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Old 01-05-2009, 08:18 PM   #31
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Sorry, the saga about the monitor continued on this thread http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/lcd-...ng-soon-4.html.

The upshot of it is that my monitor is dead and Xenarc reckon it'll probably cost USD $140 + USD $70 freight to repair and I guess, It'll cost AUD $100 to send it over to them and the good news is that the AUD has depreciated by 30% against the greenback so it'll probably cost AUD $360 to get repaired.

One good bit of news is that RAIDGEAR's 6" extension cable for the monitor arrived yesterday abut 3 months after I ordered it after I escalated things through eBay and Paypal.

Also, Opus got me the programming header from the US in about 4 days after I chased this up with them which I thought was amazing and I have reprogrammed the power supply.

I just have to decide what to do from here. Buy a monitor locally which will be dimmer and lesser quality and rework my power supply installation from the back of the car to the front (the Xenarc has a separate power/controller box and an interconnect cable), or get the thing repaired.

So in the meantime, I bought an Alpine iPod compatible headunit so I could listen to some music for now. Long term, I'll put it in an overhead console when I work out how to share it with the muic on the car. This is a good option becasue in remote areas down under there is only AM reception at best and if it rains, I will be able to hear road reports about which roads are cut. I could be a few hundred miles from a bitumen road at times.

So anyway I have been taking out my frustrations on other car projects with an angle grinder and a welder instead of the PC until the coffers fill again after the Christmas break.

I will get this fixed again!
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Old 01-29-2009, 02:45 AM   #32
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Good news, it was the input box that failed so the repair is covered under warranty so it has only cost me the return freight to Xenarc as they are covering the cost of return freight to Australia. I have posted more details in the thread linked to in my previous post.

It will be good to be up and running again....
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2007 Toyota Hilux with a CarPC..

Worklog: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/work...ota-hilux.html
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Old 01-30-2009, 10:14 AM   #33
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Glad to hear your LCD fix was cheaper than expected. You've put a lot of time, money and effort into your system. I can only imagine how proud you'll be once it's all done and working

I'm so glad you mentioned the "ears" for the headunit because I have an 07 Camry and I bought a double-din fascia from Toyota. The problem is the fascia is wider than double-din because it caters for the previous Camry's headunit which was wider than double-din. Once I fit my 7" LCD in there, I'll have the side gaps, so if I get those "ears", it'll all be sweet. I hope they have the right colour though - my fascia is silver.

So, you've got your fridge, shower, air compressor, car PC in your Hilux ... might as well put in a stove, oven, microwave, waterbed and hydraulics while you're at it, ye?
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Old 01-30-2009, 03:30 PM   #34
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Thanks mate, not sure if the ears come in silver or not but even so with a black fascia around the LCD they would not look out of place anyway. When I bought my headunit 9as a temporary fix, I got another set of "ears" with the DIN pocket kit.

Quote: Originally Posted by MeeM View Post
So, you've got your fridge, shower, air compressor, car PC in your Hilux ... might as well put in a stove, oven, microwave, waterbed and hydraulics while you're at it, ye?

Yeh well got the gas stove in the back, the microwave, believe it or not you can get a 12 volt one


http://www.waeco.com.au/products3.as...&subCatId2=87#
but I think they draw about 65 amps ouch!

As for the waterbed, that's a good idea, had not thought of that, would beat the hell out of an airbed!
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Old 01-30-2009, 04:46 PM   #35
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I'm told the waterbed kits come with a set of extra-heavy-duty springs, too . . .
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Old 02-05-2009, 06:49 PM   #36
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Quote: Originally Posted by rodweb View Post
believe it or not you can get a 12 volt one


http://www.waeco.com.au/products3.as...&subCatId2=87#

I didn't even know they made those! I have a baby that screams for a bottle in the middle of the night every time we are camping we joke about having a 12v microwave lol I should have googled it lol

How is the Lux going rodweb we went up to kenilworth state forest on Australia day long weekend it was great,

I have been looking at Eee PC for my cruiser they have a ssd and should be powerfull enough for what I want it for, I may have to call for your assistance when trying to intigrate OziExplorer into roadrunner.\

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Old 02-11-2009, 06:47 AM   #37
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Sorry Lance, I missed your reply. Life has been hectic here. You might need an extra (ie. third) battery to run it, although I suppose heating a bottle up would only be a short burst!

Anyway, now I got my monitor back from the US after it as repaired, I decided to rethink the mounting of it in the car. Yesterday, I purchased a new Dash Fascia from a wrecker on the way home so I could muck about with the mounting without driving a car whose interior looked like it had been wrecked.



I removed the aluminium plate from the face of the Xenarc monitor and hacked the buttons off the case of the screen and added the 6" extended ribbon cable from RaidGear on eBay.



Cutting off the buttons did not remove any of the screw holes that holds the case or anything together. There is a handy line on the inside of the case to guide you part of the way and then it was simply a matter of being guided by the uprights that hold the buttons in position that follow the same line.

The touch screen sits recessed into the front cover and while 2/3 of it is now gone from the bottom side, the glass cannot fall out as it is such a tight fit and it is held on one side still.

The idea is to end up with something that looks like this:



There will not be too much that needs to be filled in to make this look neat, so hopefully I will get away with a neat finish. The light sensor will be hidden behind the dash unless I can make a window for it. I found that this did not work well as the monitor flickered a lot if the dash was passing in and out of shadow,so I hd always kept the auto brightness turned off.

I am planning on using something like Dynatron, but probably a 3M product as I can get their stuff easilly and I can't find Dynatron down under. I will probably end up gluing everything straight onto the fascia so I have a one piece item. I also will probably mould in a CB Radio microphone mount into the fascia as well while I am at it. I will see how I go.

Anyway, it has been a long time since I have done much, so hopefully, this will be the last time I need to do this!
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Old 02-13-2009, 07:00 AM   #38
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Well I got a bit of progress on this. I took the bits to a Plastic welder and he said that the dash was polypropylene and in 25 years, he had yet to find something to stick to it and sure enough he could not weld the ABS plastic of the case to the dash fascia.

So anyway, this meant that I would have to mount the monitor into tthe dash like a head unit. I struggled to come up with an idea to make sure everything was in the right position as the Toyota radio is wider than a DIN unit, but the rear where the mounts are are DIN sized.



Anyway driving home from work yesterday, I had a brain wave. I mounted the stock radio back in the fascia and it fitted in nice and snug. I then put a steel ruler up against the back of the head unit and marked the fascia as this is where the mounts are located. Then I positioned the monitor case where I wanted it and transferred these marks onto the monitor case. This was where the side wings needed to go.

I rounded up a couple of side wings from a plastic LCD mounting fascia I never used and visited my plastic welding shop again this morning and he did this:







One side was really easy as the mount needed to be hard up against the edge of the back side of the case, so we just held it together square on the bench and welded it up. Then we used the head unit as a guide to get the width right and welded the other side on. It was a bit more fiddly because of the shape of the case and we decided to simply weld in in some filler pieces rather than cut notches in the side wing I had.

Anway I tried the thing for fit and it lined up quite nicely, but I had to cut a fair bit more off the bottom to get it to fit.



Here is the dash where it had to fit into:



I had a bit of a problem in the bottom left corner and I trimmed a bit of the circuit board. Also there was a case mounting screw too close to the bottom edge which got in the way so I could not trim enough of the bottom of the case. I ended up grinding a fair bit out of the brace above the HVAC controls. Probably should have just cut the whole thing out.

Anway, Here it is all sitting in position:



I was pretty worried about how I would secure this to the radio mounts but there seems to be enough room to get into it frrom the outside to get some screws or bolts.

Anyway, there is a bit more work to do to fill the sides in and get clearance around the buttons, but I think it will work out quite nicely. It will be much better than the steel DIN LCD mount I got from Bybyte once this is done.
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Worklog: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/work...ota-hilux.html
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Old 02-13-2009, 09:04 AM   #39
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Nice work. This reminds me of my system. Once I have the PC in the dash, I'll hopefully be able to have the Lilliput in its original casing in front of the PC just sitting there. All I'll have to do is put the fascia back into place, and it *should* hold it together. As it is, there are two metal edges which stick out from the double-DIN casing of the car PC, so if the LCD decides to move, the metal edges will restrict such movement ... hopefully ...

Great to see you're progressing well
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Old 02-13-2009, 03:02 PM   #40
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Thanks for the encouragement, Looks like yours is well and truly off the ground MeeM. I realised that I did not post a pic of the assembled unit with everything put back together. Here it is.

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Old 02-13-2009, 07:42 PM   #41
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I was thinking of doing a similar thing to my Lilliput so I could cover up the side gaps that will be visible once I've put the fascia on. I remember you mentioned something about double-DIN "ears" that you purchased form Strathfield to fill the side gaps. I went to Strathfield in Slacks Creek and, initially, they hadn't the foggiest idea of what I was talking about :S After a while, they kinda caught on, but they insisted that if I installed anything double-DIN, there will be no gaps. So I left in frustration and I'll probably visit JB Hifi, Autobarn and Northfield to see if they have anything like it. Failing that, it's a trip to your plastic welder to see what he can make for me

That LCD and framing will look like pretty much stock once it's mounted. If only we could use buttons which looked like Toyota headunit buttons ...
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Old 02-13-2009, 08:50 PM   #42
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MeeM

I think the bits I got were some spares lying around in the fitting bay. The first ones he bought out were not a colour matched pair...

I recently bought a Hilux DIN pocket from JB HiFi at Macgregor when I picked up an Alpine Head unit to use as a temporary measure while my PC was out of action and had to go round to the fitting bay to pick it up. It included the ears. They will go into my Wife's 2008 Corolla, but you could have my old ears. Also try Northfield, as at Moorooka they had a big bag of the ears. Toyota could not sell them to me even though they are listed on their parts diagram. Go figure!

I also stopped at Harts Auto Paints in Moss Street this morning and picked up some K&N plastic filler and some paint. I think I will be able to glue/weld on on another bit on the side tomorrow (got a wedding today).
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2007 Toyota Hilux with a CarPC..

Worklog: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/work...ota-hilux.html
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Old 02-15-2009, 07:01 AM   #43
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Well I go this into my car today. Here are some pics.

Before mounting the display. I welded another strip of plastic on the other side from the buttons to fill the gap. I then filled the gaps with some bumper filler, under coated it and then sprayed with some black satin bumper paint.



Side views with the Toyota radio mounts in place.





The final product.



Not perfect. I should have added a second coat of filler, but I was out of time and I need this in the car for next weekend's 3,000 km return trip to a wedding.

I also removed the laptop power brick, reprogrammed the Opus to output 19 volts to suit my laptop and relocated the CB microphone. The Xenarc can handle 12-24 volts and their tech support recommended that it would be better to use 19 volts regulated power instead of 12 volt unregulated power. Because I had to grind off a bit of the fascia to get clearance for the buttons so I figured I might as well just screw the CB Micrphone mount onto the dash as I have got a spare fascia to put back on if I ever sell this rig.
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Old 03-15-2009, 02:32 AM   #44
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Decided to do something about auto selecting the reversing camera input because Xenarc Support advised me that the auto select feature is not included in this model.

Drawing some inspiration from this thread http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/hard...ort-carpc.html I purchased an Arduino controller from http://www.littlebirdelectronics.com/ who distribute them in Australia. This is what one looks like:

See http://www.arduino.cc for more details.

These gadgets are a mini PC designed to talk to the outside world and have lots of inputs and outputs. They are programmed in C and the development environment is open source and a free download. You can see there is a spot for external power and a USB port which is used to download programs to it and to communicate between a PC using the USB as a serial port.

They are an awesome device and I was able to add an external temp sensor using a cheap LM35 IC that worked with Road Runner quite easilly.

Anyway, I need to get the brain to press the monitor buttons to select between the VGA input and the Reversing camera input (eg press input select, Down Arrow, enter key). I will be using four little HFS2 solid state relays to do this.

This picture shows my development circuit:



You can see the relays are connected via pin 1 to the output ports on the Arduino via a 220 ohm resistor. Pin 2 goes to ground. Pins 4 & 5 are used to switch the monitors and for testing, I have added an LED to simulate each button on the Xenarc. So from the top down they are input select, enter, up arrow, down arrow. The little momentary press switch simulates the reversing switch.

You can see the LED do light up:



So to sense 12 volt voltages and to trigger 12 volt circuits I will use some bigger 12 relays that can handle 2 amps:



There are two kinds here, one lot has a 5 volt input for outputs Ieg turning things on in the car and the other kind has 12 volt on the input side which I will use to switch 5 volts to the input pins on the Arduino itself.

And finally here is some working code:

Code:
#include <SoftwareSerial.h> /* Debounce * * Each time the input pin goes from LOW to HIGH (e.g. because of a push-button * press), the output pin is toggled from LOW to HIGH or HIGH to LOW. There's * a minimum delay between toggles to debounce the circuit (i.e. to ignore * noise). * * David A. Mellis * 21 November 2006 * * http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Debounce */ #define DELAY 5 #define ONTIME 1000 #define OFFTIME 500 void VideoOn(void); void VideoOff(void); int inPin = 7; // the number of the input pin int outPin = 13; int ledPin1 = 12; // LED connected to digital pin 13 int ledPin2 = 11; // LED connected to digital pin 13 int ledPin3 = 10; // LED connected to digital pin 13 int ledPin4 = 9; // LED connected to digital pin 13 int switchPin = 8; int state = LOW; // the current state of the output pin, invert this and next entry to change initial state int previous = HIGH; // the previous reading from the input pin int reading; // the current reading from the input pin // the follow variables are long's because the time, measured in miliseconds, // will quickly become a bigger number than can be stored in an int. long time = 0; // the last time the output pin was toggled long debounce = 200; // the debounce time, increase if the output flickers void setup() { pinMode(inPin, INPUT); pinMode(outPin, OUTPUT); pinMode(ledPin1, OUTPUT); pinMode(ledPin2, OUTPUT); pinMode(ledPin3, OUTPUT); pinMode(ledPin4, OUTPUT); Serial.begin(9600); } void loop() { static int firstloop = 1; reading = digitalRead(inPin); // if we just pressed the button (i.e. the input went from LOW to HIGH), // and we've waited long enough since the last press to ignore any noise... if (reading == HIGH && previous == LOW && millis() - time > debounce) { // ... invert the output if (state == HIGH) state = LOW; else state = HIGH; // Action the state if(state == HIGH) VideoOn(); else VideoOff(); // ... and remember when the last button press was time = millis(); } digitalWrite(outPin, state); previous = reading; } void VideoOn(void) { Serial.println("Video On"); digitalWrite(ledPin1, HIGH); delay(ONTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW); delay(OFFTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin4, HIGH); delay(ONTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin4, LOW); delay(OFFTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin2, HIGH); delay(ONTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin2, LOW); } void VideoOff(void) { Serial.println("Video Off"); digitalWrite(ledPin1, HIGH); delay(ONTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW); delay(OFFTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin3, HIGH); delay(ONTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin3, LOW); digitalWrite(ledPin2, HIGH); delay(ONTIME); digitalWrite(ledPin2, LOW); }

So the next step is to get this all working in the car
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Old 04-07-2009, 12:33 PM   #45
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Toyota Hilux's are great! I had an old Toyota pickup with the 22r gas engine I put over 350k miles on befor selling. I still see the thing running around town every so often. Did you ever catch the TG episodes where they were trying kill one?
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