As promised :) The whole story started 10 months ago when I bought Amundsen 5L0035680C unit (Skoda version of Discover Media) and decided to fit it into my 2011 Skoda Superb. It took 6 months of work to prepare and test the solution. Process steps:
1. You need a radio. The best is to get radio that has not been locked with Component Protection (CP) and that has all the features you are interested in activated (e.g. Voice Control, App-Connect).
2. Dedicated hardware patch has to be installed inside the radio. It protects the radio from self-activation of CP when the timer is reached.
3. If you have 3D instruments then you need additional CAN filter that prevents radio to be CP locked by the order from instruments.
I know it sounds a bit complicated so let me put some more explantaions.
Ad. 1 - if you buy radio with not all the features you want activated then missing features have to be activated which is a bit expensive and it doesn't matter if you activate 1 or all features. It's even worse if you get CP locked radioa as it requires first unlocking and then activation of all the features (during CP removal all the fetaures are deactivated so they have to be activated again). The worst is when you buy CP locked unit which has been stolen and is blacklisted in GeKo - such unit is not usable. So be careful when buying the units!!!
Ad. 2 - when radio is for the first time powered outside donor car it starts internal timer which according to my experience is set to approx. 8 hours of operations. When the timer expires unit automatically locks itself with CP. Timer runs every time the unit is powered - e.g.. if you drive 1 hour a day then after 8 days the unit will lock itself. HW patch resets this timer every time the unit is restarted so after every restart you have the same amount of time available before unit locks. And even when it locks all you have to do is push power button for couple of second so the unit is restarted :) The issue is that usually you don't know how much time is left when you buy the unit - so if you patch the unit that was already running for 7.5 hours it will be locking itself every 30 minutes :(
Ad. 3 - new 3D FIS instruments have CP management built-in. In such case, when instruments software realizes there was a radio change it immediately sends over CAN frame which lock radio with CP. The filter you install does not allow this frame to be delivered to radio. If you have white FIS instruments don't manage CP so in such case this filter is not required.
I have not managed all the issues yet - affected are cars with Sound System (no sound at all) and reverse cameras (the camera works only with OPS installed I;m not able to have on one screen both reverse camera and OPS visualisation). I'm working on both issues and expect to have them solved within few weeks.
Just before X-mas I installed Discovery Media in 2011 Scirocco. The site is in Polish but I think you will enjoy it anyway
http://forum.golf6.pl/vw-inne-profil/vw-scirocco-2-0tdi-indywidual-2011-by-dark55-t4954-10.html
