Persian's Tablet Mod

[Persian]

Thanks to StrayS2K for the inspiration. http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...t-install.html

This first post will act as a placeholder, final result post, and a materials manifest for this modification.

The problem: I would like to retrofit my vehicle with functional navigation, back up camera, movie function, handsfree telephony, and internet functions.

The bumps along the way:

1. Android tablets which support AV-IN, lack bluetooth, or are horribly outdated.
2. My E53 feeds power to everything constantly. This will have to change.
3. Would be nice to hear the phone over the car's audio. This is a bump because tablet bluetooth telephony allows phone control, but not audio stream AFAIK.
4. Easy to maintain (as little variables as possible)
5. Double DIN tablets (premade solutions) look nasty. I'm not a rapper from Miami either to ride with something flashy like that.

The Solution:
Move the current unit to ash tray like StrayS2K. Install Aux cable. Install Windows tablet. Change car options to turn off always-on interior power. Ensure double DIN is accessible for turning on and off tablet, in case it is to ever die while "sleeping". Install rear camera, wire to Easycap, wire easycap to tablet.

Rough materials and must-do manifest:
1. Double DIN bracket. 20$
2. BMW Business CD Auxiliary cable. (I'm not sure which I need, will update when I am 100% certain)
3. BMW USB GT1 Set to change settings and turn off transport mode. (40$)
4. BMW Business CD ribbon (dead pixels). I might not do this.
5. The tablet: Dell Venue 8 Pro (180 on Kijiji, from what I can see).
6. Wired reverse camera (18$) This Or similar.
7. Little dock for my phone.
8. Check on battery health (given that I have transport mode running).

a. Replace or trickle charge.

9. EasyCap or USB DVR (10-20$)

Last update 12:35 AM April 15 to revise manifest to include new solution.

[TerminatorX5]

interesting project, i hereby subscribe to see the progress...

couple pointers...

wi-fi camera - i would suggest a hardwired camera, as wireless solutions unfortunately do not always work as advertised (been there, done that)..

The car is not in "transport" mode, as you are driving it... or, is it? elaborate on this point, i'd like to learn more about this statement... maybe i need to do something to mine too...

you need to check the power requirements for your phone - case in point, my HTC was shipped with a 1 A (1000mA) power supply. withing first few days I got a message indicating that the phone was using more current than the charger was supplying...
I got myself a 2A (2000mA) charger, the situation improved slightly, as i did not receive that nasty message as often but nevertheless, 2A was not enough... finally, i hardwired a 3A (3000mA) supply and was able to use Tune-in and Waze simultaneously, without draining but actually charging the phone while using it in the cradle... just a heads up on the power supply for the phone...

if you are not using the factory BT module (ULF), and can get rid off the possibly installed TCU, you can locate the 54-pin connector in the trunk and rig up a set up when the radio mutes for a phone call - there is a pin that needs to be grounded inside that 54-pin connector, and when it is grounded, the radio mutes, CD pauses, and the audio comes from the car speakers... requires venturing into the pinouts - i don't remember off the top of my head, but i had done this about 10-15 years ago to my E39 (same hardware as E53)

I am not sure which power you are referring to, that is always on - the cigarette lighters are wired directly to battery, via couple sets of fuses... there are ignition hot circuits, and i personally use wake-on-LAN setup, when the direct power from the battery is controlled via relay by a circuit that is alive when the car is awake...

have you seen some of my attempts at resolving the outdatedness (it is not a real word!!!) of the E53 electronics?... lol...

[TerminatorX5]

connector X18500, 54-pin

pin 51 - radio mute (apply ground)
pin 1 - (+) from microphone
pin 19 - (-) from microphone
pin 21 - shield from the coax cable from microphone
pin 37 - (+) for front speaker - this is BT speaker connection to come from the car speakers
pin 38 - (-) for front speaker

as always, use the given info at your own risk...

[Persian]

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5

interesting project, i hereby subscribe to see the progress...

couple pointers...

wi-fi camera - i would suggest a hardwired camera, as wireless solutions unfortunately do not always work as advertised (been there, done that)..

The car is not in "transport" mode, as you are driving it... or, is it? elaborate on this point, i'd like to learn more about this statement... maybe i need to do something to mine too...

you need to check the power requirements for your phone - case in point, my HTC was shipped with a 1 A (1000mA) power supply. withing first few days I got a message indicating that the phone was using more current than the charger was supplying...
I got myself a 2A (2000mA) charger, the situation improved slightly, as i did not receive that nasty message as often but nevertheless, 2A was not enough... finally, i hardwired a 3A (3000mA) supply and was able to use Tune-in and Waze simultaneously, without draining but actually charging the phone while using it in the cradle... just a heads up on the power supply for the phone...

if you are not using the factory BT module (ULF), and can get rid off the possibly installed TCU, you can locate the 54-pin connector in the trunk and rig up a set up when the radio mutes for a phone call - there is a pin that needs to be grounded inside that 54-pin connector, and when it is grounded, the radio mutes, CD pauses, and the audio comes from the car speakers... requires venturing into the pinouts - i don't remember off the top of my head, but i had done this about 10-15 years ago to my E39 (same hardware as E53)

I am not sure which power you are referring to, that is always on - the cigarette lighters are wired directly to battery, via couple sets of fuses... there are ignition hot circuits, and i personally use wake-on-LAN setup, when the direct power from the battery is controlled via relay by a circuit that is alive when the car is awake...

have you seen some of my attempts at resolving the outdatedness (it is not a real word!!!) of the E53 electronics?... lol...

Yes, scratch the wifi camera. You make a solid point! Now, if I scratch this, the phone isn't such a big problem.

But given that I've forgone this, I will need to feed AV directly to the tablet.

I believe I've found the solution to that... (OMG!)

So there exists a device called easycap (or something like that, I have one around somewhere). It takes component video and gives it to your computer through USB. Which is cool.

Now, from that, I will need a tablet which can host USB. The problem here is, of course, that most tablets can't do this.

The ones that are capable through OTG, but they also charge through USB, thus rendering them useless for our application. However, I will look into the Surface tomorrow.

Finally (sadly), I believe the solution will come down to a Windows tablet so that it can take in the USB host, charge, and give 3.5mm audio out, while handling bluetooth, and GPS.

The bonus here (if we can call it that) is that if I can find a surface which can run full windows (not RT), the bluetooth solution to stream audio is easy and I save time there.

The other bonus is that with the video cap, I can introduce side cameras later.

As for transport mode, I'm sure my car was super low on battery and it went into it. I've lost central locking as a result, lights don't come on when doors open, etc. I will update the thread after I'm done some errands this evening.


TL;DR: Change to wired cam, use windows tablet + easycap


EDIT: DISREGARD THAT. It can be done with a Dell Venue 8 pro. BOOYAH!!

[Persian]

Manifest updated to include new solution.

[TerminatorX5]

i have gone a slightly different way - i tried to preserve the factory look, functionality, and reversability...

parts used -

OE TV module (for US cars the TV module was never installed) ($150-300)
OE AUX input ($5-60)

car already came with factory Nav and factory PDC

aftermarket parts used -

rear camera ($20)
TV-in-motion module ($100)
BT-to-3.5mm adapter ($10)
MHL converter (to HDMI output) ($10)
HDMI-to-RCA converter ($30)


brain used -

any smart phone with MHL ability ($300-900)

added OE factory TV tuner, wired AUX input, connected aftermarket TV-in-motion module. these items gave me stereo audio input, industry standard RCA-style audio/visual input, dedicated reverse camera input, ability to run AV on main screen while in motion.

wired reverse camera via dedicated inputs, setup trigger to activate camera input upon PDC activation - gained manual ability to operate rear camera via button in front, or automatic operation via PDC

setup MHL converter from Android phone to take phone screen to HDMI output, converted HDMI signal into RCA signal, fed the RCA signal to AV input (original setup was wireless, gave up on that, went with wired), received the video screen from the phone on the main monitor...

connected BT-to-3.5mm jack adapter to the AUX input of the radio, paired BT to the phone.

as i get in the car, i connect the phone to the MHL cable (working on wiring up the cradle, so i will just drop phone into cradle), the phone automatically connects to the BT unit (once the cradle is finished, it will automatically connect to MHL)

as I drive, the main radio is in over the air mode, receiving local stations, or playing CDs... I press mode, until i get the AUX, then I press clock symbol (my tv-in-motion module uses the clock symbol to bring TV onto the main screen), and select AV from the channels presented (in USA only AV is available).

at this point I have streaming music from my phone via the car's stereo system, and the image from the phone screen on main screen.

drawback - the main screen is NOT touchscreen, so i still have to use the phone for navigation through icons...
this drawback can be mitigated with MIMICSX2 device - a BT digitizer for iPhone/android... i have not tested the device...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R94c3kzF_wQ