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Tablet PC as Carputer?


MatsuDano

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  • 4 weeks later...
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I revive thee, zombie thread. With a a brief fitting. Like I said, I haven't been able to put ANY time into this kind of thing, but it's time to put up or shut up.

 

http://i54.tinypic.com/5o9ged.jpg

 

I was having trouble with the chinese knock off, so I caved and got a galaxy tab. It's MUCH snappier. The size is something to contend with though, it's just to wide to fit flush on the outside, but fits rather snuggly inside between the two vents. Still raises some interesting and fundamental issues. Like power, where the hell is it coming from? And it being recessed exposes some of the nasty bits of the bezel. The galaxy tab may end up getting returned until something just a hair smaller becomes available.

 

EDIT: The tape is on there to keep the flimsy protector film on it. I need to keep this thing in returnable condition. And I'm just anal like that. Leave me alone :lol:

 

http://i56.tinypic.com/10wmf5u.jpg

 

The nice is thing is though, the headphone jack is accessible.

 

The measurements that I was working with in CAD were all wrong anyway. Does anyone have EXACTLY the dimensions of the Xenarc 700 TSV, specifically the model before the new 2010 redesign?

Edited by MatsuDano
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Too late for that one. Already hacked the crap out of the OEM bezel. Oh well, I still have a backup one.

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/Car/IMG_20110414_213819.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/Car/IMG_20110414_214137.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/Car/IMG_20110414_215155.jpg

 

Please note that I have none of the right tools for the job at my disposal. And like a stubborn arse, I proceeded anyway.

 

Just snapped off the middle portion with some clippers just to get an idea of what it would look like. I'm actually starting to like this positioning, it might help reduce glare a little. I just need a way to connect the tablet to both the 3.5mm audio jack and the 30pin power port. Also I need to figure out a way to disable to screen lock and keep the display on at all times there is external power. That part shouldn't be too hard. Let's see what I can do in one night's time.

 

Stupid Samsung, lrn2microusb.

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Settings > Applications > Development > "Stay Awake"

 

Make sure you angle the screen as perpendicular to the car as you can. I have mine slightly angled towards the roof and the screen is unreadable during the day. Then again, I'm sure the Tab's screen is much better than what I have :lol:

If you don't vote Trump, out, you're a bigot who hates america.
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It was 2am Friday morning, and I thought to myself, I should get a dremel.

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/Car/IMG_20110415_020605.jpg

 

Unfortunately all they had was cordless. I must be the biggest idiot to have bought it anyway.

 

Just a few more quick pics. Nothing major yet, hope to have something concrete by morning.

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/Car/IMG_20110416_202200.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/Car/IMG_20110415_234934.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/Car/IMG_20110415_234951.jpg

 

Some more quick pics and a quick sit-rep of cost:

1. Samsung Galaxy Tab - $350

2. Crappy Dremel - $30

3. Software (Torque) - $5

4. Misc Cables, adapters, charger type dealies - $14.37

5. Beer - ???????

Edited by MatsuDano
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Just about finished with the Phase I fitting. I'll ride around like this for a while and see where I can improve.

 

Cell phone pics until clearing out the memory card on the DSLR.

 

If there is still interest I'll do a full write up on how I did it (spoiler alert: It's messy)

IMG_20110417_201057.thumb.jpg.0c3fec8dd9b080ee3719c692077505e6.jpg

IMG_20110417_201217.thumb.jpg.86fc2cc045d7200634ab4ecbef5e4321.jpg

IMG_20110417_201222.thumb.jpg.2f75a552aa5b380c10a8a4bb973402dc.jpg

IMG_20110417_201240.thumb.jpg.c5838374a18aa71e6d8c67d6a52a8704.jpg

IMG_20110417_201250.thumb.jpg.97304b74de36bf7584e822b488bcfea8.jpg

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Some more quick pics and a quick sit-rep of cost:

1. Samsung Galaxy Tab - $350

2. Crappy Dremel - $30

3. Software (Torque) - $5

4. Misc Cables, adapters, charger type dealies - $14.37

5. Beer - ???????

 

Where did you get a Galaxy tab for 350? 2nd hand?

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  • 4 months later...

Subscribed. Any updates?

 

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7" and have been toying with using it. But I'm waiting for two features before putting it into my car:

 

  1. Needs to act as a bluetooth handset for my cellphone
  2. Needs to accept my backup camera video feed

 

Both of them can be worked around, but it means adding extra hardware to my car (ie: another bluetooth handsfree kit and another monitor for the backup camera).

 

Right now I've got a Pioneer AVIC F500BT and it does the job, but my android tablet (and phone) does everything it can do, and it does it so much better.

 

I've fitted my tablet into the slot like you did, and figured that I would have to modify the vents also, to allow for the power connector and the aux in. As for turning it on and off, there are plenty of Android apps that will allow you to set actions to triggers (search Tasker, or AutomateIt). You can, for example, set your android screen to never timeout when connected to ac power (ie: car is on) and set the screen to timeout right away and turn off when on battery power, you can then also set it to turn off all connections, like GPS, wifi, 3G, etc when on battery power to keep it in a low power standby state (or enable airplane mode).

 

There are so many advantages to running an Android tablet as a carPC. First and most important is it's a complete built-in solution with little hacking required. Then with all the apps that are available, you can do things like create a really simple lo-jack for your car (imagine having your car stolen and being able to not only activate the GPS to track it live, but also take photos of the driver with the front facing camera...). With apps like GasBuddy, you can easily find the cheapest gas prices at local gas stations.

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No real updates. I'm running car home as my homescreen application and that does things like prime the GPS location, turn off backlight timer, and max out volume. It's automatically programmed in the logic to turn the screen on when power is connected.

 

I also use an app to automatically bypass the lockscreen function so I don't even have to do that when the car turns on.

 

Most used apps so far are Torque, Winamp (for wi-fi syncing library), pandora, google maps (is the best, true that, double true), wi-fi hotspot, and urbanspoon.

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  • 5 months later...

Dano,

 

It's been quite some time since your last post. I was curious if there are any updates, tips, experience, comments you care to add to this thread.

 

I have a 08 with NAV screen and I think I might rip it out and put a Galaxy Tab 7 into it, so long as I can get it to fit. Suppose I could get an OEM bezel and cut that up instead. Either way I'd like to make this work in my car too.

 

What type of bluetooth OBD2 did you use? Also if I am connected to that, can I have the Galaxy Tab connected to my deck for Pandora at the same time? How does the GPS for the NAV work? I've been toying around with my Galaxy 10 in the car and the GPS sometimes is pretty inaccurate. I have a Garmin built into my deck currently and it works flawlessly. But of course it doesn't have super accurate traffic updates like the GoogMaps.

 

L8r

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  • 4 weeks later...

Even better if you can run a dash cam and record the video feed onto it. I always toy'ed with the idea of having a carPC .... hmm ... maybe this is the car to get it into LOL

 

I thought about the BB Playbook but the thing is useless for anything but a larger screen of my phone.

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Here's a quicky write up and a handful of pictures.

 

This was an interesting experiment of mine. After perusing through the interior sub-forum for many moons, admiring the homebuilt CarPCs, I decided to try my hand at it in a unique way. I’ve always liked the idea of the functions that the CarPC had, but understood that it had many limitations. HDD vibrations, power, interface options, expense, and physical space were all things I had to consider when approaching this project. It was then I notice that the physical dimensions of one of the touchscreen monitors used was extremely similar to the 7” tablets first being released. I compared several tablets online and developed a list of criteria. GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 16GB memory, “quick” processor, android operating system, and landscape mounted charging and audio ports. I narrowed it down to two candidates, the WITS AE-81 and the Samsung galaxy Tab (now the OG GT). I went with the Samsung for the initial VZW support.

 

I played around with the GT for a while trying to get a feel for how it would function in the car. There were a few apps I downloaded, but more of that later. Late one night, I couldn’t sleep. I decided that it was going to happen. Using the tools at hand, I disassembled the center cubby. Taking it out was rather simple, the tabs came out easy using a plastic BMW trim removal tool. There was a single wire harness for the clock which came off no problem. After the assembly was out, removing the cubby and the clock came first, to be left with the ring and vents. A simple mockup proved it would be a tight fit, but a perfect fit.

 

So next came the issue of wire routing. The power and audio ports were on opposite sides of each other and hugging pretty tightly to the side vents. So at 2am, I did the natural thing and went to wal-mart to buy a dremel. Unfortunately, the only one available was a wireless. Never again. Anyway, after taking apart the vents, I made two holes for connecting the wires in through the vent and another for an exit route into the cavity back behind the head unit. It was rather simple, but if I were to do it again I would have taken the time to use a more precise tool.

 

After it was possible to connect the wires, I was thinking of a way to devise a mount. I bought two 90 degree brackets with screws and heavy duty Velcro. Affixed to the back of the tablet was the one side of the Velcro, and the bracket had the other side. Then it was mounted again o the vents. Making a total of 6 holes in the vents, 2 completely plugged. It did not affect air flow through the vents in a detrimental way, but I’m still wary of pumping hot air through the top vents, should it bleed into the tablet space.

 

Underneath, a long 1/8” stereo audio cable was run under the radio and center console trim into the aux-in plug. For power, I fitted a compact single plug power inverter into the space behind the coin holder and plugged it into the 12v power from the coin holder. I had to use an inverter as the SGTOG does not take power from anything besides a Samsung branded charger. I found the car charger had a slow bleed to it which killed my battery twice. The power inverter did not do this bleed, but it does get warm.

For the current interface car dock home v3. The current app list includes Torque (car diagnostics and logging, along with a bluetooth obdii adapter) Google Play Music (duh), Pandora (duh) Google Maps Navigation , urbanspoon, youtube, stock web browser, and Beautiful Widgets.

 

It takes more effort to remove than a single DIN HU, but no more than 10 minutes in time. If it has battery, the screen turns on instantly and stays on for the duration of power to it. When there is no power to it, it goes into sleep mode turning off the screen. If there is no battery, it has a 30 second boot time. Full android marketplace is also available.

 

Progress coming up includes plastic fabrication from Papa’s Customs and perhaps a tablet replacement. I recommend use a 7” honeycomb or ICS tablet. The SGTOG is not friendly to ICS or HC and not the best in availability for custom roms.

 

 

I'm not great at these things.

 

Pics

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/WP_000010.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110417_201250.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110417_201244.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110417_004812.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110416_202215.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110415_234934.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110414_202459.jpg

 

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110414_212007.jpg

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Without a proper front-end, the tablet isn't well suited to a car. And considering the audio and USB jacks are on the edge, making these connections with the tablet in the dash would be tricky.

 

Using the car dock home, you can custom size any shortcut to an application. Applications wind up being hit or miss.

 

If anyone is looking to do this, consider the toshiba thrive 7. It's 2mm thinner giving a little breathing room and it's honeycomb based, meaning no ties to the softkeys.

 

When I get a little time, I think I might pick one up and get Tommy to fabricate some plastic to seal it all up nice and clean.

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It's not the size of the icons that matters, it's the inability to have multiple applications display information at the same time.

 

Unless I'm behind in my Android knowledge. Can you have the media controls and media info (track names, etc..) overlayed onto a navigation map? How about have navigation prompts come into focus when you're in a music app?

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