone found a solution to creating shade for the headunit? I don't know whether the RNS510 suffers from the same glare when in direct sunlight.


Does anyone in Perth have a VAGCOM/VCDS they can use to get my Tig's system to recognise the NC2010? Happy to trade beers for assistance!

[Aurange_Tiguan]

All the above issues have been resolved, apart from the sunlight glare on the screen.

The MFD now displays navigation directions when a route has been selected (thanks to a forum member offering his time during lunch to hook up a VCDS and tell the car that a navigation unit is fitted) and my iPod Nano can be controlled via touchscreen.