Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Recently finished my little summer project.

 

Interested to see if there are others who have gotten sick of standard head units and hooked up a tablet or pc in their vehicle.

 

THE SCREEN:

 

This is a 7" touchscreen w/case for a raspberry pi (bought from jaycar) running off my Microsoft surface 3 that sits pretty in my glovebox.

 

Above the surface, I attached a powered usb hub (purchased from officeworks) that is powered by an inverter (jaycar). This is because the surface only has one usb port and that wasn't enough for my application.

 

The inverter is powered by the cigarette lighter socket. It also charges the surface tablet when the car is on IGN. It is mounted in the passenger footwell (hopefully far away from getting kicked, so far so good)

 

The screen requires a hdmi signal and a usb signal for touchscreen. I purchased an adapter (jbhifi) that converts the mini display port in the tablet to a female hdmi port. The micro usb output on the screen goes straight to the usb hub.

 

The tablet plugs into the hub via it's single usb port.

 

I have a VI-PEC ecu that plugs into the hub via the LINK tuning cable and the tuning software installed on the surface to get a live feed from the ECU.

 

The screen is mounted to a second head unit surround I purchased incase i wrecked it or it didn't fit. Minimal mods were required to get it sitting nice.

 

The other usb cable goes into the sound system.

 

 

THE SOUND SYSTEM:

 

My car already has an aftermarket sound system (amps and sub). My amps power the speakers so all i needed was something that was capable of accepting multiple RCA leads, and was usb powered/ usb audio. The ASUS XONAR U7 MKii external sound card fits these criteria. It's capable of 7.1 surround and is usb audio and powered. A couple of adapters were required for some of the plugs as they are 3.5mm jacks, not RCA. No biggie, jaycar has the goods.

 

The card is mounted behind the screen and plugs into the usb hub in the glovebox.

 

Utilising the ASUS software, the sound system could be tuned to a degree. I've found I'm now at the mercy of the quality of sound files I use for music on the tablet (mp3 etc etc) so the quality differs.

 

The main effort was the screen setup, music was just a bonus for me anyway.

 

 

CONCLUSION:

 

The setup as a whole is way better the my old single DIN headunit. I no longer have radio (what a shame) and have to make sure I turn the tablet on after starting the car and turn it off before switching the car off (just like you would a pc I guess) otherwise it has a s#$% fit).

 

My ability to view and even modify ECU settings is very useful when the car gets tracked. Live temps and values etc.

(I'm far from a tuner so I just peek)

 

I have all normal windows pc functions like Wi-Fi and internet browsing, bluetooth etc (obviously not while driving........)

 

I'm pretty sure you could even get Google maps to work as a navigator if you have the surface 3 with gps. Mine does not.

 

No r34 interiors were drilled into or hacked up in the making of this project. It's all removable and reversible incase it all goes to s%$^ lol.

 

The whole project cost me a few hundred bucks because I already owned the surface 3... I'm pretty sure all the newer surfaces are too big to fit in an r34 glovebox anyway. Smaller laptops may work.

 

 

Thanks for reading if you got this far!

20180103_100311.jpg20180103_100400.jpg20180103_100427.jpg20180210_172400.jpg1024x600-hdmi-7-screen-with-usb-capacitive-touchImageMain-900.jpgunnamed.jpg81YoykVzitL._SX522_.jpg200w-inverter-with-4-usb-outletsImageMain-900.jpgimages (1).jpeg232992-L-LO.jpg41qj-z572XL._SX355_.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/473299-summer-head-unit-project/
Share on other sites

I did this about 10 years ago,  i used a Thermaltake 7" lcd motorised touchscreen that was made for servers that can sit in a pc case,  i mounted that in the dash,  and used a amd mini pc and a 12v power supply from jaycar.

I am thinking of doing another setup now,  where did you get the screen from?  how much was it?  I think i paid $600 for mine back in then.

 

i think i got a video somewhere of it working

 

 

 

Cant see much,  but it was a awesome setup.  It eventually died because I used a conventional 2.5" laptop hdd in it and all the bumps and pot holes in The Republic of Georgia destroyed it...  I never made a new hdd for it as i moved engine from one car to another when the car got to the UAE

I did this about 10 years ago,  i used a Thermaltake 7" lcd motorised touchscreen that was made for servers that can sit in a pc case,  i mounted that in the dash,  and used a amd mini pc and a 12v power supply from jaycar.
I am thinking of doing another setup now,  where did you get the screen from?  how much was it?  I think i paid $600 for mine back in then.
 
i think i got a video somewhere of it working
 
Screen was from my local jaycar, it was $160
https://www.jaycar.com.au/1024x600-hdmi-7-screen-with-usb-capacitive-touch/p/XC9026

Very cool to see that this stuff was still do-able 10 years ago ! Although I suppose that was only 2008 now.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • To expand on this to help understanding... The bigger/longer the block is, the more it's going to work to sit on your far away high areas, and not touch the low stuff in the middle. When you throw the guide coat, and give it a quick go with a big block, guide coat will disappear in the high spots. If those high spots are in the correct position where the panel should be, stop sanding, and fill the low spots. However, using a small block, you "fall off" one of the high spots, and now your sanding the "side of the hill". Your little block would have been great for the stone chips, where you only use a very small amount of filler, so you're sanding and area let's say the size of a 5/10cent piece, with something that is 75*150. For the big panel, go bigger!   And now I'll go back to my "body work sucks, it takes too much patience, and I don't have it" PS, I thought your picture with coloured circles was an ultra sound... That's after my brain thought you were trying to make a dick and balls drawing...
    • Oh I probably didn't speak enough about the small sanding block for blocking large areas.  In the video about 3 minutes in, he talks about creating valleys in the panel. This is the issue with using a small sanding block for a large area, it's way too easy to create the valleys he is talking about. With a large block its much easier to create a nice flat surface.  Hard to explain but in practice you'll notice the difference straight away using the large block. 
    • Yep I guessed as much. You'll find life much easier with a large block something like this -  https://wholesalepaint.com.au/products/dura-block-long-hook-loop-sanding-block-100-eva-rubber-af4437 This is a good demo video of something like this in use -    You have turned your small rock chip holes into large low spots. You'll need to fill and block these low spots.  It's always a little hard not seeing it in person, but yes I would go ahead and lay filler over the whole area. Have a good look at the video I linked, it's a very good example of all the things you're doing. They went to bare metal, they are using guide coat, they are doing a skim coat with the filler and blocking it back. If what you're doing doesn't look like what they are doing, that's a big hint for you  
    • The odometer does go up when driving.  Does this tell it is an issue with the speedometer itself?    Where can I look for replacement cluster? Or speedo? I can likely do the repair.. Will ER34 cluster work on HR34? Or do I need a HR34 20GT S2 specifically lol   
    • Mine's a bit bigger at 70x150mm roughly. The spots are flat, just can feel the edges if I dig my nail into it. I did fix some other other ones by both using my finger to sand that small spot (I'm a bit wary of doing this and creating hot spots and a bigger mess) and I also did sand over it flat and others, but this also worried me a bit because if I create an overall low spot on the panel on paint that is good.  Correct me if I'm wrong but as long as it's flat even if I can feel the edges, I can put filler because it will all be level once I sand it? I can see myself going in a circle after sanding guidecoat with 320 grit if for example the panel is flat with my hand but because I sanded the guidecoat I could have created a low spot again somewhere. Unless where I'm going wrong is what I mentioned previously where I didn't go low enough on the grits. It's 1 step forward and 2 step backwards here haha. I'll probably need to experiment with it more. Last time I go back to bare metal lol.
×
×
  • Create New...