Progress so far. Still a lot more wiring to do
Some of you may remember a while back that I built a tablet into my center dash and an LCD into my gauge cluster. Over the past month, I decided to upgrade both so I can better integrate the two together and with the car.

I have the new tablet installed for the most part and just need to make a couple of more pieces. After that, its just painting and some cosmetics.

In this version, I also made a spot that I can stick my phone into (the slot under the left side of the tablet). When the phone is in this slot, it will wirelessly charge so i dont have to worry about having my charger cable with me. I originally integrated the wireless charger into my center console where the cup holder used to be but I didn't like my phone sticking out there since that is where I usually rest my arm. The two USB ports do connect to the tablets interface but also support quick charging for devices that are plugged in

Dont mind the mess, this is just a rough fitment right now to make sure everything will mesh together as well as a couple of modifications in progress. If your curious why the ignition key cylinder is empty, I converted the car a while back to a PKE system that has a push to start button where the key hole usually is. No I didn't steal the car

A rough fitment of the new tablet. Dont mind the mess. I have a couple of projects going on all at once


Behind the scenes of the touch screen if you are curious. I wired two high gain wifi antennas directly to the tablet to allow me to connect to it easier than the last version I had which was using the stock antenna. Since this picture, I have also added a bigger heatsink for the processor and a GPS patch antenna rather than the original one built into the bezel of the tablet.
The board in the red box is a DC/DC converter which replaces the tablet battery so I dont have to worry about it blowing up on hot summer days. It outputs 4.3V at up to 15 amps to help satisfy the tablets hungry needs at times when multitasking on a bright sunny day. There are also 10 farads of super capacitors under the DC/DC converter to help with the battery drop when the car is starting. This was somethign that bugged me witht he previous install that is now hopefully fixed. As of right now, If I cut the power on the tablet, It will run off the capacitors for about 10 seconds before it cuts out which is more than enoguht time for the car to start. The usb C connector you see to the left will be going to a 10 port high powered usb hub that supports quickcharge for items plugged into it. I used this one on my last install and it worked well so I decided to use it again. I usually have a joycon, sdr radio and DAC (which goes into the original infinity amplifier) connected to it as well as the arduino that connects to the network I previously installed in the car. This connects with the other controllers as well as the new gauge cluster I will be putting in with this. All of the 3d printed parts in all the pictures such as the brackets and area under the touch screen have either been printed out of carbon fiber infused poly-carbonate (grey/black parts) or PTEG (red/white parts) to ensure they withstand the summer heat. The old brackets on the previous install held up extremely well so I decided to go this route again. To glue everything together where needed, I am using Loctite AA349 UV cured adhesive. Although it smells at first, this stuff works amazingly well.





This is my progress as of last night with the gauge cluster integration for the newer control boards I am using. As you can see in the lower picture, the LCD does stick out but it still fits in the dash. There are barely a couple of milometers to spare on the corners. The green board on the left is a can bus to USB converter that will communicate directly with the software for all of the data I can retrieve on the C canbus. The red boards are optos which take the 12V otputs from the things such the indicator lights and allows the to interface with the microcontroller on the black board which is 5V tolerant. As for the fuel level and temperature, I plan to tap into the voltage feedback from the resistive values they produce to get a reading. I left the original LCD's on to help in troubleshooting and to verify the odometer if I ever need to (even though I would have to remove the LCD to do so)




This is the gauge cluster running with random data being fed into it. I will be adjusting the scales such as max RPM's and max MPH when I finally have it installed


Testing the LCD with random data

For the final install, I have a new piece of Plexiglas that I laser cut to go over the LCD install of the one you see that is cracked. I just dont want to mess it up before its time to install it.

As of right now, the entire system goes into a deep sleep and only pulls about 30-100mA (fluctuates depending on what is going on) when the car is off after 15 minutes. I will also be building in an option for long term storage which will turn mostly everything off so I dont drain the battery


I can happily say that this time, I am taking plenty of pictures and making diagrams so once I complete it and get it up and running, I will mostly likely post detailed information. I meant to do this the last time but didnt have enough pictures during the process and didnt want to rip everything back open to take them. Once I confirm it works, I will definitely create a thread this time. Stay tuned!