Installation of Caska CA3683 in a 2010 Mazda 3
So I decided to give the Caska CA3683 unit a try. For me, the pros and cons were:
Pros:
1. Get to keep using the factory upper LCD unit.
2. Customized for my car, and OEM looking. So hopefully there's less chance of it getting stolen.
Cons:
1. It's a no-name brand.
2. I have to buy it online from China.
3. The documentation is lacking.
I placed the order on Wednesday 2/16/2011. It shipped via DHL on Saturday 2/19/2011 from Hong Kong. I received it at my residence on Monday 2/21/2011. (Someone had to be home to sign for it.) Your mileage may vary.
I was not able to find an installation manual for the CA3683. I asked the factory, the guy I bought it from, several other Caska sales offices. Nothing. I was not happy about this.
This install took me a full day, including all the fumbling around and taking pictures, and a run out to the auto parts store. It may go a bit faster for you, the reader, but don't bet on it.
1. Antenna adapter. (Thanks to this post because otherwise I would have had no clue.) I ordered this version from Amazon (eligible for Amazon prime).
2. SD card to store your music (optional). You want it to be black in color to blend in. I bought this 32GB SDHC card, which works fine.
1. Black electrical tape, 1/2 roll or more. Example is here.
2. Zip ties, 8inch. Example is here.
3. Zip ties, smaller (optional).
4. Small diameter (1/8 or 3/16 inch) heat shrink tubing.
5. Large diamter (1inch wide) heat shrink tubing. Example assortment is here.
6. 5 foot length of 3/8inch split automotive wire conduit. I bought this for a few bucks at my local Kragen / O'Reilly auto parts store. Also available here.
7. Approx 3 foot length of AWG #12 solid insulated copper wire to use to fish wires through your car. (Or use something comparable, such as electricians fishing tape.) Available from Home Depot, Lowes, Orchard Supply Hardware, etc. in the electrical department.
8. Blue masking tape, 2inch wide. Available from Home Depot, Lowes, Orchard Supply Hardware, etc. in the paint department. Also available here.
9. Double sided tape. Example is here.
10. Machine screw, M5 by max 7mm (optional). This is for the ground lug on the back of the Caska CA3683 unit and appeared to be needed for hooking up my TPMS unit. I found an M5 x 8mm machine screw at OSH and used 2 washers instead of 1.
11. Something to allow you to brace the CA3683 unit on top of the gearshift while you hook up wiring harnesses. I lucked out and found a Sterilite 6.4 quart container lying around my kitchen. Its rounded grips fit perfectly onto my gearshift. Otherwise, use something like a couple scraps of 2"x4".
12. Old yogurt container, old tin can, etc. to hold screws that get removed.
13. A couple of old bath towels to put on the seat of the passenger seat, so that you're not leaning backwards when sitting there and working.
14. Small dust rag.
15. Scrap of cardboard, 5inch by 5inch.
1. Small slotted screwdriver.
2. Medium slotted screwdriver (preferably 2 of them).
3. Small philips screwdriver (#1).
4. Large philips screwdriver (#2).
5. Scissors.
6. Wire cutters.
7. Small flashlight.
8. Drill.
9. 1/8inch and 1/2inch drill bits.
10. Wrench for GPS antenna connector.
11. Heat shrink gun or small soldering iron (optional).
12. Large channel-lok pliers (optional).
Disclaimer: This was my best guess at how to install the CA3683 unit, given inadequate documentation. I make no guarantees that these installation steps are correct, safe, appropriate, etc. Your mileage may vary. Not to be taken internally. If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces.
1-1. The Caska CA3683 unit. (Note: time travel involved. These photos were taken after I had removed my factory stereo.)
1-2. The Caska CA3683 manuals, such as they are. The Quick Guide (on the left) is as close as they come to describing how to install the unit.
1-3. The TPMS sub-unit (left) and TV antenna adapter (center right). At present, I am missing the cable to plug the TPMS sub-unit into the back of my CA3683. I am therefore not installing TPMS at this time. Also, I didn't need the TV antenna adapter.
1-4. The iPod adapter and cable (center).
1-5. The AV output cable (center left), not used by me. The 5.1 channel audio output cable (center), not used by me. The camera / radar cable (center right), not used by me.
1-6. The primary wiring adapter for power, speakers, and steering wheel control (center). The wiring adapter for the center console AUX audio input (right). As it turns out, I could have skipped installing this piece. You cannot connect both the center console AUX audio input and the iPod adapter. (This was explained in an e-mail attachment I got from Michael at ForeverStarCar, but it didn't sink in until I was doing the install.)
1-7. The GPS antenna and cable (left), remote control (center), USB cable (right).
1-8. All the cables and manuals that came in my CA3683 box.
1-9. Scoshe antenna adapter for 2005+ Honda (center).
2-1. Dust off the area on either side of the factory radio.
2-2. Apply blue masking tape on left and right sides of factory radio.
3-1. Use one or more medium sized slotted screwdrivers to create a gap between the air duct assembly and the flat piece of dashboard behind it. There are friction fittings on the left side, center, and right side of the air duct assembly. However, there are no secret tabs or release points or anything that you need to find. Just pry it apart and pull the air duct assembly straight out toward the back of the car.
3-2. Flip the air duct assembly up and rest it on the flat piece of dashboard that's normally above it. Don't unplug any wiring harnesses.
3-3. Use large philips screwdriver to remove 2 screws retaining factory stereo.
3-4. Save these screws in your yogurt container or old tin can for later use.
3-5. Pull the factory stereo toward the back of the car.
3-6. Put a few layers of blue masking tape on the console panel underneath the factory stereo. (Not pictured).
3-7. Prepare to disconnect the 3 wiring harnesses. In my car, the two-wire harness on the left was taped to take up some of the slack. I broke this tape so that I could pull the factory stereo out further.
3-8. Disconnect the right (passenger side) harness. Reach under it and find a center tab. Push up on the center tab with your index finger as you pull it out from the factory stereo.
3-9. Disconnect the center harness. Rotate the factory stereo 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Then use a slotted screwdriver to push on the release for the center connector (sorry for the washed out picture).
3-10. Use a slotted screwdriver to push on the release tab for the left connector. (Note: There was some bit of plastic that I released when I pried up on another tab on this connector and then promptly lost. But I don't think I needed to have done that and I don't have a picture of it.)
3-11. Factory stereo is free. Get it out of your way. Unfortunately, I won't fit into the styrofoam that comes with the CA3683 unit.
3-12. Protect the exposed surface of the console part below the stereo (not pictured).
4A-1. Connect Scosche antenna adapter to 2-wire antenna harness.
4A-2. Connect primary wiring adapter to right side wiring harness in car. You may want to use channel-lok pliers to be sure these connectors are truly snapped together. When I first plugged in my CA3683, absolutely nothing happened and I almost had a heart attack. But then I pushed at this connection and my Caska stereo powered up.
4A-3. Connect center console AV-in adapter to center wiring harness in car. Note: If you are installing the iPod adapter, you can skip this step. You can only plug one of these into the shared connector in the back of the CA3683 unit.
4A-4. If you are installing a backup camera or if you wish to tap the parking brake indicator so that the Caska unit can lockout DVD player when car is in motion, you would need to tap these wires right about now. I have not looked into this and don't have the wiring diagrams showing how to do this.
4A-5. Terminate (tie-off) extra wire in antenna adapter. This wire is marked "power antenna" and I'm assuming it's not needed for my 2010 Mazda 3. If anyone has information to the contrary (ie. it should be grounded, please contact me at jeffmazda@anacreon.net (Put "Mazda" in the subject line). I terminated this by putting small heatshrink tubing over the exposed copper and heating it. You could also do this with electrical tape, wire nut, crimp terminator, etc.
4A-6 Use zip-ties to tie up unused power antenna wire from above and loose CD changer control wires hanging off primary wiring adapter. Note: If I were installing the TPMS module, I would need to use some of these CDC wires to power the TPMS module.
4A-7 Pop off the plastic panel on the passenger side of the car near the center console. On the rearmost side, pull it toward the right side of the car.
4A-8 Thread the iPod cable up from the passenger side floorboard to the stereo compartment. If necessary, use fish wire to pull this wire through. Note: There was no good reason to remove the green circuit boards from the little black box in the middle of the iPod cable. So you're seeing me as I actually did this, not how I should have done it.
4A-9 Do the same steps to thread the USB cable from the passenger side floorboard to the stereo compartment.
4A-10 Zip tie the iPod and USB cables together at the stereo compartment. You should probably also tape or ziptie them temporarily so they don't fall down to the floorboard (not pictured).
4A-11 Now would be an excellent time to temporarily hook up the CA3683 unit to see if it works at all. You only need to connect the primary wiring adapter and the radio antenna to check this. Turn ignition key to accessory and hit the power button on the unit. It should power up with the Mazda logo. Not pictured.
4B-1 Unpack and stretch out GPS antenna.
4B-2 Use double sided tape to install GPS antenna to outside of front windshield, bottom drivers side, as shown. Note that it must be all the way to the side so that it doesn't get hit by the windshield wipers!
4B-3 Cut 35inch length of automotive wire protector. Pop hood. Insert GPS cable into wire protector. Protector should start once GPS cable enters under hood. Use electrical tape to seal the entrance to the wire protector. Keep taping the entire length of wire protector so that cable can't pop out. Drill 1/8inch hold in plastic piece as shown (will not be visible with hood closed). (Note: GPS antenna should have been stuck to windshield already, not loose as pictured).
4B-4 Use zip tie to attach taped cable to outside (drivers side) of plastic piece.
4B-5 Zip tie wire protector to body of car as shown.
4B-6 Use fish line to pull cable and wire protector from engine compartment to drivers door area as shown. It should come out underneath the upper door hinge.
4B-7 Remove bulkhead plug as shown.
4B-8 Drill 1/2inch hole in bulkhead plug (or appropriate diameter to accommodate your wire protector). Thread cable and wire protector through hole in plug as shown.
4B-9 Remove kick panel. There is a pin that you need to pop out near where your left foot would be when driving (not pictured). Then, pull bottom of kick panel out from underneath the panel that covers the door threshold (not pictured). Then, pry it away from the rubber door gasket. Finally, pull it toward the rear of the car. Try to do a better job at this then I did. I broke a piece off. ;-(
4B-10 Remove the white plastic support that had held the pop pin that you removed a few steps ago. Use a small slotted screwdriver to push the locking tabs (not pictured) toward the center of the part.
4B-11 Run your fish line starting at the oval hole near the floorboard (which had been partially covered by white plastic piece) out to the large bulkhead near the door hinges. (Warning: Cable should not loop around the door holder! I showed this wrong!)
4B-12 Pull end of GPS cable through from outside. It will take some effort / luck to get it through the oval hole, but it does fit. The right angle SMA connector at the end of the GPS cable makes this more difficult than it would otherwise be. You want to tape the fish line to the SMA connector so that the fish line is inline with the little wire inside the SMA connector. The idea is to get the tip of the SMA through the oval opening it the car, and then bend it through. This may take some fiddling and/or a few tries, but it does work. (Warning: Cable should not loop around the door holder! I showed this wrong!)
4B-13 Pull all slack cable into the passenger compartment of the car. Result should look like this near the door hinges.
4B-14 Reinstall white plastic support. Bare GPS cable occupies the exposed half oval.
4B-15 Cut an approx 4 inch piece of 1inch wide shrink wrap. Thread end of GPS cable through it. Fold up shrink wrap and stuff it into oval hole to use as cable protection so that the GPS cable doesn't scrape against the sheet metal. Use zipties to attach end of shrink wrap to wiring harness that is going up towards dashboard (see below for image under step 4B-19, near pink ziptie).
4B-16 Fish GPS cable into stereo compartment.
4B-17 Ziptie GPS cable to other cables in stereo compartment so that it doesn't fall back down to floorboards (not pictured). Apply electrical tape to insulate exposed, unused CDC connectors.
4B-18 Remove panel from near drivers gas pedal and center console. It comes apart just like the one on the passengers side that we did earlier. Cut an approx 5 inch square of cardboard. Drill holes in the corners. Use zipties to use up most remaining GPS cable slack. Purpose of this is to ensure that the GPS coaxial cable is not tightly wrapped around a too-tight turning radius.
4B-19 Zip tie GPS cable to wiring bundles that run under the dash from drivers door to center console. Note that for some of these pictures you'd have to have removed the drivers seat to get your head in there to see this view. So I did some of this by feel and stuck the camera in to take pictures.
4C-1 Remove 2 shippings screws (that presumably hold the DVD/CD tray in place) from top of CA3683 unit.
4C-2 (optional) Install M5 screw and washer(s) for future use as a grounding lug.
4C-3 Connect GPS antenna to back of CA3683 unit. Tighten lightly with a wrench. Plug IPOD adapter cable into top rightmost connector when looking at back of CA3683 unit.
4C-4 Connect USB extender cable to USB cable coming out the back of the CA3683 unit. Audio input connector from Mazda 3 center console (unconnected 6 pin connector in center) have nowhere to go, since it contends with the iPod adapter.
4C-5 If you were connecting backup camera, amplifiers, or any other equipment, there would be additional cables to plug into the back of the CA3683 unit right about now.
4C-6 Connect antenna adapter to antenna connector coming out the back of the CA3683 unit.
4C-7 Trim zipties. Try to dress the various wiring harnesses out of the way and slide CA3683 unit into place. Install screws that had held in the factory stereo (not pictured). Mine seemed like it still stuck out maybe 1/16inch at the bottom. I may have not gotten enough cables out of the way in back of the unit.
4C-8 Reinstall air vent assembly.
4C-9 Hopefully the damn thing works after all this effort.
4D-1 I plan to route this to the inside of the center console. But I haven't done it yet, and thus have no pictures or instructions.
4E-1 Trim zipties hanging down toward the brake and gas pedals (not pictured).
4E-2 Reinstall kick panel on drivers side (not pictured).
4E-3 Reinstall panel near center console on drivers side (not pictured).
4E-4 Reinstall panel near center console on passenger side (not pictured).
4F-1 With Caska stereo powered off, remove GPS SD card from unit.
4F-2 Insert GPS SD card into your laptop or PC SD card reader.
4F-3 Copy all files to PC, in order to protect against data corruption, loss or destruction of GPS SD card, etc.
4F-4 Reinstall GPS SD card into Caska unit.
1. I did notice a weird thing where the time reported by the 2 line LCD display jumped ahead 40 minutes. I'm guessing I had been accidentally pressing the set time buttons during the install. I re-set this time and it has been happy for the past week.
2. The power outlet in the center console is still operational following this install.
1. One 1/8inch hole drilled into black plastic piece underneath the windshield wipers, under the hood. Not visible with hood closed.
2. Large hole drilled in rubber hole cover. This would probably be a $5 part to replace at Mazda.
1. I'm fairly sure that I've lost the use of the 2 tweeters near the side mirrors.
2. Use of audio inputs via jack located in center console.
1. Scratches to the plastic below the car stereo since I didn't protect this part as I'm suggesting in step 3-12.
2. I broke the drivers side kick panel getting it off. I ordered a new one for about $25 from Fremont Mazda.
I should have skipped this. When I complained to my vendor about the missing cable, I got back a reply telling me that I'd have to go and buy a set of new TPMS sensors to install in the wheels, so that they'd be compatible with the CA3683 unit. However, I figure that if I do this, that the dashboard TPMS idiot light would be on forever. So just skip buying the Caska TPMS option.
The unit is very nice looking on the exterior and fits very well with the car. There is even a blue light that comes on at night, similar to the factory stereo. I had my coworkers convinced for a day or two that they had not been paying attention previously. "What are you talking about? I've always had a nav system. Doesn't it look OEM like?".
It has a very nice sized screen and is fairly responsive to the touch.
The graphical user interface (GUI) overall is poor.
The SD card support is particularly bad, to the point that it is functional but nothing more.
There was no installation manual (and I asked around quite a bit). This is what prompted me to take all the pictures during my install and to write up this web page.
The vendor I bought my unit from set it up so that all functions are available at all times. Thus, I didn't have to hook up the lead to tell the unit that the parking brake is engaged.
Steering wheel control setup had already been done for me.
The unit takes about 10 seconds to boot up once you turn the key (during which time it displays the Mazda logo). It's maybe another 5 seconds if you were previously playing songs from your SD card.
The unit will not resume navigation, even if you were in nav mode when you shut it down. If you want nav, you have to hit the "Nav" button.
It still works. It still says "Hello" and "Goodbye" as you start and stop the engine. It still displays the volume for about 2 seconds as you raise or lower it. Otherwise, it shows the radio station and preset number or "SD" plus track number and time elapsed in that track. Or when the Nav software is beeping or speaking it says "NAVI".
The clock still works. It still must be set manually via the buttons in the middle of the air vent assembly above the stereo. (ie. it doesn't get auto-set to GPS time).
The outside temperature display still works.
My car didn't have the Bose stereo or the trip computer, so I can't speak to how the trip computer might still work after installing the CA3683.
The unit has kind of an old school analog radio dialish display. It's tolerable.
The unit displays an extra, useless decimal digit (including on the stock LCD display). So KFOG displays as "104.50" instead of "104.5" (as it did with the stock radio and any other radio I've ever seen in my life).
When cycling through the presets, it will wrap to the next bank of FM stations. So instead of wrapping from FM1-6 back to FM1-1 (as with the stock radio), it will go from FM1-6 to FM2-1. I don't like this "feature", since I use FM2 for the Sacramento stations when I'm traveling out that way, not for additional San Francisco stations.
I tested it with both 16GB and 32GB SD (SDHC) cards. I have not tried a (very expensive) 64GB card.
This user interface is very poorly done overall.
To play music files off your SD card, you have to set it to DVD mode and then hit the "DVD" button twice. After about 5 seconds it will decide that you have no DVD loaded and deign to look at your SD card.
The file browser looks like some refugee from Windows 3.0 (and yes, I'm old enough to remember such). It comes complete with not displaying entire file names / directory names.
There is no display of the artist / album / track that you're currently playing. All you get is a highlight of the shortened filename in the file browser.
The colors (bright blue with maybe yellow or white) are so obnoxious that it is impossible to use at night. In other words, the screen is so bright that your eyes cannot dark adjust enough to safely drive at night. I've had to pick a first song to play and then either turn on EQ mode (where it will display your music's frequency components as a song plays) or turn on Nav mode. One way or another, I have to get rid of that awful file browser screen at night! At least the EQ screen has a dark background.
Steering wheel controls that do preset-up and preset-down in radio mode do song up and song down in SD mode.
When you shut down the car when it's playing from your SD card, the next time you start up (after about a 15 second bootup delay), it will resume playing the last song, but from the beginning.
It will stop playing music after playing the last song in a directory. From there, you need to pick a new song in the file browser or hit "song up" to go to some other (possibly random) directory.
I have not tried experimenting with playlists yet.
I have not played with these yet.
These just worked, and work as they had with the factory stereo.
I do very occasionally have the "song up" button get mis-interpreted as "song down". This occurs maybe 5% of the time. I need to try to re-calibrate the steering wheel interface and see if this goes away.
I have noticed that occasionally when running Nav with and SD card song playing in the background, that sometimes a "song-up" or "song-down" button push will cause the CA3683 unit to beep, but then otherwise do nothing. Re-trying works. It may just be busy with rendering maps and running mp3 decode at the same time.
I had not previously paired my phone with the Mazda stock bluetooth support. So I had never gotten in the habit of using the phone buttons on the steering wheel. Thus, I can't say if the behavior is the same / different / good / annoying. Other people on the forums have discussed this, though.
CA3683 unit came installed with iGo v8.3 for US/Canada/Mexico.
It was by default set for Canada. I had to set it for US and to use miles / feet for distances.
I had to set it for "Los Angeles / Pacific time".
I chose the "Amy" US voice set. I'm married and as such, I'm used to having a female voice boss me around.
1. It doesn't give you a disclaimer screen on bootup saying "Caution: Don't read this useless disclaimer screen when you're supposed to be driving. Click Ok."
2. Compared to using the rest of the Caska GUI, it's a godsend just to use something designed by real programmers and native speakers of the English language.
3. There is supposedly a way to store locations of speed traps. I haven't played with it yet.
4. There is a "detour" button on the main map window to request the nearest gas station, fast food joint, etc., without changing your final destination. I haven't really played with this yet, either.
5. It displays GPS speed on the map window, which is a good check on the operation of your car's speedometer / accuracy of the cop's radar gun.
1. It takes about 5 seconds to boot up (after the initial 10 second system bootup). It then takes about another 5 to acquire current location and update the map display.
2. The GPS software defaults to a menu screen where "show map" is an option. I would very much prefer it to just f***ing show the map by default. Why else would I have installed a Nav system if I didn't want to look at maps?
3. I'm having troubles with getting a daytime color profile to appear in the day and for a nighttime color profile to appear at night. (With a daytime profile active when driving at night, I have the same problem with the screen putting out so much light that I can't get my eyes to dark adapt.) There is a setting called "automatic" which is supposed to select the appropriate one based on GPS time & timezone, but it doesn't work for me. More specifically, I can set this setting to "automatic", but it doesn't seem to get saved. So the next time I start the car, it's set for either day or night, but no longer set for "automatic". I did find a shortcut, though. From the map screen, hit lower left corner and then touch the moon icon to toggle day/night mode.
4. Route calculation takes maybe 10-15 seconds.
1. The map database does seem to have road speed limits stored. So there is a setting where Amy will yell at me if I go too far over the speed limit. But I haven't found a way to just have it display the speed limit on the map screen.
2. I have seen it behave where on startup it thinks my position is very far back in time (ie. it thinks I'm still at work when I start it up the next morning in my driveway at home). I may have fixed this by tweaking the setting to tell it to keep lots of log data.
I was able to pair my Motorola dumb flip phone to the CA3683 with little pain. The default passwords are given in the Caska users manual.
The CA3683 declares itself to your phone as "BT". I was able to change this in my phone to "Mazda Caska stereo".
My wife says that the voice quality of the built-in microphone isn't bad. The Bay Area 511 (voice controlled traffic advisories phone number) is able to understand me better than when using my bluetooth headset.
The GUI to use bluetooth is awkward, but functional. You can get a list of recent incoming or outgoing calls, click a number, and then hit "Redial". ("Dial" would have been a better translation).
There is apparently no way to store or transfer names associated with phone numbers. So to call anyone whose phone number I don't have memorized, I have to flip open my phone, find the number, hit dial, and then I can talk using the Caska stereo as my headset equivalent.
Well, that's all folks. If you have any questions, comments, or corrections, please e-mail me at jeffmazda@anacreon.net. Put "Mazda" (big M, little azda) in the subject line to get past my spam filters. Don't expect fast replies.
Jeff Collins