Aftermarket VXR8 Head Unit options - opinions sought! :)

[FoxdieUK]

Hi all, I'm writing this because I'm planning on doing something to my VXR8, and I want to get peoples opinion and whether they want to follow the same route.

I want to replace the head unit with something more up to date. How I approach this I don't know, the problem is the car *needs* the head unit to start, it's immobilised without it (try disconnecting it and turning your ignition on, see what I mean). There are a number of options though;

Commercial options

E3 cluster upgrade

VE Commodore Series 2 Stereo Upgrade for Series 1 Models

I can't comment extensively on this, Gary Handa has recently done this conversion and will comment shortly I'm sure, but after a quick bit of research this is what I've surmised;

Pros

• Looks fantastic and modern
• Many new features and retains gauges etc
• Native HVAC controls
• Perfect fitment as it's from the manufacturer
• Dealerships can't bh about you tinkering

Cons

• Extremely expensive - pricing incl. delivery and taxes starts around £5k
• Big hassle to fit, requires pulling out a lot of dash parts
• Rare and long lead times from Australia

Alpine double din head unit with separate HVAC controls

VE Commodore Integration Solution from Alpine

Pros

• Drop in solution that'll work straight away, no hacking at wiring etc
• Specifically designed to replace our stock head unit, no gaps / holes etc
• Number of optional extras including navigation, media playback, bluetooth, wheel controls etc
• Dedicated controls for HVAC

Cons

• Very expensive - pricing incl. delivery and taxes starts around £2.4k
• Rare with long lead times from Australia
• Visibly ugly - mismatched plastic and those buttons look like something out of a police car or from an industrial machine!
• HVAC interface ugly - looks like something out of a 90s Sci-Fi series
• Buttons have no night time illumination so you'll be fumbling in the dark
• The HVAC controls require a particular, expensive series of Alpine double din head units (included in the prices as quoted though)

Touchscreen HVAC controller

LCD HVAC Controller

Pros

• Not all that expensive, about £350 after shipping and taxes
• Lets you choose what head unit you want
• Visually appealing display with touchscreen interface - easy to use day and night
• Easy to install, just 3 wires to install but they need manually splicing into the loom

Cons

• Doesn't include a head unit
• Doesn't include mounting frame, they have to be custom made and examples of these look fugly;

iPad

(See below links for example pictures)
Pros

• Supports a vast amount of software packages / options
• Can be removed easily (also demos above HVAC touchscreen controller), or
• Can be permanently mounted at extra effort (also demos above HVAC touchscreen controller)
• Depending on how it's installed, it doesn't look half bad
• If you don't want the touchscreen, it should be possible to develop an app to remote control a headless HVAC controller that sits behind the iPad / dash (more on this soon)
• Could be used to display vehicle telemetry too with a headless HVAC controller

Cons

• Needs an external amplifier for the speakers
• Requires something to replace the HVAC controller such as the touchscreen or another module for the car to be mobile
• Mounting options don't currently look mature to pass as OEM

Homebrew options

• Homemade Touchscreen HVAC controller

or

• Headless HVAC controller

I'm fairly confident I could assemble a unit either like the above touchscreen controller for a fair bit cheaper (£200ish), or a headless unit for even cheaper that could be remote-controlled via an iPad App or over USB (for control, via, say a car PC). This would permit myself to save a bit more money and still upgrade my ageing head unit.

It would also allow me to sniff data going back and forth over the vehicles communications network (CANBUS / GMLAN) and also present other data, such as virtual gauges / graphs of what the cars up to. If I wanna see what my fuel trim / intake temperature / water temp is over time I can graph it. If I wanna see what my current ignition timing advance or knock sum is? I can add a digital readout. How about air / fuel ratio or throttle position? Needle gauge.

I could then get quite creative, want on-screen buttons to do batch tasks such as quickly lock the doors and wind up all the windows? Pin protect your car from abuse, put it into a valet / loan mode where the car is limited to 40 MPH and / or 3000 RPM? Have the car automatically roll up the windows when you arm the alarm? Yep, it'd all be possible. Just about everything from our cars is controlled via this network.

This could further be expanded by, say, adding a GPS receiver and a GSM modem, permitting satellite navigation, vehicle tracking, remote kill if the car gets stolen etc.

Tell me if any of this tickles your collective fancies, what your thoughts are, what you'd like to see, what you think does't work etc etc

Edited by FoxdieUK on Friday 30th November 15:16

[FoxdieUK]

Luisv8 said:

Love the idea of an iPad, I would defo consider it! By the way, got the cable today, it works fine, thank you.

Heh you're more than welcome, install easy enough then?

[FoxdieUK]

From the mirror thread on VXROnline;

Devon_VXR said:

If you look on the g8 boards there are users who have done the iPad conversion and run telemetry via apps and also home produced hvac controllers.

Upgrading the head unit does appeal to a number of owners but as you point out the cost of doing this via the commercial options is extremely high so most stick with the oem unit.

If someone can come up with a cost effective solution I am sure there will be a fair few people interested.

[FoxdieUK]

Gary H 2008 said:

Couple of corrections matey About the Alpine solution - will post fully later:

1) You can just buy the surround for c. £300
2) You can fit any Double DIN as long as it has a rear camera input (for HVAC)
3) I think you lose the rear ultrasonic display (but not the beeps)

My solution's not that expensive

Interesting! Await your response

[FoxdieUK]

Well I've been busy, started on another slippery slope; GMLAN CAN-Bus hacking to build a headless HVAC controller;




That's an mbed Microcontroller ( NXP LPC1768) with an SKPang CAN-Bus breakout board, an OBD-II connector and a RS232 serial cable. Also an evenings worth of familiarising myself with mbed programming and throwing together a quick program.

I'm a little bit amused in the fact I was told the above couldn't be done, but there's the proof, I've also confirmed that my cars VIN gets sent across the network

Edited by FoxdieUK on Thursday 6th December 11:30

[FoxdieUK]

Things progress slowly. I've got the mbed filtering messages now, as a test I set it to flash an LED when I press the scroll button in on the steering wheel, that worked great. Telling it to send a chime request to the dash cluster? Not so much.

[FoxdieUK]

Gary H 2008 said:

Good work matey.
That VIN transmit may be of use to me.

Sure, lemme know how

[FoxdieUK]

z0m81e said:

I did a bit of investigation of the gmlan stuff myself with an arduino and a skpang shield. I did all of mine on my old vectra which was canbus but 11bit not what I assume is probably 29bit in the r8 though the principle is the same. I got it to do stuff like open and close the windows with the little joystick thing on the shield but I never progressed much beyond that so i'll be interested to see how you get on. I haven't had the chance to dust if off since I got my r8 to see how it works there.

Yep, the R8 has at least 2 CAN-Bus networks, the main high speed (500kbps) one that most software interfaces with, and GMLAN which is slow (33.3kbps) single-wire. Both are 29bit.

You have to tie CAN_L on the transceiver to GND for it to communicate, but I'm wondering if thats why my chime packet isn't transmitting properly though, it may be causing a transmission error.

[FoxdieUK]

z0m81e said:

I did this by soldering the header onto the shield and just putting a little jumper wire between CAN-L and GND. I didn't have any problems with my stuff but I never tried much beyond open/close windows etc just as a trial.

There is a whole bunch of discussion on some of the pontiac g8 and carmodder forums amongst others about doing this and I remember when I was looking at my Vec finding a lot of discussion about chimes but unfortunately it was a while ago and I don't remember exactly where. If you haven't looked already there is some fairly decent stuff on some of the american forums about talking GMLAN and I think the g8 stuff especially is directly relevant. This spreadsheet from one of the forums is also quite handy https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aud1v...

Edited by z0m81e on Friday 7th December 16:04

Heya,

Yep I've got that bible bookmarked amongst other things

I feel I've got enough to start working out how I can replace the HVAC unit, biggest hurdle is being able to successfully send a packet into the network. I'm gonna try sending another type of packet before I go home

[FoxdieUK]

z0m81e said:

I've got arduino code that worked on 11bit and an untested 29bit function that someone else wrote so if it doesn't work let me know I will dust mine off and have a look.

Do it! The more hackers, the better

[FoxdieUK]

Hehe, amused at how you "quoted" Arduino (as in edited the name)

Filtering packets isn't easy but I have an idea on how to approach that. I'm gonna do this to my mbed but the process is the same for you;

Add an LED, plus two switches to the board, these will control the filtering;

• Button 1 = Start / Stop recording
• Button 2 = Clear filter

Then you add the following logic to the code (YMMV);

1. Before the main loop, add an integer array (empty) and a boolean integer (set to false)
2. In your main loop, add a test to see if the header packet is in the integer array. If it is, skip printing that packet
3. In your main loop, test to see if button 1 has been pressed. If it has, flip the state of the boolean int
4. In your main loop, check the value of the boolean int, if it's set to true, turn the LED on and add every received packet header to the integer array (checking for duplicates naturally otherwise you'll run out of memory)
5. In your main loop, test to see if button 2 has been pressed. If it has, clear out the integer array

Then, run the program and start logging, press button 1 to start recording packets to the filter, wait a few seconds, eventually the printed output will stop, at this point press button 1 again and then start trying to test for what you actually need.

If this doesn't work, you can press button 2 to clear the filter and start again

[FoxdieUK]

If anyone wants to start on this rocky road, I've published working code on mbed.org;

GMLAN Sniffer

On a personal note, I'm feeling quite accomplished. 1 week ago I hadn't programmed in C++, now I'm knocking stuff out that reads CAN-Bus

[FoxdieUK]

z0m81e said:

It's going well then Do you happen to know if the 6 buttons along the bottom of the screen and the source selections send on the GMLAN? I'm trying to find them now but not having much success I have a suspicion they aren't sent.

Funnily enough, I had that same idea, however I didn't spot any packets relating to them whilst mashing them :/

I've never used the Sat Nav but I imagine it uses these, they must be sent across a signal on the same port on the nav RGBS video input (which I'm also idly looking into allowing VGA input to via a converter).

I've also hit a brick wall with my work, my CAN transceiver doesn't seem capable of sending packets into the network, so I've asked Proto Pic to look into single wire CAN transceivers, they're ordering the parts in now to test the water

[FoxdieUK]

z0m81e said:

Strange, I have the canbus shield from sparkfun which I got through proto pic http://proto-pic.co.uk/can-bus-shield/ which works for me. Its an MCP2515/2551 controller/transceiver and definitely sends/receives ok on the single wire. I guess you must have an appropriate cable with grounded CAN-L line otherwise you would not be able to receive either. Let me know if I can help at all.

Edited by z0m81e on Sunday 16th December 12:41

See, thats exactly what I thought, reading packets is totally fine, sending them however just doesn't work!

I'm using the SKPang CAN-Bus Breakout Board with my mbed, reading packets totally fine, sending them just has no response. It also has the MCP2551 CAN Transceiver but tying CAN_L to GND just hasn't worked for me. I've tried connecting it straight to the OBD-II port and manually tying into the SW-CAN network by splicing into the green wire going into the head unit.

There's a big discussion thread on this over at Carmodders.com, Jezzab (one of the most prominent members) also had good fortune with the Arduino CANBUS Shield by connecting both CAN_H and CAN_L together. I'm gonna try that shortly to see if that works, but I feel it's a bust.

Either my breakout board isn't wired up the same way, or the CAN Controller on the mbed just isn't up to the task.

[FoxdieUK]

z0m81e said:

I use mine connected to the socket in the drivers footwell. I bought a cable and connector from sk pang I think and wired it up as normal except that I connected the CAN-H line to pin 1 and left the CAN-L line disconnected. On the arduino shield there is a space for a header that exposes 5V, GND, CAN-L, CAN-H and I used that to link the CAN-L to GND. I assume in theory you could connect it to the ground pin in the connector on the cable as well. I would assume the purpose of this is to tie the CAN-L side of the transceiver to ground and stop the input floating and upsetting the controller.

I've just been out to the car to test the theory of tying CAN_H to CAN_L, it was a no-go and (understandably) made things worse (no packets logged because the transceiver cannot differentiate between input signals that match each other.

I've tried leaving CAN_L floating, connected to signal GND on the board, and connected to chassis GND on the OBD-II connector. Neither permitted me the ability to transmit.

[FoxdieUK]

z0m81e said:

Are you sure your sending code is correct? I've uploaded my code https://github.com/Afterglow/arduino-gmlan for reference. I use the 29bit send function for the VXR8.

Had a look at your code, bit complex, I'm wondering if my mbed is attempting to transmit 11-bit CAN after reading your code. Something to investigate. That and I talked Proto-Pic into stocking both single wire and dual wire CAN controllers

z0m81e said:

edit - I seriously can't make the links work properly in this forum :/

Don't fret, you literally just surround them with URL tags, here are two examples, one of what your link should have been, and a copy / paste of the named link I posted earlier for the single wire CAN controller;

Example of a simple link: [URL]https://github.com/Afterglow/arduino-gmlan[/URL]
Example of a named link: [URL=http://proto-pic.co.uk/can-bus-ic-txrx-single-wire-8-soic/]single wire[/URL]

Simple!

z0m81e said:

OK it has come to my attention I need to enabled the Video in Motion on my car to make this worthwhile, can anyone recommend a reliable source for this?

Gary H 2008 said:

lol, I think Jason can think of someone...

This is a service that myself and winmiller are about to start offering, however it requires dash disassembly and clipping on an EEPROM programmer. We can also change the start up logos to the animated HSV one and change the text colour to blue if you desire.

I'll discuss with winmiller a strategy for how to offer this and post up a new thread

[FoxdieUK]

Well, since the snow effed off, I've been busy. After a lot of faffing around, I finally got there..

Video demo; GMLAN hacking with theatrics!

[FoxdieUK]

2014 Revisit

Hi folks,

After a hiatus for various reasons, I think it's time to get this ball rolling again, there's a couple of people sick and tired of their stock head units so I'm going to start designing and then building a prototype unit.

What I want to know from you lot is what features would you want to see in it to make it attractive? This can encompass features, design style, cost, you name it.

For me, I think it the following requirements are a bare minimum;

• Large, clear touchscreen
• Fast, usable interface
• Satellite Navigation
• Music and video playback
• Air-con controls
• Wifi access to phone
• Easy to install
• Costs less than 1 grand

And some nice-to-haves;

• Bluetooth Stereo Audio / hands-free
• Steering wheel control support
• Dashboard cluster integration
• Looks like it was built by GM / fitted at the factory
• Completely reversible install in case car is sold
• Holden EDI style live vehicle telemetry (see below image)

[FoxdieUK]

Well, funny you should ask that, the day before you posted that something I ordered nearly a year ago to see if it would work was delivered...



Unfortunately the TFT panel is about 5mm too big and the viewing angles aren't as good as say an iPad, so I have 2 options, either go smaller to a 7" but higher quality IPS panel (also costs about 30% more), or bring the TFT panel outwards and have it neatly overlap the sides of the centre console with a 3D printed case.

Also I did post a technical approach document at http://is.gd/projectvice on the Facebook group asking for feedback, feel free to review and comment