Android Auto/Raspberry Pi project

[cb350]

Hi all,

 

Just thought I'd share something I've started here with my 350Z.. I've always fancied putting some sort of screen into the cubby of my car, but I wanted it to be something that didn't mean hacking up anything that was already in the car, and fitted in to look as OEM as possible.

 

Earlier this year I finally found a decent open-frame 7" touchscreen that looked like it'd fit:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monitor-Display-1024X600-Raspberry-Windows/dp/B076J8ZWFF/

 

Unfortunately it's not perfect - if you look at the photos on Amazon, you'll see the HDMI port is on the very edge of the board at the left, and this gets in the way of the cubby.

 

Fortunately I found it's possible to pull the back PCB away from the display (it's glued in place), so I designed a kind of 'cradle' thing to fit it all together in a way that does work in the cubby. At the same time, I added in provision to fit both a Raspberry Pi and a Pi Zero within the cradle. The idea is that the whole thing will screw in place using mounting holes that are already in the cubby. I haven't taken a bunch of detailed photos for this one, because after getting this prototype made, I found I need to make a few improvements, so I'm going to be getting another one built (it's laser cut on a CNC machine) - then I can start showing the whole build process. It all fits OK but I need to move some of the mounting holes a bit.

 

As for software, I'm going to start off by running Android Auto on the Raspberry Pi:

 

https://github.com/f1xpl/openauto

https://github.com/opencardev/crankshaft

 

I've already tested OpenAuto and it works pretty well!

 

Hopefully I can share more soon.

 

Chris.

[psion]

This is awesome! Can't wait to see the end result!

[UK_350z]

Fascinating stuff.ill be following with interest!

[cb350]

Thanks for the replies! Finally back with an update 

 

So, here are the latest bits (apologies for the slightly bad picture quality):

 

 

Assembled, it looks like this:

 

 

The top section is designed to allow the screen to sit into place, and then it's all held together by being screwed into the the cubby using the mounting points already on the cubby. This is using the satnav cubby for the '03 - '06 350Z. I have a non satnav cubby in my car at present, so once I've finally swapped everything over for the screen, I'll be seeing if it fits into that cubby as well, and hopefully making modifications to support it if it turns out that it won't fit in exactly the same way.

 

Here it is in the cubby:

 

 

And here's the side, showing how it's screwed together:

 

 

I've found a couple of final design points that could do with changing - it's a bit difficult to screw the case together at present, so I think I'll add some holes in the sides to aid with assembly, and I could do with modifying the base of the unit a bit to make it easy to fit the driver board for the screen. However, I can work with what I've got for this one, so now my focus will turn to fitting the Raspberry Pi and associated audio and power hardware. The plan is to allow it to power up when the ignition is switched on and gracefully shut down when switched off, plus I want to incorporate a fairly decent DAC to ensure the sound quality is good, and avoid some of the noise I'm undoubtedly going to get from using the Raspberry Pi's in-built sound along with the car's power supply.

 

Next post will hopefully detail the hardware install, and then I can get to work on the software.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by cb350