My Mudane

[samuelellis]

So update



I found a stone effect paint in B&Q that gave a nice texture so primed the panel, sprayed it with the stone effect and then left it overnight before a coat of matt black was sprayed on
TBH the panel is not what you would call brilliant at this point in time BUT its the first time i used bodyfiller and first successful use of fibreglass so im going to use the panel and when my skills are better i will make another one

So onto the power for the phone/satnav - the problem i have had is the phone and satnav are immensely picky about chargers, if the phone is not happy it either does not charge or reports voltage too high Charging stopped and the satnav just goes into PC connect mode, this means that you cant actually use it

So i found a cig lighter adapter that charges the phone and i am using a garmin original charger for the nav

Next step was to buy a cigarette lighter splitter to make life easy for myself (Ie use that to run the two cigratette lighter PSU's) BUT i found that the phone charger even though it works plugged into the cigarette lighter it does not work when plugged into the cigarette lighter splitter, why it does not work i cannot workout but the USB charge port on the splitter charges the phone

So the plan now is as follows

Feed from the front battery (live and ground to the cabin) fused at 5-8amp
Plug from Cigarette lighter splitter removed
Wire switch between the power feed from the front batt to the cigarette lighter splitter
Mount splitter behind glovebox for easy access if needed in future
Run Satnav charging cable and phone USB charging cable to dash
Fit the custom centre console i made

[samuelellis]

Yea my thoughts are it looks better and is more ergonomic than having cradles for the phone/nav jutting out of the windscreen at all angles and safer than having charging cables allover the place

I just need to get it finished so i can start considering the doorcards as that will be a very big difficult job

[samuelellis]

It still does not look that brilliant in the flesh but im going to use it and build my skills up until i can make a better one

now i need to think about the wiring for it and do some work with the raspberyPI board that is going on the car

[samuelellis]

Ok so i had some time to think about how to intergrate the RaspberryPi board running RaspBMC into the install and this is about as far as i have got


This is the list of goals i have for the Pi

Connect to my Android Phone when it is setup as a wifi hotspot for internet access
Controllable from my Android phone using XBMCRemote
Have access to a hard drive storing music videos
Output video to composite
Composite video split to 6 to 8 screens
Infra red controlable

So the first step is power

I have plenty of battery power in the car (im fused at 300amp to the rear battery rack) but its making a nice hard wired way to power the Pi

On the back of aftermarket headunits they have what is called a remote out so when the headunit is turned on it sends voltage down this cable to trigger amps/processors to turn on, i already have a relay off this feed to switch on the amplifiers in the car. The relay has a spare output so im going to use that to fire a 2nd relay

This 2nd relay will be connected to a butchered USB Cigarette lighter charger, this should also allow me to power a USB hard drive as well, below is a very bad MSPaint of the wiring for it


Now the video and audio
My headunit has a screen built in and that feeds the rear view camera, on its Aux in it has a feed for video as well so that is two screens dealt with. In order to avoid picture quality degredation of composite i will be using a video signal booster to help it out

Below is the planned wiring for the video - the audio will also feed from the Pi to the headunit and from there the wiring for the rest of the car will stay the same


Now i have tested my phone and i know it can work as a Wifi hotspot so that is one less thing to worry about, im just waiting for RC4 to be released with known working wifi adapters to make life easier

Things that i have not got working
As i have an aftermarket headunit that has its own IR remote and when the headunit is in Aux mode it ignores most of the buttons, i was hoping to get RaspBMC to work with this remote but after trying multiple IR recievers it does not work, its not a fault with the Pi or RaspBMC - its just that the recivers ignore the remote (i have tested this by running IRW on a SSH session and firing commands from the headunit remote and my Media centre remote - i get responses from the media centre remote but not the headunit remote) so i either need to think about having a media centre remote in the car as well or hacking up a keyboard and making a control panel

[samuelellis]

Ok so i had chance to play with the RaspberryPi board and get it working sucesfully off a dc power supply with a external HDD so its now on a burn-in test

here is a quick video of it in test mode

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPA7i3-VUA

If it works fine for the next few hours i will be setting up Wifi on it so it will see my phone as an access point

[samuelellis]

So a bit more config done with the RaspberryPi board for incar use

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRqX5_9YcyE

As you can see by the vid it is not far off ready to be fitted

[samuelellis]

So a bit of work on the doorcards

As the place where the windows switch does not exist anymore it needed moving



Some filler over to level it out



Then cover the doorcard in fabric tightly



Tape up the important bits of the door



Put the doorcard on the door and screw it inplace



Resin the door and allow it to dry so it should keep its shape



Removed doorcard and put it in the garage, add some more resin and matting to give it strength



now to leave it to dry and then once it is dry back into the door to make sure it has not moved about when drying

[samuelellis]

I fully intend this to be usable as a mobile PA system that i will offer to charitys when it is finished as well as my only car

This is going in the front doors



4 per door running off around 1kw per door

[samuelellis]

ok so quick update

I got the centre console in



Still to wire up the power supplys for the phone/nav and fit the headunit

Unfortunately i did kill to death my Brax Voltmeter so i need to get another one of them

The next step is to get the glovebox out to mount the Pi in it and then to attack the wiring for the Pi, nav and phone

[samuelellis]

Cheers for the link - it was interesting


So a bit more of an update

The Brax is utterly 100% dead but as im going to replace it with another Brax i can use this as a template so this is the facia adapter for the headunit as it stands now



On the left hand side is the Epicentre LED status - inbetween is the Brax voltmeter and on the far side is the epicentre dial. I am currently just waiting for the coat of paint i put on the dry, it may need sanding off and a layer of the textured stuff putting down and then a layer of the black matt paint

So the doorcards

Today i got the delivery of the 6x9 baffles i ordered so i can start looking at how to lay them out, i came up with the ideas below





So i was going to take them to the doorcard and try it on the car to make sure nothing fowls but the heavans have opened so i cant do that - i intend to do it tomorrow, most of the baffes will go behind the doorcard but i think the speaker(s) at the top of the card will need the baffle ontop of the card due to depth but we shall see tomorrow

[samuelellis]

So todays update

resprayed the head unit adapater so it now looks better - just waiting on my replacement BRAX to arrive before i fit it



Cut the holes for the speakers in the doorcards and mounted the card to the door



This was so i could check that i had enough mounting depth, unfortunatly due to how the door curves i do on the bottom but not on the top so on the bottom the MDF rings have gone behind the door and on the top of the door they need to go onto of the door



This means i will need to break out the filler to make it look decent but on a quick test they do not get in the way when driving



Now i also sorted out hard wiring the RaspberryPi power supply as well, this is what i started with



get the cases off



Now solder them together and put a fuse in



And as you can see the hard wired PSU is working fine in this test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xm8zL0d40k

[samuelellis]

so the first layer of filler has gone on to try and make it look smooth up to the baffles - still a few more layers to do



And while i was at it because of how the grills will be mounted the JBL logo would not be the right way round so i rotated it

[samuelellis]

Speaker layout in doorcard



2nd layer of filler on and sanded, could still do with another layer of filler and sanding

[samuelellis]

so a bit more sanding was done, then sprayed it with some textured paint




Currently waiting for it to dry so i can shove a coat of black over it to see how it turns out and if it needs more sanding/smoothing

[samuelellis]

Ok so a bit more of an update, i got the drivers doorcard pretty much done




So now im onto the passenger door - agian that was covered in fabric, a layer of resin put over it, holes then cut for the speakers and the rings mounted

Currently waiting for fibreglass and resin to dry on the passenger doorcard

[samuelellis]

So updates

On my doors i have puddle lights in the wing mirrors - these are a bit weedy so i wanted to add a bit of a trick with them

So find the wires in the door loom, cut into them and solder on my own extra plug



Then solder the other plug onto the LED projector



This is an LED projector that will do the following on the ground when the door is opened



So then mount the projector in the doorcard



now the drivers doorcard is pretty much done - just need to tidy the wiring up a bit

Onto the passenger doorcard

Final bits of sanding



Coat of the textured paint



Started to spray the doorcard black but ran out of paint - will have to finish tomorrow



So the centre console

The headunit facia adapter i made did not really work so i had another attempt at it

build up layers of bodyfiller to make the brax stand proud



Then once sanded smooth spray with textured paint and let dry





Just waiting for the black paint to dry then in the morning i can unblock the epicentre dial hole and make some adjustments if needed

[samuelellis]

So the drivers door has been fitted and quickly hooked up to an amp as a test

lowest gain setting and using an ipod as a source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKNgY2W9e0Q

Hey ive not had a drivers doorcard for over a year im pretty chuffed

[samuelellis]

and as it got darker i could get a photo of the projector under the door

[samuelellis]

I got the projectors from here - http://britelightleds.co.uk/onlineshop/index.php?r...

In regards to the clock i really dont notice it

[samuelellis]

So the headunit facia adapter did not work so i made it again



And after a bit of a fight i got it fitted



And i got the passenger door finished and fitted - quick video of the doors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD1h6zqcSVk

Still more to come one i get them turned up and setup as the amp gain is set to the minimum