Wiring up lcd radio info panel to pc ?

CdRsKuLL · 05-03-2004, 03:45 AM

Lo peeps, in my car I have a lcd panel, one row about 8 char long I think, it was linked to the original headunit via a connector the also links the steering control. Anyone know if its possible to link these two to the PC. Just starting reasearching this. I have a sony HU in at the mo, and have a blackbox that links it for the sony. just need more info.

cheers

CdR

mpattonm · 05-03-2004, 04:03 AM

I have had a same idea. I could not find any single piece of information about communication protocol Laguna interface uses. I was not only playing with radio interface, but even directly with display module itself too, trying to figure out how it works. I was about to contact www.connects2.com, as they are manufacturing Sony interfaces to Renault stalker/display adapter units, but I gave up afterall.

Instead, I have decided to remove all the character display and build up an LCD housing there instead. Something similar to navi display in top class models. As I will not used HU at all, i will not miss it that much, hoping outside temperature could be eventually measured and displayed by carpc (so date and time), tire press is displayed on main panel too (if your model does not have graphical display in main panel, buy one in car-wreck shop, it works wonderfully right away, I have mine as new for 25 pounds).

As touchscreen would be useless considering where the screen will be located eventually, instead I would like to rip out old keyboard, remove its controller and hook up the stalker keys to lets say cursor key connectors, Enter, Esc and PgUp, PgDw keys so I could use original remote on steering wheel to interface my carpc.

What do you say?

CdRsKuLL · 05-03-2004, 08:16 AM

going to take the little lcd out, see if its got any info on the back of it

Noctris · 05-05-2004, 03:06 PM

Hey guys,

Welll, I am one of the "Lucky" Renault Laguna owners too ;-)

All By All it's a really nice car but the techno stuff that is in it gave me already several headaches before I even started to think about putting in a Carputer ;-)

What I would like to ask you , knowing that you must have some experience with this car as you own one AND have a car pc in it. Does one of you happen to have pictures of the install ? like where you have put the puter itself ? how you implemented the Touchscreen? Do you use GPS and if yes, how did you bypass the radiation blocking windshield which also blocks GPS signals ?

As far as the HUD LCD goes, well.. I've been looking around for that too and there seem to be kits for Sony. I found a company that sells them in the UK but honestly, I wouldn't trust them, looks like a sort of a i'll-scam-you-out-of-your-money-fast kinda site.

I'm not really looking in to it anymore because I don't really want to Pay a couple of hundred 100$ just for an extra radio so I decided to put an FM modulator ( the better kind doing Stereo transmission with a reasonable tone range) and am thinking about adding a nice litte RDS kit which would display information comming from winamp ( which is used by Media car) so my renault LCD display would display the song title and other information when I do some additional coding.

Currently however I am still in dev phase which means I have bought the Lilliput and FM transmitter and am hooking this up to my laptop for the first tests and basically until I have found a place to stash the puter I will end up using

mpattonm · 05-06-2004, 10:01 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Noctris

As far as the HUD LCD goes, well.. I've been looking around for that too and there seem to be kits for Sony. I found a company that sells them in the UK but honestly, I wouldn't trust them, looks like a sort of a i'll-scam-you-out-of-your-money-fast kinda site.

you might want to check the site I have mentioned. www.connects2.com. They have AUX adaptor for Lagunas "Tuner List" CD/FM tuner. Mostly, they are doing something-to-Sony adaptors so any good Sony dealer should be able to get the part you want.

mpattonm · 05-06-2004, 10:12 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by CdRsKuLL

going to take the little lcd out, see if its got any info on the back of it

Just wondering - did you sucseeded?

Noctris · 05-06-2004, 12:50 PM

Hmm.. like I said, for now I will try to use the fancy fm transmitter, later , if it works to my liking, adding the rds so I get more info on the lcd .. and people withing a 150m radius of my car ;-)

Noctris · 06-17-2004, 12:19 PM

Well.. After no good results with the FM transmitter (yeah yeah, you told me so

.. i decided to look for the connects2 solution. I finally , after some trouble finding a distributer,I bough a solution for the Laguna 2003 which works perfect, you simply plug it in and it can take any source in and will make this source act like a CD changer. Now the only thing I will be needing is something to clean up my input cause I still get a lot of Engine sound in the signal ( zooming which get's higher and faster whenever I push my gas pedal)

For the rest the Solution of Connects2 gives me THE solution for my issues without having to buy a new radio and all adapters. This for around € 60 and delivered within 48 hours ;-)

CdRsKuLL · 06-18-2004, 03:32 AM

have you tried a rca filter, there about $20 I would of thought, u just plug em inline with your current set up, 1 min job to fit. I needed one on mine when I was using the line in on my sony, but since I have changed to usb input I dont need it.

Cheers

Steve
CdRsKuLL

Noctris · 06-21-2004, 03:50 PM

I was figuring about one of those but I am getting confused, some people here talk about the grounding loop, other say an RCA filter should do the trick. I would first like to try and put a decent new cable cause currently my sound is running over a CAT5 utp cable ;-) ( yes, i know it is crap but it was the only thing I had @ hand on my install weekend and well, my car wasn't really ready to drive to a shop right then ;-) )

Now I am gonna try and rip the whole cabling out and replace it with decent cables, see what that gives me and then try one of those RCA filters. I am using an OPUS so I would guess they filter out a lot of crap from the Power level no ?

Anyway, thanks for the tip. As soon as the sun knows it's summer in belgium ( like most of us know for a month now already) and the rains goes, i'll be trying that ;-)

mutilator · 06-22-2004, 08:01 AM

my friends got a megane (i used to too..) his sony hu has a module that lets him use the stalks and the screen.. mabe it would be better to hack one of these modules up... (cheaper than replacing parts of car, and might be usefull then to anyone whos car is supported by the sony connectors....) just wondered anyways.

as for the stalks, you can get clarion conectors which connect to the stalk and have an IR output to the clarion hu... should be simple to get it into pc with IRMAN

tom.

JC-S60 · 06-22-2004, 08:31 AM

I hear you 'bout the rain Noctris

Will continue on my project(s) when the weather clears up over here too