Usb Socket - What Do I Use?

[hazfiend]

I didn't find this either in the manuals or from a limited search of the forums :)

My Mondeo is a 2012 model with the touchscreen nav system and SD card maps. In the glovebox I have a USB socket and some sort of aux-in for ipods and that.

I want to use the USB option for loading files, particularly audiobooks, since I couldn't buy a 6CD changer like my old Scorpio had for this sort of function (they tend to fill several CDs).

My first attempt was a fail, I formatted up a USB connected 1TB hard drive as an EXT3 volume upon which I put some WAV and MP3 folders and while the Mondeo recognised there was something plugged in, it didn't find any files on it.

Is there a definition or guide as to what you can plug into the USB port, what format it should be in, etc? Does it need fat32? can it power hard drives? what are the limits on memory sticks?

I've gotten my phone bluetoothed up and it's pretty neat that it can grab tracks from that, although it seems to be random play rather than searchable (that might be my phone, of course.) Random order won't work for ten hours of unabridged audiobook, though, obviously. :)

[Marcr1]

All you need is a blank USB stick and upload any music/audiobooks onto it, then plug it straight into your car, press the AUX Button and it should automatically play :D

[Preee]

What format are the Audio books in?

Do not try and power a hardrive from there , just use memory sticks.

A Hard drive takes time to spin up to speed and also draw a lot of power from the connection.

If you r going to try and use a hard drive use and external power source and let it reach its run speed before you plug it in.

[hazfiend]

All you need is a blank USB stick and upload any music/audiobooks onto it, then plug it straight into your car, press the AUX Button and it should automatically play :D

To be fair, that's technically what I've done and it doesn't play. There are evidently limitations within the Ford system, e.g. max 4GB sticks or whatever which aren't specified in the manual. Unlike my phone which says "up to 32GB uSD cards" so I know where I stand - stick a 64GB in and it probably won't work. Ford aren't saying, so you buy a 128GB class 16 stick, it doesn't work. "We didn't say it would". What does work? "We won't say, in case it doesn't." you can see the problem?

[hazfiend]

I haven't tried audiobooks as yet, my music tests were .wav and .mp3 but I didn't see folders anyway so it wouldn't matter. I was hoping others had already tried out some / all the combinations and knew what works and what didn't, I suppose.

[Marcr1]

In my car I use a 16gb stick and the file formats are .mp3 and .aac. It may be worth looking on the Ford website and getting the latest firmware for your radio. They release updates every so often to cope with new hardware etc

[hazfiend]

It may be worth looking on the Ford website and getting the latest firmware for your radio. They release updates every so often to cope with new hardware etc

Whereabouts is that? searching ford.co.uk for "firmware" came up blank.

[Marcr1]

This should be it:

http://www.ford-mobile-connectivity.com/downloadsUpdates

I'm on my mobile at the moment but I'll double check when I'm home

[hazfiend]

In case this is of interest to other owners, I've cracked the problem at least one way by myself.

I used one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intenso-6002560-Memory-Station-External/dp/B003Y3M4N6

No reason to suppose any other hard drives won't work in exactly the same way, and obviously where you buy one from is entirely up to you.

This drive is 1000 GB so takes my entire music / audiobook collection and then some.

The key thing here is not to use a "standard" format because windows will almost certainly decide you want either a 32GB partition or to format in NTFS, neither of which is what you want. I used windows administration - storage management to create a partition taking the whole 1000GB of disk space and to *Not* format the drive (it'll only do NTFS from within XP, dunno about win7 but I betcha it'll be the same. I then used EASEUS partition master (9.something) to format the full partition in FAT32, with default cluster, etc.

Having done that Windows is now happy that I have a new hard disk called "Music" as my T: drive and I can create folders containing various albums and so forth from my various data stores on my network.

The resulting drive can then be plugged in, using a normal USB - microUSB lead, to the aux socket in the glovebox where the hard drive is also sitting and when I now go into AUX and select USB there are my files and folders ready to play. Limited experiments confirm I can navigate the folders and play both MP3 and .WAV audio formats with no problems, no doubt there are limitations like how many levels of folders can nest and maximum filesize would be 4GB per file because of the FAT32 but all this is fine by me.

If you hit problems with a drive drawing more current than the socket can provide, which shouldn't happen but, then some drives come with a Y cable containing the USB data/power socket and a further power socket for a second USB port to beef up the current, in this case you'd simply use an adapter in the cigar lighter socket for that second lead. Wasn't necessary with this particular product. My audio system is the SD card based touchscreen navigation model which is in the second half of the navigation manual ford have on the website at the minute for 2012 models, if this matters for compatibility and stuff.