2003 Saab 9-3: The SS Box (I know, name under construction) - Page 2

Viscouse · 09-07-2005, 08:23 PM

Since I can't easily find threads I need to refer to, this post will be bookmarks.

Boot Screen Gallery

Viscouse · 09-13-2005, 10:14 AM

Well, things are moving slow. Ordered my Opus 120W from mp3car.com (my little gesture of support for this great site!), so next post will be about that. For now, I removed my CD player in prep for the monitor, which I probably won't have for another 2 months. Here is a thread on Saabcentral.com about it. No sense duplicating it here.

I've also been procrastinating doing the wiring. I think once the Opus is in the box I'll feel better about final placement of the box (under pass seat or trunk, or other).

I also need to find a long serial cable somewhere to run the GPS signal from the trunk to the interior, hidden of course. I hope my jammed runnerboards can cope with a thick serial cable.

I made a crude wiring sketch.

I also made a name for it: The Advanced Driver Interface, or ADrI for short (pronounced ad-ree).
That's cause I needed soemthing for my bootscreen.

Viscouse · 09-23-2005, 07:33 AM

I'm so happy today, another win for the Success camp!

Somehow I looked back on it & I worked on it from 5pm to 11pm, so that kinda sucked, but I did other stuff in there (pee, ate dinner, fed the dog, etc).

My goal was to hook up the Opus 120 & get it powered with the ATX power supply I've been using. So I can just pull it out of the car, and plug it up inside the house to work on it without pulling cables out of the mobo & reconfiguing bios settings, etc. So here's what I did in case anyone wants to replicate it. I'll try to explain it without pictures, but if anyone want pics, let me know.

The Opus comes with a 20-pin ATX output (that mates with the mobo), and a 6-pin input. The 6 wires are:
a. vehicle unswitched (always on) 12V+, yellow
b. vehicle unswitched (always on) 12V+, yellow
c. vehicle switched (ignition switched) 12V+, red
d. vehicle ground, black
e. vehicle ground, black
f. Remote turn on, blue (unused for me right now)

You can find info regarding how the ignition wire works here.

So, I got a 4-pin molex connector (a+b) are to be shorted together, as well as (d+e) per Opus. See this thread. This leaves 4 circuits. I put this 4-pin connector at the end of the supplied 6-wire harness. This makes up Cable 1: Universal Pigtail.
6-pin -> 4 pin

Now I wanted a cable that will connect to the ATX power source, and then to the new 4-pin connector. So I got a 20-pin connector (the kind on the mobo, Molex P/N 39-01-2201 , & pins P/N 39-00-0082), and a mating 4-pin. 20-pin wired thusly:
Pin 14 & 15 simply shorted together. This shorts the green & black wires together to enable the ATX PSU to power up without having to be connected to the mobo.
Pin 3: Or any other black wire actually, that's ground, and mates with (d+e).
Pin 10: 12V+, and mates with (a+b).
Now, about the ignition wire. You have to make a switch to make the Opus think a circuit was completed between IGN & 12V+. So what I did was mate (c) with (a+b), putting a pause-style switch (or any computer power-on switch) in the middle. This make Cable 2: ATX Adapter

Hot damn it worked. Some of the things that helped that made this take forever was figuiring out the ignition wire behaviour (simple once I figuired it out. Sometime I'm such a dumbass), and correct polarity of the on/off switch cable that goes from Opus to mobo. Also the LED blinks on the PSU helped a lot too. I could tell when it was in standby (getting proper power but not "turned on") not getting enough juice (I switched the jumper to the lowest voltage), and wired wrong (on/off polarity backward). Without those it would have taken much, much longer.

So now, the hardware portion's pretty much done. I have a box I can remove from the car by unplugging things, and bring inside & hookup. Now I have to run power cables in the car (terminating in a matching 4-pin connector), finalize location, and wait for the scratch to pickup the LCD. I have to neaten things up, and may have to flip the opus around, but hot damn, it works!!!

EDIT: One more thing. Something I was always a little unlear & concerned about is whether or not the PSU would turn off USB devices. It does.

Viscouse · 09-23-2005, 08:56 AM

I decided how I'm going to power the Zenarc. I'm going to run 3 wires from the Opus (using the 12V 4-pin connectors & the Opus remote turnon) and run them to the monitor. Have to run signal cables as well, so I might as well do it all at once.

Viscouse · 10-18-2005, 10:19 AM

Just thought I'd put a quick update in. I little bit of progress.
I thought I'd try to finalize installation due to my success last time. How's that saying go? One step forward, 2 steps back?
The original plan was to fit the box under the pasenger seat. After an extensive Fit Trial, it failed. There are a couple of positions that the seat goes in where the motor pack collides with the box, and compresses it. I don't want to squash the box.

So into the trunk. I did an informal trial where I kep it in the trunk, running by itself for 1.5 hrs, anfd the temp didn't go up appreciably. So even thought he air is in a closed system, it doesn't continually heat itself without getting cooled by the outside. I realize the test might be biased since it was 50 degrees outside, but I need to get this installed, and that's my best prospect right now. So now I'm in the process of carving out my tool caddy to fit the box.

I also got some more infor about the serial GPS unit & the XM install. I almost drove off in order to test the GPS, and realized I was tethered to the house byt he damn extension cord. Whoops. That motivated me to get power intot he car, so I ran my power wires from the battery to the trunk. I didn't connect them yet, but that should be an easy matter.

In summary, lots of little peices came, but nothing complete yet. My goal is have this finished & operational (without an extension cord tethered to the house) by 12/31/05. Let's see if I can beat that.

Kiriller · 10-18-2005, 03:02 PM

looks good so far

and i love ur car

my dad had the saab too very nice car

Viscouse · 10-31-2005, 01:58 PM

Thanks Kiriller!

Another good day. I finally finished carving out the tool caddy just the way I like, so the box fits nicely in there, and there's room to open the case, as well as room for the cables sticking out the back. I also ran the power wires. I connected 14ga to battery + & -, & put an fuse inline to the + terminal, ran the wire through the rubber steering wheel boot (I hated doing it but couldn't find any other place) into the cabin. From there, I stuffed it under the door sills all the way to the trunk, under the carpet & into the spare tire well (STW). Power coming from the battery was 12.25V (car off) & 14.71V (car running).

For Switched power, I tapped a fuse. Also something I don't like doing, but it made too much sense not to. I have a nice fuse panel in the trunk, and I used a fuse tap to get power from fuse #17 (Autodimming mirror & Tire Pressure Monitors & Rain Sensor, the latter 2 which I don't have), which has a 7.5A fuse. It was 12V coming from the outboard rail (closest to the rear of the car). That means I put the tap on the blade closest to the nose of the car, that way the circuit is protected by the fuse. I ran that wire to the STW. Remember strain relief!

To make connections easy, I put a 4-pin connector on the 6-wire Opus harness (see post #18). So the 3 wires I have now from the car (hot, grnd, ign) went into the mating 4-pin connector. Plugged it in, and we're good to go. Well, I couldn't stop now. I hooked up the monitor & keyboard/mouse.
Fired it up, and damn if it didn't work. Just like it's supposed to. It was freakin sweet.

Technically, the move went well, and by definition, I now have a carpc up & running. Mind you, I still have to use my 50lb CRT, and the keyboard is only accesable in the back seat, but it works. I just gotta clean it up a tad.

I also looked at how I'm going to run the rest of the wires. Since all the remaining wires have to do with the center stack (aux-in, XM, Monitor) I'll probably run them straight from the trunk, under the rear passenger seat, go under the carpet about 1 foot & into the back end of the center console. From there it's pretty easy to route wires anywhere in the center stack, using instructions from Etadyne website. I want to order cables, but don't know what comes with the monitor yet. DAMN I need some dough for a monitor.

There's a lot of wires:
VGA
USB
Audio in
Audio out
XM Control
Keyboard
Mouse

They're all gonna end up spread along the middle hump of the floor.

And I'm STILL not done with my skin. Getting closer though.

Viscouse · 11-02-2005, 10:15 AM

I found a great thread about fooling the computer into thinking there's a keyboard attached here .

I'm going to make a shunt so it's quicker for troubleshooting.

I was pretty much all set on purchasing my touchscreen monitor, but both of the ones I was looking at got taken down by the mp3car.com store.

SO I don't know what to do now. Get it anyway from another vendor? Was there serious quality/durability issues so I shouldn't get it? If not what else is there? I have to do my research all over again. Damnit.

matt11601 · 11-02-2005, 10:38 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Viscouse

I found a great thread about fooling the computer into thinking there's a keyboard attached here .

I'm going to make a shunt so it's quicker for troubleshooting.

I was pretty much all set on purchasing my touchscreen monitor, but both of the ones I was looking at got taken down by the mp3car.com store.

SO I don't know what to do now. Get it anyway from another vendor? Was there serious quality/durability issues so I shouldn't get it? If not what else is there? I have to do my research all over again. Damnit.

Which ones were you looking at it?

Viscouse · 11-02-2005, 12:18 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by matt11601

Which ones were you looking at it?

I was looking at the only 2 that were sold here that fit in a DIN slot & folded outward. The Xenarc 700IDT & the MTSVO-SC.
Read about my frustrations here.

IntellaWorks · 11-02-2005, 01:18 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Viscouse

I found a great thread about fooling the computer into thinking there's a keyboard attached here .

I'm going to make a shunt so it's quicker for troubleshooting.

I was pretty much all set on purchasing my touchscreen monitor, but both of the ones I was looking at got taken down by the mp3car.com store.

SO I don't know what to do now. Get it anyway from another vendor? Was there serious quality/durability issues so I shouldn't get it? If not what else is there? I have to do my research all over again. Damnit.

You know in BIOS you can change the Halt on [No errors] that way it doesn't complain about a KBB right ?

Viscouse · 11-02-2005, 01:33 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by IntellaWorks

You know in BIOS you can change the Halt on [No errors] that way it doesn't complain about a KBB right ?

Yeah, but I like the harware aspect of it, as I feel I'll be doing a lot of plugging & unplugging. Just seems easier than messing in the bios. Who knows, I may change my mind. But this is something I can work on in the midst of my TS angst.

Viscouse · 11-04-2005, 12:22 PM

Whohoo! I ordered my cables. I hope my monitor will support the cables I chose. We'll see. I got a pretty good deal (I thought) from http://www.thenerds.net/index.php. I couldn't find a nice way to browse, but if you do creative searches you will find LOADS of cables.
At least I can run my cables & have that done when the monitor comes.

bagwellfive · 11-04-2005, 12:43 PM

nice monitor - a little bondo and sanding and you should be able to get dash integration

Viscouse · 11-08-2005, 12:27 PM

No bondo thanks. But wait till you see what I have in store for the monitor.

Whoohoo! The cables are run (mostly). I got some of the cables & ran them from the trunk to the center console, just to see if I could. Finally, I caught a break with this car. It was (relatively) easy.
Step 1: remove rear seat cushion.
Step 2: I started in the trunk & fed the wires through to the cabin, under the back seat. There is a little foam that you have to go under, and it's easier if you happen to have 5' long arms, but oh well. Man up & crawl int he trunk & feed it through. It helps if you lift the load floor with your head.
Step 3: In the cabin, find the wires & pull em through It may help to tie the trunk-side ends in a loose knot just so you don't pull them through & have to start over.
Step 4: Remove the cover ata the back of the armrest. The top tilts out, and then you should be able to see the rest of the attachments. Notice the steel structure & the hole in the carpet where the steel meets the floor. You should be able to see where the gray parking brake cable sleeve is going.
Step 5: Using your cable snake (I'm not sure how you'd do this without it, coat hanger maybe?) start at the rear seat side of the center hump, and thread it under the carpet & foam to the hole mentioned in step 4.
Step 6: Once threaded, tie some string to the snake & pull it through. Now you're set.

Step 7: Bend the wires about 2 ft before the end, and tie the string to it. Pull the string to draw the cords under the carpet. It helps if you lift up the carpet with 1 hand while pulling. Don't pull the ends through yet. You should be able to pull the bend in the cables through the hole. It's hard, and you may have to make the hle a little bigger. Just remember where the plastic cover is so you don't make a hole that won't be covered.
Step 8: Once the loop is through, untie the string & retie it to the as-yet-unpulled cable ends. This way, when you pull the cable ends, the string will follow, and basically reset you at Step #6.
Step 9: pull the ends through. Repeat steps 7-9 for the rest of your cables.

Now I haven't tried big cables like the VGA, but I'm hoping it'll be the same.

After that, just run the cables wherever you want. There's a lot of good info on how to take your center console apart from Etadyne 's website. Just use steps 5 & 6.