Android head unit

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Ok so basically I am looking at installing a nexus 7 into my TB and I plan on going all out!

My current list consist of
-Joycon EX Steering Wheel Control PC Interface
Link

-FiiO E10 USB DAC Headphone Amplifier
Link

-A new amp and speakers to replace my factory bose
Amp
Speakers

-64GB flash drive for all my music

So basically where I am stuck is at the module for the door chimes/on star. I have the bose system but will not be using that anymore after this install since I'm going to run all the door speakers off my aftermarket amp with the original wires from the bose amp that run into the doors(maybe upgrade the wire). So that leaves me not sure what to do/ what to buy for door chimes.
The FiiO E10 will plug into the tablet and then run rca wires to the amp so basically I'm not using the stock head unit wiring harness.

I was looking at the CRUX SOCGM-17 GM Factory Integration Interface and was reading the wiring diagram and found this

FRONT audio inputs:
Gray for right side / White for Left side
REAR audio inputs:
Purple for right side / Green for left side
Wires with a “Black” trace go to Negative (-) side of speaker
and solid colors goes to Positive (+) side of speaker output
from head unit.

So does this mean I can just tap these wires into my speaker wires coming out of my amp that way I can still have my door chimes?
I don't have/use onstar so if that doesn't work no biggie.
Yes I know this is technically necessary but I like making my mods look/feel factory.

Thanks for the help! If you have any suggestions let me know.
 

Black LT

Member
Dec 4, 2011
211
Kuchar09 said:
So does this mean I can just tap these wires into my speaker wires coming out of my amp that way I can still have my door chimes?

No. You don't want two sources feeding one speaker/wire.

I don't really know what you're doing.
Are you leaving the factory radio in?
If so, are you installing the components in the front door?
If so, the factory amp is a 6 channel. You could supply the components with the factory door speaker wires. Then leave the dash hooked up to the factory amp - the chimes go through the front left dash speaker.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Black LT said:
No. You don't want two sources feeding one speaker/wire.

I don't really know what you're doing.
Are you leaving the factory radio in?
If so, are you installing the components in the front door?
If so, the factory amp is a 6 channel. You could supply the components with the factory door speaker wires. Then leave the dash hooked up to the factory amp - the chimes go through the front left dash speaker.

No I'm taking the factory head unit out along with the bose amp and speakers.
I was thinking of mounting the components in all the doors.
I planed on mounting the tweeters in the doors and not touching/ using the ones in the dash since the crossovers will already be in the doors and I don't really wanna run wires through the door boots to the dash.

Not running two sources to one speaker makes sense.
So without my stock head unit and bose amp how can I get the door chimes to come out the left dash speaker?
I believe I'm going to need one of the GM Factory Integration Interfaces but whats confusing me is it wont be hooking up to a head unit.
So basically I was hoping I could just hook up the factory head unit harness to the GM interface and tap what ever carries the audio for the chimes into a dash speaker that won't be getting audio from any other source.

I know this probable doesn't make much sense but that's probably because no one here has yet to install a tablet as their head unit.




Heres something I found from a google search that seems like what I'm trying to do. I think I basically have the same idea as described in post 9.
http://forums.trailvoy.com/showthread.php?t=49204
 

Canary2323

Member
Mar 31, 2012
346
Is tablet going to be removable for updates and such? I just bought/slash made a holder for my tablet then used aux port.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
I plan hard wiring the 3 buttons on the tablet into the garage door opener buttons in case the tablet crashes or something. This way I can still update Roms and what not. I don't plan on making it removable since I don't want to modify the dash.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Well I got out of class early today so thought I'd take my dash apart and make sure I wanted to go through with this whole tablet idea.
Here are some pics

Google Music


Tablet sits flush to the dash trim.


GPS Navigation


Sitting in the dash trying to figure out how I'm going to mount it.




Need to make a mount to hold the tablet and bring it forward to sit flush with the trim.




So I have decided that I'm going to go through with this after all.

I know
-How I'm going to get my audio from the tablet to the car speaker.
-How I'm going to get power for the tablet.

Don't know
-Door chimes. What are people doing when they install an aftermarket amp for all the speakers?
-Steering wheel control wires. I still need to do a little research on where/which wires these are so I can tap the Joycon EX into the and still control volume and tracks along with custom button commands.

Could I just use the CRUX SOCGM-17 GM Factory Integration Interface and tap the speaker wires into the left dash tweeter that I wont be using?
I'm tempted to just say forget the chimes and save my money.
 

Bub

Member
Nov 21, 2011
159
Why not wire a deck into your glove box? Hidden but still be able to retain door chimes easier install. Im not so sure that tablet will like how cold it will get or hot with the seasons. But this is a neat idea.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Bub said:
Why not wire a deck into your glove box? Hidden but still be able to retain door chimes easier install. Im not so sure that tablet will like how cold it will get or hot with the seasons. But this is a neat idea.

I guess I just don't see the necessity of an extra deck, still going to need a module to get the door chimes with that also.

I'm not worried about the cold since I have an android phone permanently mounted on my windshield for torque I use all year around and have never had problems with the cold.
Now the summer heat is another issue. I'v replaced my phones battery twice but that is also mounted directly in the sun. I have a few ideas of what I'm going to do to keep the tablet cool but I think I'm going to wait till summer to implement them.
 

jimmyjam

Member
Nov 18, 2011
1,634
in my experience, the thing that gave me the most headaches is getting the tablet to consistently turn on and off with the ignition... google maps especially. and getting bt to connect to my hu consistently as well.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
jimmyjam said:
in my experience, the thing that gave me the most headaches is getting the tablet to consistently turn on and off with the ignition... google maps especially. and getting bt to connect to my hu consistently as well.

I tested it out for a week in the TB and didn't have any issues with it turning on and off via the Tasker app tied into my ignition.
I quickly learned google maps/navigation doesn't work without internet connection so ill be using CoPilot GPS.
Google Music is nice but takes too long to see the music on my flash drive so I'll be using Poweramp instead since I can have music playing within 3 sec of turning the car on.
 

Voymom

Member
Feb 3, 2012
2,523
If you take the speakers out, how much would you want for the rear passenger speaker :biggrin:

I blew mine a few moths ago.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Voymom said:
If you take the speakers out, how much would you want for the rear passenger speaker :biggrin:

I blew mine a few moths ago.

Unfortunately that is the same one I blew which is why I'm doing this. Blow one speaker and here I am replacing everything lol
 

Voymom

Member
Feb 3, 2012
2,523
Kuchar09 said:
Unfortunately that is the same one I blew which is why I'm doing this. Blow one speaker and here I am replacing everything lol

I would think the other rear(drivers side) speaker would work for us if you're willing to part with it lol....

Damn vultures :biggrin:
 

NinjuhhNutz

Member
Oct 15, 2012
720
::cough cough:: or if you really felt like parting with the front drivers speaker...I might know a guy :tongue:

and abt the internet connection...if you're in the car, you'll have your phone, and I assume the ability to charge it...so why not use your phone as an ad hoc network? connect the tablet and you're good to go for navi...and you could use pandora or whatever else your heart desired :smile:
Netflix anyone? hahaha

I'm also assuming that if you're putting a tablet in your car you know what I'm referring to, and either have already, or are comfortable rooting your phone.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
NinjuhhNutz said:
::cough cough:: or if you really felt like parting with the front drivers speaker...I might know a guy :tongue:

and abt the internet connection...if you're in the car, you'll have your phone, and I assume the ability to charge it...so why not use your phone as an ad hoc network? connect the tablet and you're good to go for navi...and you could use pandora or whatever else your heart desired :smile:
Netflix anyone? hahaha

I'm also assuming that if you're putting a tablet in your car you know what I'm referring to, and either have already, or are comfortable rooting your phone.

Well I haven't ordered everything but after I get everything installed I don't see why I would need any of my speakers so I'll keep u guys in mind in a few weeks after finals when I do the install.

Yes I have the tablet set to automatically tether off my phone when the cars turned on for a data connection (mostly tunein for radio stations), but I figure for GPS I don't want worry about loosing connection like I do when driving through the UP (many dead zones).

And yes I'm very comfortable with rooting so don't think this would work to well without rooting due to some of the special software and the kernel needed for USB audio.

Watch Netflixs while eating lunch in the TB... I like your thinking lol :biggrin:
 

NinjuhhNutz

Member
Oct 15, 2012
720
Kuchar09 said:
Well I haven't ordered everything but after I get everything installed I don't see why I would need any of my speakers so I'll keep u guys in mind in a few weeks after finals when I do the install.

Yes I have the tablet set to automatically tether off my phone when the cars turned on for a data connection (mostly tunein for radio stations), but I figure for GPS I don't want worry about loosing connection like I do when driving through the UP (many dead zones).

And yes I'm very comfortable with rooting so don't think this would work to well without rooting due to some of the special software and the kernel needed for USB audio.

Watch Netflixs while eating lunch in the TB... I like your thinking lol :biggrin:

it's the small luxuries in life :rotfl:
and I didn't think about the dead zones/losing data signal for the gps

::next step, a mobile 4G repeater on the roof rack?:: hahahahahaha :thumbsup:
 

Phantom

Member
Jun 17, 2012
277
NinjuhhNutz said:
it's the small luxuries in life :rotfl:
and I didn't think about the dead zones/losing data signal for the gps

::next step, a mobile 4G repeater on the roof rack?:: hahahahahaha :thumbsup:

I know with Tami's Tablet we were using the gps and lost signal and the gps still worked, we couldn't search for a new destination but it still showed the map and us moving on it. could still zoom out and look around as to which roads we needed to take.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Phantom said:
I know with Tami's Tablet we were using the gps and lost signal and the gps still worked, we couldn't search for a new destination but it still showed the map and us moving on it. could still zoom out and look around as to which roads we needed to take.

Yeah that's true once it gets the destination will having data your good as long as you don't take a wrong turn/ different route since if can't re calculate without data.
I just don't want to have to rely on a data connection for my essential apps to work.
 

Voymom

Member
Feb 3, 2012
2,523
Kuchar09 said:
Yeah that's true once it gets the destination will having data your good as long as you don't take a wrong turn/ different route since if can't re calculate without data.
I just don't want to have to rely on a data connection for my essential apps to work.

If you have decent cell coverage and access to the android play store, you can download an app called foxfi, it makes your cell phone an internet hotspot and then you can connect it to the tablet. That's what I have been doing, but unfortunately I get shitty cell phone coverage so it doesn't help much.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
So I did a little reading this morning about keeping your chimes and onstar while bypassing the bose amp.
The module I am looking at is the Axxess GMOS-01
After reading this LINK it seems like what I want to do is use the harness that plugs from the GMOS-01 into the factory harness but cut the speaker wires on this plug. Then wire a pair of the speaker wire to my dash tweeters. This way my chimes and onstar would come through my tweeters that wont be hooked up to my aftermarket amp.
The adapter that goes to the stereo from the GMOS-01 I could use for my amp turn on and maybe even use the RAP wire to keep the tablet on till the doors are opened.

Ok one last google search and it sounds like my theory will work
Read post 1 and 9
LINK

Sooo I should be able to do my tablet install like I want to while also keeping all my chimes and onstar.
 

blazinlow89

Member
Jan 25, 2012
2,088
Kuchar09 said:
I know
-How I'm going to get my audio from the tablet to the car speaker.
-How I'm going to get power for the tablet.

Don't know
-Door chimes. What are people doing when they install an aftermarket amp for all the speakers?
-Steering wheel control wires. I still need to do a little research on where/which wires these are so I can tap the Joycon EX into the and still control volume and tracks along with custom button commands.

Could I just use the CRUX SOCGM-17 GM Factory Integration Interface and tap the speaker wires into the left dash tweeter that I wont be using?
I'm tempted to just say forget the chimes and save my money.

This seems to be the easiest and cheapest way to get sound over the speakers.

Android Tablet as a Car PC | Lavery Engineering

You could use a HDMI to rca converter, and an equalizer to get the signal to the amplifier as well. However the car dock setup seems to be the easiest way to transfer signal, as well as the most reliable.

If you want to keep factory steering wheel controls it may be a hell of alot easier to run a single din bluetooth headunit in the glove box, run your controls through that and use the bluetooth to transfer sound from the tablet to the headunt.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
blazinlow89 said:
This seems to be the easiest and cheapest way to get sound over the speakers.

Android Tablet as a Car PC | Lavery Engineering

You could use a HDMI to rca converter, and an equalizer to get the signal to the amplifier as well. However the car dock setup seems to be the easiest way to transfer signal, as well as the most reliable.

If you want to keep factory steering wheel controls it may be a hell of alot easier to run a single din bluetooth headunit in the glove box, run your controls through that and use the bluetooth to transfer sound from the tablet to the headunt.

I'm using USB to RCA since its suppose to have better sounding audio than 3.5mm and I have heard good thing about the converter i ordered.

The steering wheel controls might actually be easy from what I was reading last night. From what I read we have a lt. green wire(data wire) that carries all the audio controls from the steering wheel. I believe the buttons are resistive which is what the Joycon needs. I'm hoping I can tap the Joycon input data wire into the lt. green wire and it senses different resistance for each button. then from there its just programming the Joycon with my laptop.

Unfortunately its too late to change my setup since I just ordered everything yesterday.
The only thing i am not confident on is the steering wheel controls but everything else should work no problem.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Almost have everything done but have a little question. I'm looking for the wires to my left tweeter and from what I've read it is the Lt. Blue and dark blue on the 24 pin plug to the stereo but there isn't a light blue wire there. I looked at the wire behind the cluster and can see that it is indeed Lt. Blue and dark blue but not sure where I can tap into them oththan right behind the cluster... Any ideas?
Wiring Schematic For Bose Amp/Speakers - Chevy TrailBlazer, TrailBlazer SS and GMC Envoy Forum
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
jimmyjam said:

So the tweeter wires go straight from the tweeters to the Bose amp? If that's the case I'll just cut the wires behind my cluster since the Bose amp is no longer used.
 

scorpio1

Member
Dec 12, 2012
50
Love this project you got going here, very cool. Please post some pics of your mounting solution, I'm curious to see what you come up with!:yes:
 

jonbo2002

Member
Sep 27, 2012
213
I had the modual for the door chimes when I installed my new head unit. a week later I disconnected the speaker the only thing I miss is I dont get the alarm when the fuel light comes on lol. you may miss the chimes for about a day after that you won't care anymore.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Well got the door chimes, seat belt chimes and OnStar working but the low fuel chime doesn't work... Go figure :tongue:
 

agon3279

Member
Jan 1, 2013
41
Wow that is awesome. You definitely need to post some pics and do a full step by step write up. I would love to do this to my buick :thumbsup:
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Well I finally got all the speakers, amp and tablet mounted and wired. Still have a little programming to do on the tablet to make it work flawless.
I also have the door chimes and onstar working with no problems at all. Overall this project took much longer than I planned but I think it was completely worth it!!

4 channel amp


Bracket I made to mount the tablet to. I added a fan to help keep the tablet cool along with some velcro to mount the tablet to my bracket.




Had to add some wires for the power, volume up and down buttons that I ran to the center console in case the tablet freezes or something. Also had to run wires to the back cover since the wifi and gps are basically stickers on the back cover which I just velcroed to the top of the stereo opening.




Mounted


RCA digital to analog converter


USB hub with my flash drive, steeriing wheel controls, backup cam (still working on) and also my usb DAC which is also in the pic


Poweramp


Movies


Installed


 

TollKeeper

Supporting Donor
Member
Dec 3, 2011
8,047
Brighton, CO
Once you get this all done up, I might be really interested in a plug an play kit if you feel up to making one up.. Let me know!
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Well 2 weeks ago I drove 9 hours back to college with no freezes or hiccups. The only issues I currently have are a horribly buzzing that requires reconnecting the DAC or an occasion flash drive not found which I think I have mostly fixed. Since I made my hub externally powered the tablet get enough power to stay fully charged over long trips while using gps and screen brightness on full.

I went and cleaned a foot or two of snow off my truck today and apparently the tablet battery doesn't like temperatures below zero, well at least for a long period of time. My tablet battery was dead along with my trucks battery.
When I tried charging the tablet it showed it was charging with it off but once I turned it on it immediately shut down and said battery zero. So I let my car warm up for about 40 minutes then let it just sit for another 40 minutes and then tried charging it. It then finally took the charge and turned on.
For the past 3 days I haven't touched my car since its been below zero every day. I believe the coldest it got was -14 with a wind chill of -44 so I'm not surprised my tablet was dead, I was just surprised that it wouldn't take a charge. Not really sure what happened but I think the battery froze which is why it wouldn't take a charge. I think this because if you look at the graph it had about a 40% charge left before it just dropped right off to 0. Here is a screen shot I took of the battery graph once I got it turned on and charging for 2 hours.

It survived last night when it got as low as -5 out so I guess it just doesn't like being much colder than that.



The only issues I still need to fix is the buzzing I get when I start the car ever now and then, but that has nothing to do with being in the car since I had the same issue before I put it in my car.
I also still want to get the back up cam working but apparently i screwed up the wire somewhere when I ran the wire into the hatch and my new cam isn't compatible or is broken since the package was open so I'm sending it back and getting one I know will work and try not to break it this time.

Here is a little video I put together of the tablet in action.

[video=youtube;kjA_5NbwKlM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjA_5NbwKlM[/video]

Here is a video of the static issue I sometimes have with turning on the car. This is basically the only issue I have with my setup I want to figure out when it gets warmer out.

[video=youtube;cGkZA5w6cus]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGkZA5w6cus[/video]
 

DDonnie

Member
Mar 26, 2012
2,631
I am going to be doing something similar to this in the next few weeks, but i want to make the tablet removable. Any ideas?
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
dcmtnbkr said:
I am going to be doing something similar to this in the next few weeks, but i want to make the tablet removable. Any ideas?

To make it removable I don't really know, all I know is your going to need to do some major modifications to the trim to make it work. Maybe something with fiberglass could work.
 

DDonnie

Member
Mar 26, 2012
2,631

Shdwdrgn

Member
Dec 4, 2011
568
Did you ever get the steering wheel controls working? The last I saw, you still weren't sure about that.

I wanted to throw out a couple ideas I've been working on, which may also be of use here...

The first was using a linksys WRT54G I picked up from cragislist for $10. This is a wifi access point that takes a 12V input, but I believe it actually works anywhere between 9v-24v. I installed dd-wrt on it, then did a mod which adds an SD card slot to the unit. On the card, I loaded a small program that runs as a roaming access point, always looking for other wifi signals that it can connect to. The idea is that any time I pull into a parking lot, the unit should find an available wifi signal and be able to jump online. This also gives me four ethernet ports to hook up various computer.

Next is onboard video security. I'm trying to figure out a low-power setup that lets me run four decent-quality cameras. With the wifi above and a little code, any time the truck is parked it could upload video and gps data to my home servers (in the event the truck ever gets stolen). I've been playing with cheap USB webcams, but this morning I was reading the threads on accidents and found out about vehicle DVR's... I plan on investigating in this direction...

This takes me to having a low-powered computer onboard that can run 24x7 without draining the battery. I have a raspberry pi, which can run on about 700mA @5V. It has USB and ethernet ports, plus a header with direct I/O lines including an A/D converter. I have multiple functions I want to run through this system. First is collecting the video and gps data. Next is hooking up bluetooth and getting the software working to where the computer acts as a hands-free audio device. When tied in with the steering wheel and radio harness, I believe I can make use of the existing OnStar microphone and speakers to have in-vehicle bluetooth for my cell phone. (Unfortunately I've had a hard time getting anything beyond basic data connections to my phone - still no audio.) This same setup could very well work in your situation, since this computer can read the steering harness signals and process them, then send the info on to your tablet.

Adding a tablet like you've done is my final goal, tied in with everything else. Throw in an ODBII connector to keep real-time stats on the vehicle, and it would be one hell of a mobile setup.
 

Kuchar09

Original poster
Member
Dec 4, 2011
150
Shdwdrgn said:
Did you ever get the steering wheel controls working? The last I saw, you still weren't sure about that.

I wanted to throw out a couple ideas I've been working on, which may also be of use here...

The first was using a linksys WRT54G I picked up from cragislist for $10. This is a wifi access point that takes a 12V input, but I believe it actually works anywhere between 9v-24v. I installed dd-wrt on it, then did a mod which adds an SD card slot to the unit. On the card, I loaded a small program that runs as a roaming access point, always looking for other wifi signals that it can connect to. The idea is that any time I pull into a parking lot, the unit should find an available wifi signal and be able to jump online. This also gives me four ethernet ports to hook up various computer.

Next is onboard video security. I'm trying to figure out a low-power setup that lets me run four decent-quality cameras. With the wifi above and a little code, any time the truck is parked it could upload video and gps data to my home servers (in the event the truck ever gets stolen). I've been playing with cheap USB webcams, but this morning I was reading the threads on accidents and found out about vehicle DVR's... I plan on investigating in this direction...

This takes me to having a low-powered computer onboard that can run 24x7 without draining the battery. I have a raspberry pi, which can run on about 700mA @5V. It has USB and ethernet ports, plus a header with direct I/O lines including an A/D converter. I have multiple functions I want to run through this system. First is collecting the video and gps data. Next is hooking up bluetooth and getting the software working to where the computer acts as a hands-free audio device. When tied in with the steering wheel and radio harness, I believe I can make use of the existing OnStar microphone and speakers to have in-vehicle bluetooth for my cell phone. (Unfortunately I've had a hard time getting anything beyond basic data connections to my phone - still no audio.) This same setup could very well work in your situation, since this computer can read the steering harness signals and process them, then send the info on to your tablet.

Adding a tablet like you've done is my final goal, tied in with everything else. Throw in an ODBII connector to keep real-time stats on the vehicle, and it would be one hell of a mobile setup.

I actually got the steering wheel controls working no problems. I had slight issues with my backup/ webcam since I cut the wires and extended them, but finally got that working now and should have it installed next week possibly.

I like the idea of the roaming access point in case you don't want to be tethered to your phone constantly like I am.

Here are a couple of videos I made of the steering wheel controls and backup camera. I also just added a DVB-T tuner so that I can still have my FM stations without steaming from my phone.

[video=youtube;NJVn-XLqnEs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJVn-XLqnEs[/video]

[video=youtube;Sz8v9uALfno]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz8v9uALfno[/video]

[video=youtube;kOj3R8rJMq0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOj3R8rJMq0[/video]
 

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