Replacement Tablet for Sat Nav conversion

[Harrizone]

More to the point and even more impressive is the choice of music.

[Stephen Davies]

I’ve just put an android head in the sat nav, still working on it but it looks good

What tablet, OS version and as someone else asked skin did you use as looks really good?

[Stephen Davies]

It’s got power amp for the music player, the one from google is ok but go to his web site and he has the new version which is not on google play store but it’s lots better, great with a big SSD connected to it, the front end is agama, from google store, found that to be really good too.
The OS is android 8.0 go

[Stephen Davies]

Going to have to desolder the gps connector from the main board and lay it flat, it sticks out too much to get the cover on, yet to do that and it looks a bit tricky to do without wrecking the main board, the unit was only $85 from gearbest, I’ve seen them on eBay for about £80

[innerlurken]

I have used a Lenovo tab 4 8 Plus as my nexus 7 was just too slow to work correctly, it fits with alot of the plastic removed (i did damage a bit on the bottom right which was annoying) and you have to use a couple of springs or magnets to hold the lid cover down as you need to remove all the plastic clips but other than the damage i did (stupid me) think it looks ok, do have a few ideas on how to make a neater edge but this tablet works well if you want a bigger screen

[neizt]

Sorry to revive an old thread but I did the conversion at weekend with a Nexus 7. Now when I lock the car the alarm goes off eventually unless I also disable the sensors with the button on the key.

I also noticed prior to me doing this that leaving a phone in the car also sets the alarm off.
Bit strange but was wondering if anyone else had encountered this and what could be done to stop it?

Thanks

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

[AdamGaltress]

Turn off WiFi

[Phil Bate]

WiFi signals can trigger the intrusion sensors, which are RF based rather than ultrasonic

[Stephen Davies]

All now fitted into the car, had to rejig the arduino control unit, it was too big to fit into the console so I have put it in a box in the footwell with a 9 pin din cable connecting it up, better for usb access to arduino, still got to get the reversing camera set up but it’s working well through the groom interface, the head doesn’t support Bluetooth well so I’ve used a WiFi OBD to connect torque

[Stephen Davies]

Update, it’s all in the car and working fine, I’m working on a much more refined version using android 10, also want to improve the wiring, make the arduino black out the screen on tilt down and add better external controls. Oh and a reset switch and it works great but I have a slight problem with the connectors working loose on the back of the head, might need to hot melt glue them next time

[Stephen Davies]

A8EEC6CA-088E-452A-B4E9-747F04C35EA5.jpeg

[rotatopotato]

WiFi signals can trigger the intrusion sensors, which are RF based rather than ultrasonic

That explains why my alarm goes off when I leave the phone in car while I'm in the shops!

[rotatopotato]

A8EEC6CA-088E-452A-B4E9-747F04C35EA5.jpeg

Which tablet did you opt for in the end?
I'm planning to do the same, got myself a 2012 Nexus 7 and quickly realised it's just not going to cut it.

[Stephen Davies]

It’s not a tablet it’s an android head unit, had to butcher it to fit it in, but it’s possible, they are going for about £50 on eBay...ace piece of kit for the money

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-DIN-7-GPS- ... SwLHhfVaOs

[Stephen Davies]

Need to do some pretty extensive destruction to it to fit it in, I’m getting much better at it now and know where to cut it up, the latest ones have the gps connector at the bottom of the back so it will fit easier into the sat nav head, remove the metal case and cut it up to fit in, the trick is getting all the wiring tucked in, gps, audio out, reversing camera, DAB, Digital tv, canbus, remote video all possible, even got a sub connector, for £50 it’s worth it and not to much to risk if you fu%k it up.

[rotatopotato]

Ah interesting. Are you using this instead of the stock headunit or in conjunction?

My plan had been to get a more modern 7" tablet, have it setup to connect to the stock stereo via bluetooth (I have a Grom3 already), and use something like Headunit Reloaded to turn it into an Android Auto receiver. But that's really just to get the basics - Spotify & Maps. Once I had those I was then going to investigate reversing cameras and ODB connections over USB OTG. And an Arduino setup for controlling the hood, as you've done.

I like this idea of the headunit, but at the same time I'd want the stock headunit to be the output and retain use of the controls (esp the steering controls - which I get with the Grom3).

[Stephen Davies]

I use the head through the mazda head unit, I too use a grom and I like the sock head unit, don’t get any steering control for my new head unit, but that’s ok by me, I use the android head units steering control to dim the screen when it’s lowered and a remote reboot switch may also be possible on the next incarnation, I’m using the arduino so it will be possible to do the screen dim with that, if you look at the pic you will also see that I have a minidisc player in my mazda head, I’m a big fan of minidisc,s
These head units have two usb lines and can take loads of usb stuff, I have a 2 terabyte ssd drive connected wit music ion it, this work a lot better than a mechanical hard drive, I’ve tried it with a tablet and ran with that for a while, but found it gets bogged down, I think this new system of mine is the dogs balderdash, got a few niggles with fitting in the wiring, there’s a lot of cables, but the sat nav pop up unit I’m working on now is a later incarnation, it has larger holes at the pivot points so I’ve been able to get the power and control wiring through the pivot and audio/ usb out the bottom

[Stephen Davies]

The one thing that niggles me is there is no micro usb so augmenting the ram is not easy, but I’m working on using a usb stick reformatted to provide system memory, should be possible, the android 10.1 heads are much faster so I’m gunning more apps concurrently, but I want more power

[rotatopotato]

Awesome. Awesome to the max.

That's given me some food for thought. I suspect I'll be spending a few months with the dash in a semi-assembled state to accommodate this

[rotatopotato]

I bought a non sat nav top panel to put in place while i messed about as I planned on doing this in one form or another last winter but that never happened.(Probably get round to it at some point)

but they are fairly cheap to pick up if you want to make things look okay while you sort.

[rotatopotato]

That's a good shout - I can see a project like this taking months of "adjustment", and initially it'd be good to remove as much of it from the car as possible to get it all setup and working on the bench.