I pulled the trigger on my home built NAV Radio this weekend:

[thxultra]

Nice setup, do you have to go through windows startup though and shutdown every time you drive? Think my lack of patience would be a problem if I had to wait for it to start up and shut down. Looks really slick though and flac support is a big bonus

[rray]

The carpc boots and is playing music where it left off faster than the My link can do the same thing, thanks to the i7 and ssd.

This morning I started getting glitches on my speedo an tach, flat tire warnings, and general mayhem. I suspect the metra heater control module. Troubleshooting after work.

-Robert

[stt816]

nice songs/artists love sound remedy & adventure club

[Padre]

Very impressive. My carputer is mainly for tuning and very amateur. Wish I had your mad skillz!

Padre

[rray]

I got a reply back from Metra based off the glitched I experienced, they suspect the heater control buttons part, and not the onstar/steering wheel box, and gave me a list of items to verify and reply after work tonight.

Let's hope it's easy as just a flash of the heater controller with different firmware and recover. They also suspect the pink wire between the 44 pin connector and the heater controller as loose. Those guys respond fast!

[rray]

Originally Posted by stt816

nice songs/artists love sound remedy & adventure club

Yesterday on the way home I was streaming Adventure Club from https://soundcloud.com/dubstep in 320Kbit with only 2 dropout/stalls between San Jose and Fremont using my phone's 4G hotspot (Cyanogenmod on a Samsung GS3). I was actually pretty surprised at the connection stability.

Very impressive. My carputer is mainly for tuning and very amateur. Wish I had your mad skillz!

Padre

Don't sell yourself short, I did absolutely NOTHING fancy, I used a Metra kit, and all off the shelf PC stuff to slapp this thing together. Anyone can do it, it's just a matter of getting familiar with all the car pc hardware that's available like cases, power supplies, and USB devices. Only 1 software program to learn, the front end software, which in my case is Driveline.

[rray]

Update on the Metra glitch, after force flashing the Metra boxes, I installed them last night and they worked fine then. On the way to work the DIC screen glitches again, and the Speedo and Tach glitches, then recovered for the rest of the drive.

The carpc played fine the whole time, so I will replace the Metra buttons and LCD parts tonight. I have a version 1.1 firmware heater controls buttons from an older Metra kit where only the green color of the RGB screen led works.

-Robert

[chris7488]

I'll buy your old my link how much??

[45thCamaro]

Originally Posted by chris7488

I'll buy your old my link how much??

He said he's not selling it.

[Eich]

Nice work. Very cool setup. I like everything except for the need to use the Metra kit. That kit is notorious for LEDs going out in the display. Metra support is quick to respond but the only response they give for LED display going out is to flash the firmware (which isn't the problem) or replace the entire kit (which is generally out of warranty when the LED display goes dark).

Would be nice if there was a way to make your car PC handle all the HVAC controls and then have a custom dash kit made that looks better than Metra.

[rray]

Yes, that's exactly the response I got from Metra. First I flashed both parts, and then when I asked if the sell replacement parts they said No, buy a new kit. I already have 2 bad kits now. Both out of warrantee.

-Robert

[Bildo]

I would love to have the info on how to tap into the OEM backup camera, getting ready to install a Kenwood DNX890HD and would love to display the camera on the mirror and the head unit.

[rray]

I'm sure it's easy enough once you find out which pins the video + and - go to. There are guys on this forum who had their mirror monitor relocated to their aftermarket head unit, so you just have to find out which connector and pin numbers, then leave them wired and tee in.

[rray]

Today I worked on getting the door speakers off the stock wires through the doors. I had detected some kind of quiet buzz from the tweeters when everything is off, and suspect the factory wiring is picking up noise from the factory amp. Currently the door speakers were tapped in to the a factory amp speaker out.

So goal is to first find a way to drill the door and door jamb for wires, and go with solder connections on the speakers instead of theose spade lugs that tend to vibrate and make poor connections over time.

I found a place to drill for door speaker wire passthrough. The wires don't get pinched, but I had to drill through 2 layers of metal, and could only get 1 grommet on:


I had to wrap electrical tape around 6 inches of the wire on the door jam side of the wire, then fish it through. It wedged inside the grommet pretty tight, and the tape is thick where the wire contacts the inner metal panel, about 1/4 inch back. The exit side is smooth, but I am going to find a bigger grommet for the oval pass through. I could also seal the holes with RTV, but I want to wait a year and see how robust the flexing of this wire is over time, and replace it if necessary.