2001 Ranger XLT worklog

DarkStar02 · 02-08-2007, 09:48 PM

I'd like to start off by saying that I am a stereo-retard so I'm basically only doing the PC side stuff and the guys at the shop are doing/helping me with the rest. Anyway...

MY SILVER 2001 FORD RANGER XLT CARPUTER/MP3CAR
-if pictures dont work right click the x's and hit show picture-

2/7/2007 - My Lilliput 7" touchscreen (EBY-701) comes in from eBay. First thing I did was hook it up to test it's functionality. I had a little difficulty getting it to run at the right resolution as it was supposed to run 800x480 but I found it incapable of doing so, so it is currently set to 800x600.

2/8/2007
I went to Warehouse Car Stereo which is owned by my uncle and had some of the guys help me out. Really cool group of people, you should get your **** done there if you live near Stockton, CA. First thing I noticed on arrival is that Manuel had some skeet skeet on his back...

We got to work. I had Don help me take out my stereo and my console to start getting everything fitted.

Without my stock head unit and console taken out:

What I have to work with...

Figuring out how to best position it... It looks good just sitting on top but I think I want to have it be flush with the dash.

I had them take the screen apart for me to see how we big it would be if we took of the plastic around the edges, etc.

It didn't really help so we put it back together and then they had **** to do so I'll go back tomorrow and hopefully do some more work on it.

Stay tuned

justin146 · 02-08-2007, 10:14 PM

I plan to use that same screen mounted behind the bezel on my Explorer. I am setting it back a little to control glare. I am going to trim the bezel so the screen is set back about a half an inch.

DarkStar02 · 02-08-2007, 10:17 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by justin146

I plan to use that same screen mounted behind the bezel on my Explorer. I am setting it back a little to control glare. I am going to trim the bezel so the screen is set back about a half an inch.

I was hoping I'd get to throw this in the 2004 explorer xlt I learned to drive in (Just got my license a few weeks ago

), but I'm stickin' with the ranger for now. It will look good in the explorer. good luck.

DarkStar02 · 02-09-2007, 09:50 PM

2/9/2007
Got the p1900 regulator in today. I hooked it up to a battery in the shop and started testing it. I had to set all the jumpers (to hibernate on shutdown, 13 minutes instead of 6 seconds, etc.), and start wiring stuff. I had Manual help me strip half of the green and black jumper wire and solder the points in to the power button on the laptop (2 solder points next to the button were used) upon ignition for the startup/shutdown controller. Almost everything seems to be working, but we can't make the laptop stay on. When you touch the ignition wire to the battery it powers the laptop on for a few seconds and then it turns off. I'm assuming it's because it holds the ground on there which makes it short and is emulating the power button being pressed and starting it and then because the ground is never let off it shuts it back down again. We're still working on that. Opinions, options, help? haha.

soldered:

by touching ignition it boots for a few seconds

It didn't work so we tried it like this. I'm going to have to find a way to make the regulator short the wires so it turns on. (You can touch the green and black wire directly on the laptop to make it start

edit: in case you were wondering about the wires, we cut the green wire with the jumpers and made it longer.

DarkStar02 · 02-15-2007, 12:52 AM

Mods can you please move this to the worklog section?

2/13/2007
I'm still having problems getting the wiring to work, I don't think it's going to. The ACPI wire is pulsing for (~1.5) seconds which is too long. I need it to be about (~.5) seconds. So I've been loading music and videos and whatnot until I get it running.

MP3:

EQ:

2/14/2007
I talked to a tech at carnetix. I'm going to have to order a PIC-PG1 programmer to edit the firmware from pulsing from 1.5 seconds to .5 seconds. This will take a while before it comes in, so I'm going to keep working but just put in a switch for power for now. I filled my HDD completely with music today (12gb), so I'm going to have to filter through some of it and take out the stuff I don't want that's taking up a lot of space.

stangg172006 · 02-15-2007, 02:28 PM

pics dont work, good work so far...

DarkStar02 · 02-15-2007, 11:36 PM

None of the pics work or just the newly added ones??

2/15/2007
I ruined the Windows install but I think it might be fixable. I finished transfering the 12gb of music that I wanted then started to install some hacked up Windows XP Embedded components (minlogon and EWP) but I messed up transfering the minlogon after running the registry script so now I can't log into windows (including safe mode). When I restarted it logs in then logs out before getting actually into the windows explorer shell. I need to undo this, but I can't get into safemode or anything. I put in the CD and booted into Windows repair mode (which is a command prompt menu). I want to copy over the minlogon.exe from a USB HDD to C:\WINDOWS\system32 but I'm not sure how to do it. I tried using

C:\WINDOWS\>COPY D:\Ryan Transfer\EWP\minlogon.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32

but it says invalid parameters. I believe it's saying that because of the space in between Ryan and Transfer but I'm not positive.
After I get minlogon.exe transfered to C:\WINDOWS\system32 I plan on using the command

C:\WINDOWS\>cd system32
C:\WINDOWS\>del winlogon.bak.exe
C:\WINDOWS\>ren winlogon.exe winlogon.bak.exe
C:\WINDOWS\>ren minlogon.exe winlogon.exe

That should take care of my problem and allow me to get back into windows without losing all of my stuff.

DarkStar02 · 02-17-2007, 12:12 AM

2/16/2007
I fixed my Windows by copying the WINLOGO_.EXE_ from the CD to my C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder. I then took took an adapter we had at the shop to hook up the stock radio's power and speakers to a little mini-amp we had laying around until I get my new stuff. Guess what... My family knows the Boston Acoustics rep for the Stockton, Modesto, Lodi, Turlockish area and they are looking for a new show car. They are going to port a couple SPG 555's from my truckbed into my back seats and cut my 5x7's out and put some 6x9's in with a couple 1000 watt TMA amps and having me go represent them at audio competitions around here!

Anyway, pics:

DarkStar02 · 02-18-2007, 03:01 PM

2/17/2007
Installed a ground loop isolator to eliminate noise and mounted the screen in my dash with double stick tape (not visible) until I can have one of the guys shave it down for me. Talked to the rep from Boston Acoustics and he told me he's just waiting for the orders to come in and he can start on my truck.

justin146 · 02-25-2007, 02:11 PM

Any updates?

DarkStar02 · 03-10-2007, 08:17 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by justin146

Any updates?

Thanks for the interest but I think I took it out of my truck. I can't deal with the boot times and when I can get a true Kenwood touchscreen headunit with bluetooth, the new ipod video control, navigation, satellite radio, etc. all for the employee price (50% off retail), I can't justify investing any more time into this project.

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