On a long journey (as in 6 hours plus) it did have a habit of turning off, but apart from that, good to go+++

Thanks Ian, so any RNS E should do, great. No pressure but all I'm waiting for is your complete write up before I start ordering bits and bobs +++

Yeah I would - I dont know how smoothly this is going to go yet. Audi Digital Tv tuner should be here this week, so need to test that works. I also need to take it for a bit of a drive to make sure it all works before I start hacksawing the front to fit +++

A quick, and very productive half hour this morning:

Firstly, a quick shot of RNS-D and RNS-E side by side. Notice the taper on the sides is bigger on the A6 RNS-E than the A8 RNS-D - This is good, no gaps. The top edge between the screen and top is almost identical too. Notice also the more matt effect on the RNS-E that comes on the later Audi models. Its one of the few downsides of this upgrade that it wont quite match the climate as well....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267445781

Here is a side on view. Notice that the RNS-E comes with these lugs on the side, now call me chicken, but because I dont know 100% that this RNS-E is going to work/fit, I'm not willing to snap them off just yet, which is what most folks do.....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267445781

And here is a rear shot to complete - Notice that not 1 single connector is directly transferrable! - Eveything changes......

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267445781

My solution to the side lug problem - A hack saw:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267445781

and it works beautifully, the RNS-E drops in nicely....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267445781


And in goes the climate module. Arrows show the discrepancy between the A8 taper and the A6 taper, not a great deal in it. From memory, the A4 units have a more narrow front so the overlap is the other way. You can see the different in plastics now too....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267445816

but all is forgiven, look how fabulous that is

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267445816


..... And the front cover has popped on without trimming the sides off, which means I can test to my hearts content and consider never trimming the sides off by the looks of it... The slight gap between the climate module and the unit is because I have no screws in the climate module - that will nip up perfectly me thinks... Cool, what a result.... +++

Rns-e
 

That looks soooo good +++

Hi Ian, was just going to order mine now but thought I would double check a few details with you first, just want to confirm that these are the only additional bits I need apart from the unit itself which comes with a GPS antenna and DVD etc...

These are the bits from kufantec. Am I missing anything?

33406
34403
33405

At the moment I am only fitting the unit and will do the bluetooth when I'm less poor! (2/3 months)

By the way mine is also coming from Lithuania, I wonder where they get all these RNS Es from Confused:

Thanks in advance for your help +++

Todays progress, another 3 hours spent on the car sorting out the RNS-E install, which is a lot further forward

First of all, the TV Tuner has finally arrived, hurrah:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267742989

Heres a quick reminder of what we currently have. This being an early facelift, I have a type A tuner, very square, and with 1 set of AV input phonos on the rear. Standard CD Changer, and the Phone amplifer on the left. Ignore the red wire, it was temporary about 2 months ago, and I'll be putting it away nicely very soon....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267742989

My RNS-E testbed, AKA my car..... You really need vagcom to code things up and get things working right, especially for TV / Phone functionality, so it was just easier to mock everything up in the passenger footwell. I'm pleased to say that once installed, the Sat Nav picked up its location quickly, and the radio works 100%, so no problems with any of those adapters then....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267742989

The next problem to get it all working though is to wire in the infotainment canbus to the RNS-E. Most people associate it with the bus that is used for displaying the radio stations / Cd tracks on the DIS, but its two way, and sends also important signals such as 'igntion on'. Devices like the TV tuner and Bluetooth module will only turn on with a canbus command, so until I get that working, I can't really test anything.

One of the oddities of the RNS-D install is that the Blaupunkt (aka bosch) headunits talk a slightly different canbus protocol to the rest of the car. This means that the RNS-D cannot connect directly to the instrument cluster, instead it must talk through the 'Can gateway' or as people probably better know it, the TMC module. The TMC module was only installed to allow the RNS-D to talk to the instrument cluster, TMC functionality was a bi-product as the TMC module for whatever reason, was designed with 2 canbus connections (4 wires) and can talk both protocols and convert between them.

The RNS-E however can talk to the instrument cluster, and doesnt need the TMC module, in fact, having that in the way will likely screw things up, so its behind the instrument cluster to deal with it....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267742989

I could simply tap the wires for the RNS-E into the back of here where the correct Canbus is presented to the TMC, but that means running a good length of twisted pair cabling from the head unit up to begind the instrument cluster, which is a bit messy as there is no easy official cable route for it.

Instead, I've taken a more radical approch where I'm going to take the connectors from the TMC module and connect them together, effectively bridging the Audi infotainment CAN with the BOSCH CAN, thus presenting the Audi CAN down near the head unit on the original wires where I want it...

We also need to sort out the aerial feed - As the TMC (when actually working as a TMC) needs to tune into Classic FM in the UK, then it has an aerial feed, but the main aerial goes into it, and then passes from it down to your head unit. If you simply unplug these connectors, you will lose radio reception so we just plug them into one another as they are a male/female pair

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267743045

Here is the Canbus low from the Audi side, and the Canbus low from the Bosch side snipped off and twisted together. There is only 1 connector on the TMC, a 12 pin (2x6) and it comes apart easily.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267743045

Both high and low snipped, soldered and heat shrinked (shrunk?).

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267743045

Down to the other end, and RNS-D owners may recognise this connector as being the multiplug that goes in half way down the unit. Well, it is also where the canbus goes in, so we can get our canbus from here now for the RNS-E

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267743045

Connector dismantled, and the two stripey grey wires stand out from the (small) crowd...

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267743045

So, snip them off, and I have my canbus available near my passenger footwell where I can continue my testing.... +++

Ok, so now can is alive, I can basically twist all the relevant wires together, hook up some power and make sure everything works....

So, first things, look, we now have a TV option.... +++

(Note my temp power supply, stealing a feed from the connector that normallys powers the cigarette lighter !)

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267744378

... and tuing in the TV tuner, which is pointless as it has no aerials at this point, and wont have until I change the connectors as the Type A tuner has very different ones....

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267744378

and the phone is alive..... Note at the top you get service provider, at bottom you get signal strength which is useful...

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267744378

and here are the memory options - Depending on your make/model of phone it will bring across phone books, missed calls etc... I have a windows mobile and it works 100%.... :D

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267744378

Ok, so it all works, but I cant really leave it in the footwell for ever... :rolleyes:

The TV tuner is going in the boot, but I had some doubts over where to locate the bluetooth phone module. Although I might be able to squeeze it behind the glovebox, and the wiring would be a little easier if I did, I'm concerned I might 'forget' next time I take the car apart and end up breaking its very fragile looking bluetooth aerial, or end up jamming the glovebox etc, so I've decided it can go in the boot on top of the Tv tuner where it has acres of room to safe....

For this to happen though, I need to sort a few things. The in car microphone for handsfree connects directly to the bluetooth module, and then it has microphone wires than connect to the RNS-E. There is also power, canbus, mute & K line (vagcom) to get connected up. Thats 8 wires to run to the boot, so need to sort that now really...

I did a little cheating, and whittled it down to 4 extra wires, as 4 of them are already present in the boot that I can tap into, so I got myself 4 x 5m long pieces of wire, along with the pre-fabricated RNS-E TV loom, and also I through in some AV leads for good measure and bundled it altogether into one long loom that I could run the length of the car..... The AV leads have no immediate purpose, but at least they are there in case I want an ipod or something up front to play on the RNS-E....

Heres my 'loom', with a couple of breakouts - 1 is the microphone cable which will divert and go up through the headlining once it enters the cabin, and the other is the AV leads which are given a bit more freedom once they enter the front of the cabin so I can reroute them easily later on without un-taping the whole loom to free them up..

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267744450


And here we have what is then fed to the boot... 4 wires, 2 multiplugs, the old TV connection and the 'future proofing' AV lead

The 4 wires here are the 4 that I knew I could tap in the boot easily, ground, +12 (constant), can high and can low. Handily, these 4 are all sa in the (now disused) TV tuner 6 way connector, so I simply stole them from there, soldered them up and wrapped it all up neatly...

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267744450

... and here it is all wired up neatly, tested and working again... Next time, I'll sort out the wiring in the front, the microphone and hopefully consider testing it on the road at some point soon..

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1267744450

What happened to waiting till I'd finished? :p

I wouldnt want to confirm any part numbers for definite until I see this thing work - Yes, the screen lights up and it plays music, but until I actually drive it somewhere I dont know if the Sat nav will work properly ....

... and I cant do that until I fit some seats, and my carpets, and my LPG tank, and the million and one other bits that are now littering my house :D

Ahh I see. Its just that the A8 and S8 are both parked up now for upto two weeks whilst my old tail lamps go to the US then the new ones come back.. So seeing as I can't drive it I need an excuse to spend some time in it. :D
Excellent write up by the way, I am trying to get my head around everything, thanks for doing this +++