04-11-2023, 05:11 AM
04-11-2023, 05:34 AM
I'm speechless, I think you have created one of the best project at this forum. Detailed description, a lot pictures, and DIY improvements. Congrats and thanks a lot for sharing. Keep doing and posting
(04-11-2023, 05:34 AM)Daniel_BlueWave Wrote: I'm speechless, I think you have created one of the best project at this forum. Detailed description, a lot pictures, and DIY improvements. Congrats and thanks a lot for sharing. Keep doing and posting Thank you! A lot more is coming, but we'll see how much time I'll have on my hands to do it quickly. The first phase might be limited to the pop-up screen, the extra USB ports in the cigarette lighter panel and the Raspberry Pi installed in the car, with the cables prepared in a way that I can extend the system later without having to disassemble everything again. This way adding the camera(s) and the remote can be done later. The remote is one of the harder things I'll have to do, the documents refer to the communication protocol as UART, but I'll have to do more research to understand what's going on there as standard methods didn't work. I'll try to document everything so it might help others, just as I found a lot of useful information here and on other forums as well.
To make sure the Raspberry Pi and all the other devices in the car can connect to the internet I decided to add a small WiFi router with 4G connectivity. As I had some discounts at my phone provider, I chose the Alcatel Link Zone MW45V. It can provide internet through the USB port and WiFi.
The plan was to connect the router to the RPi with the USB cable and everything else will use the WiFi. When the router was connected to the Raspberry Pi, OpenAuto Pro got stuck at the boot animation, when connecting it after booting, the system usually crashed in a few minutes. As it turned out there is a bug which causes a kernel panic when the router switches from mass storage device mode to modem mode. After some time I found that I'm not the only one who encountered this problem, others already found working solutions. I followed the thread below to solve this issue and now the Raspberry Pi can boot and work properly when the router is connected and the internet connectivity just works. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=234921 When the battery is installed in the router it doesn't automatically turn on when it gets power, just starts charging from the USB, so I decided to not use the battery, this way the router powers up as soon as it gets power, which is totally fine as I don't need it when everything else is powered off as well. (04-14-2023, 01:12 PM)GSPW Wrote: Nice touch, how do you power the entire setup BTW? Thanks! The Raspberry Pi will be powered by the CarPiHAT PRO. The HAT will be connected to the car's electrical system using fuse taps like these, I used this method before to power the dashcam in the car: The touchscreen, the remote and the phone will be connected to the Raspberry Pi. I realised that the four USB ports might not be enough if I want to extend the system later, so I decided to add a powered USB hub to the plans. That will have a separate 12V->5V 3A converter to ease the load on the CarPiHAT PRO power circuit and to lessen the cooling requirements as the RPi with the HAT will sit in the back of the navi unit where sun can heat the system up considerably. I have this step-down module set to 5.1V, I already added a little heatsink to make sure it can output 3A continuously if needed.
Today's little project was to finalise the screen setup to be able to start putting together the screen assembly.
Three things were needed for this:
04-15-2023, 09:20 AM
This thread should be pinned to the top of the section!
(04-15-2023, 09:20 AM)GSPW Wrote: This thread should be pinned to the top of the section! Thanks! After reaching a more or less working phase I'll try to organise the whole thing into a proper summary. Today I spent some time trying to fit the screen into the original frame, the work started earlier, but it's the first time when it starts to take shape. Even when it's rotated 180 degrees, the HDMI connector causes issues, as the screw that holds the frame in that corner interferes with the connector, it's too high and too close, so the screen couldn't fit with the HDMI cable connected. The cable is a 'DIY' HDMI cable, made up of these parts: Connector: Cable: The micro USB cable which powers the screen and connects the touch interface is a 90 degree one, Hoco long roam USB U37: The visible part of the new screen is the same size as the original one, but the outer dimensions are quite different when compared to the original screen. To preserve the original screen tilting functions I have to keep the original circuit and add the new screen with its own controller circuit below that. The new screen is taller, but not as wide and because of the touch layer and controller panel it's a little thicker as well. It has four protruding tabs where you can secure the screen with screws, the only problem is, they are at the wrong place for my plans. So the first thing I did was cutting off all the protruding bits from the new screen. Then I had to cut and shape the metal frame which used to hold the original screen, and shortened the plastic bit where the interfering screw was screwed in, shortened and filed the screw too to leave enough space for the HDMI cable. To position the screen inside the frame, so the visible part is at the right place, I cut strips of various felt stickers and added enough layers on top of each other to put the screen where I wanted it to be. Now the screen seems to be roughly at the right place, I 'just' need to figure out how to secure and fit everything else
Today I continued playing with the screen and the frame.
I filed the screw and the little metal plate under it some more to make sure the HDMI connector can fit in that corner: The clearance is still tight but should be good enough: How the connector looks through the cable hole on the side: Added the screen tilting motor assembly, it fits with the HDMI cable installed: I wanted to add something to hold the screen tight so I cut the right length from this: And shaped it a little to bridge the gap between the top screws in the frame: To make sure it's not flexing as much I bent it more along the length of it, then covered it with some tape, added felt stickers to the LCD panel under it and used the original screws to fix it to the frame, it seems to do a pretty decent job at holding the screen there, good enough for now to prove the concept: I will experiment with this a little more to see if I can fit the original circuit on top of that, and we'll see if I can use the big metal top cover to hold the bottom of the screen in place after cutting away material from the original metal parts. Hopefully the CarPiHAT PRO will arrive tomorrow so I can play with that as well in the next few days |
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