[Connected Car] Darkcon:
Long time XDA user, never contributed, Figured as I am in the process of doing a tablet dash install I'd document the attempt on here in hopes it helps someone with similar ambitions.

I like to waffle and wall of texts, sorry about that, Skip to pictures if you don't like Wall o Texts, feel free to ask for any details I missed, point out any spelling/grammar mistakes as its 1:30 am while I'm typing this.

Warning, anything in this post that you attempt at home is your responsibility if anything goes wrong, Do not attempt, Fire hazard

The Story(

Skip this part down to the Second picture if just interested in the build

):

A little while ago my better half decided she needed a new car as the old Subaru B4 was rusting, and used more gas than a 4L V6 Holden Commodore, and settled on a Suzuki Swift, some quick searching later and I had found the one I thought was the best for the cash we had at the time

meet the Chocolate Chip(not my name for it...lol):

[IMG="The Chocolate Chip"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/20170218_125034_zpscmc5fuac.jpg[/IMG]

When we got it, we found it had no badges, a different grill from the other swifts of its age, and features only found on 2010 and later models(its a 2007 model).

Turns out it might be a Suzuki Swift "Style" but it also doesn't have the grill of a Style.

On the way home we found not only was it not slow as we thought it would be, being a small engined car, it was way faster than the old 2L subaru, turns out, its a 1.2L K12B VVT dual injector engine with a CVT transmission, long story short, it goes when you hit the go pedal, and daaaamn does it stop when you hit the stop pedal.

after finding many remains of previously installed gadgets, we figured it had been a tech nerds car much like myself, they sold it cheap...we wondered why

next morning it wouldn't start.

after a fair amount of feeling ripped off, and a bout of words not suitable for this forum, I did some investigating, found out the mini relays for the Fuel injection and fuel pump were coming on only intermittently, a quick trip to the local parts store and away she went.

that just left one problem..fixing that problem entails below.

First off, the Plan

:

To install something(ANYTHING) to replace this monstrosity:

[IMG="Oh The Horror"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170218_124825_zpsulyxbqzh.jpg[/IMG]

My first thought was Android tablet, as I had seen a tablet install in a friends subaru and had liked the effect.

then I thought, what about installing a radio, as I had an RTL SDR dongle installed in a raspberry pi at home for a few years already, I spend a good few days working out if I could make a Raspberry Pi Dash

I discovered I could, but it would cost an arm a leg and the left family jewel, even tho I already had an amp, RaspPi, Various cables and an RTLSDR dongle.

Mainly because I wanted something that I could add ALL THE THINGS! Music, radio, GPS, voice control, steering wheel controls etc.

After this disapointing result I went back to researching the tablet install, Found infact a Samsung tab 3 lite 7" tablet would be a perfect fit into a 2DIN Standard slot, then discovered the RTLSDR world had moved along a fair bit since I got mine, and that android had an app and drivers for it :D .

So after a quick squiz over to ebay for a swift 2Din Facia for $16NZDish with a couple weeks shipping time the hunt was on for a tablet.

Hours and hours of hunting around later I had settled on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite after researching the nexus and some no name brand android tablets and finding them to expensive, or to unreliable.

It was best in reliablility, price($100NZD or less), features, ability to use one of those OTG cables with a resistor between pin 4 and 5 to get charging and OTG at the same time and the ability to fit perfectly INSIDE a 2DIN socket and after some research(using my phone) powerful enough to run SDR touch for FM/AM/other Radio.

it was perfect and we were all set to buy it.

and thats when I ran into the first roadblock

The Better half

She owns and loves a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 16gb WIFI edition (SM-T800), its been a fantastic tablet, Unlocked bootloader, no non-removable bloatware, and for some reason its specs beat the current Tab E and Tab A and Tab S2 by a mile in most places and at worst is even, and she decided she liked it so much when she was helping me search our local equiv of ebay(trademe) she spotted one for really really cheap($140NZD), and decided it was the one to have, after pointing out it will have to be outside the 2DIN socket and the cables would show and it would look like a tablet glued to a dashboard, and her saying "I don't care about that, BIG SCREEN!" I decided fair enough and we bid on it and won.

Suddenly the plan had to change.

A few days later it arrived...

Second Roadblock:

And the plan had to change again.

What was advertised was a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 16GB - WIFI, what we got was a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 16gb Wifi + LTE SM-T807A AT&T Carrier locked, bootloader locked, bloatware loaded turd.

The two tablets are night and day.

Needless to say I was not happy, and spent many hours trying to find a way to root it, no one has bothered working on it since 5.0, there is no root for 6.0.1

After some choice words to the seller, and him offering a partial refund, and me accepting it, I decided to try push on regardless.

Much to my surprise Most of the software I wanted to use required no root, all was looking good

Then I tried an Charging OTG Cable, no good.

Did a little research on XDA (THANKS GUYS I LOVE YOUR WORK), and found the USB on samsung devices could be put into the charging OTG mode via various resistors for various devices, after hours of trying different resistors, a potentiometer and several destroyed OTG cables later, I discovered this AT&T turd didn't support any of the modes required, it also wouldn't charge on anything that didn't have the data lines shorted for fast charge.

(This is where Root and a custom rom would have been handy, many custom roms are set up to control the USB chip via resistors to allow incoming charge during OTG use)

(to those guys who go on about tablets charging having nothing to do with the charger/cable and only to do with how much current it can supply, thats bollox, if the data lines aren't shorted the tablet won't go into fast charge mode, and this tablet only charges in fast charge mode, the phones can charge either slow or fast but they need the data lines shorted to charge in the fast charge mode).

So, we have the 2DIN facia, the Tablet, and some cables to hack up, let the cable making and problem sorting begin!

Step one:

Test the tablet for functioning OTG mode

[IMG="OTG Mode using the Radio Dongle"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170218_191502_zps4v8ic5ng.jpg[/IMG]

Thank god it at least had this, I left it plugged in, with an unpowered USB hub, with the radio off and it in sleep all night to see how much current the plugged in hub and inactive radio would use while sleeping.

the results: 93% to 49% in 7 hours, not good.

First problem Identified and Step Two: Radio and unpowered hub use to much from the battery, as I don't want the tablet charging while the car is off as it will drain the battery fairly hard.

First step in solving this problem was to try powering the hub, it worked!, but it also headed up the OTG cable as the battery was still trying to output power.

Solution: from my days messing with a bus pirate on a serial line on a wifi security camera, I remembered I didn't have to connect the V+ line, just GND, TX, RX.

So I slipped a piece of paper between the USB plug and socket where the hub plugged into the OTG cable, over the V+ line, so no power could come from the battery

And lo and behold it worked and was using the hubs power:

[IMG="RTLSDR Dongle plugged into the USB hub, powered up"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170218_191448_zpsjtdgv4z0.jpg[/IMG]

I removed the Radio Dongles MCX tiny connector, and soldiered in a standard car antenna socket lead, then covered the Dongle in aluminium tape for RF shielding, I soldered a spring onto the old MCX connector shielding Ground point on PCB, and the Tape starts on the inside above it, for a solid ground for the RF shield you can see in the picture above.

Step Three:

How do we power the hub with the radio on it only when the cars on?

Easy, a quick Suzuki to ISO hardness, a pair of side cutters, a 2.1A USB car charger, and a Smokers socket with leads later, and we have ourselves a power source.

[IMG="USB Car Charger, Socket, and Suzuki to ISO harness(and 5 core trailer wire for other purposes)"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170218_191429_zpsp4fnraun.jpg[/IMG]

As you can see I have it wired to the Ignition switch(Red on standard stereo harness) and ground, with the other wires split out for speakers later.

you may also see I cut off the Orange and blue wire...the blue wire was a mistake, more on that later.

so, we have the Radio and usb hub working and power to them...but now theres no USB port to charge the tablet...how dowe solve this problem....

Step Four:

CHARGING :D

After the many hours and so much concentration on the research of various paths I took to attempt to find a way to charge the tablet (OTG+Charge, Root to edit resistors value file, unlocking bootloaders, Jtag, Custom roms, flashing roms from other tabs like the SM-T805/T807V/T807T) I almost threw up.

Then I found a video while on one of these paths to a guy fixing a Tab S with a low battery state, fixing it by using a TP4056 1A single cell li-ion microusb charge circuit to directly charge the cells in the Tab S.

This gave me the idea, while not the best, it would work.

Charge the batteries directly! I got onto trademe and ordered me up one of the modern versions of this lil TP4056 circuit and got to work doing the most firehazardy thing I've ever done:

[IMG="a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 tablet with a connector soldered directly to batteries"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170219_195026_zpss5w7rziw.jpg[/IMG]

Do not try this at home.

It has two batteries, both Li-Ion 3.8v Batteries which appear to be wired in parallel strangely, in the center of the battery pack is a small PCB with 4 large contacts on it labeled B1+ B1- B2+ B2-, and using a multimeter they seem to be parallel, so I got out my trusty soldering Iron(which is a 25w woefully sad thing) and soldered a flat 28 AWG IDE cable to the B2 terminals, (3 wires per terminal for current handling), as It needed to be a really flat cable to fit under the back plate.

The picture above shows a cable coming from a removed Book cover style case Clamp which turns out only has one screw holding it in, then its a free hole to have a cable coming out of, this cable has a counterpart cable that is wired into the TP4056 protection charge PCB, which is in turn plugged into the USB car charger you will see in pictures later.

as the charge protection circuit exists there is little risk, right up untill the battery dies from age or a flaw, then its extremely dangerous as it has no Temp sensor.

My safety feature is it only charges while the car is running, so if it ever puffs up and/or smokes, I've kept everything with plugs and modular so it can be removed in a hurry and thrown out a window.

[IMG="cable ties ftw!"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170219_194935_zpsbqz4joaq.jpg[/IMG]

In the picture above you can see the Facia(plastic surround), with a usb Extension lead Glued into it(bottom mid), a usb hub(Silver/blue on the right), the RTL dongle(wearing the tinfoil hat top mid), the accessory socket and usb car charger(Orange and black thing), and USB to USB power plug plugged in(Usb plug in the Orange and black thing), and OTG cable(with paper inside plug to the big end, sticking out in front) .

Additionally, to keep everything as tidy as possible, the shell of a 2Din Radio you can see, is actually a 2Din Stock Subaru radio long ago removed and replaced, now gutted(and long forgotten CD and Mini disc Removed) and the empty shell used to cable tie everything down as it is filled with holes.

[IMG="Car harness, Car antenna plug"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170219_194957_zpsb1pqayej.jpg[/IMG]

Car harness bottom left/mid, Car antenna plug bottom right.

[IMG="My safety inspector"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170125_131640_zpscq3xes7y.jpg[/IMG]

Meow Meow motors Chief safety inspector, inspecting the car before Installation.

The final product..wait Problem with some software running.

[IMG="Fingerprints free of Charge"]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa310/Revoku/Swiftdroid/IMG_20170219_195125_zpszhamb5sm.jpg[/IMG]

So with some automotive double sided 1mm thick black foam tape I attached it...and all was well...

then it fell off....damnit

So after some debate, and pointing out it was her fault we have the AT&T turdblet the better half sacrificed her cat chewed worn out old case, to the stereo gods, so that the Android stereo/nav system could live

two self tappers from an old dryer later, and the tablet was secured and the job was done!

(Photo Incoming

Or so I thought, While installing, I got the amp in, the wiring in(I used the 5 Core trailer wire for the speaker wires and the REM amp wire), got the old radio out, pluged everything in, and it worked a treat, better sound quality than the stock radio and I didn't even have to use a Ground loop Isolator on it!

then I hit the radio button...and it was worse than when I had no antenna plugged in. I was pissed and couldnt work it out, a few hours later I found out Suzukis have an electrically amplified antenna, once I figured out which wire was for running the antenna amplifier(turns out its the same one that powers Electrical automatic pop-up amps in most radios(White with green stripe for me) and blue wire on the ISO standard harness(Which I had cut off) it worked like a treat, including listening in on AM, FM, and the local cop radio, which is apparently dealing with alot of drunks today lol.

Will update with some pictures of Amp wiring, and final install

If anyone knows a better voice recognition software than "OK Google" when you have no internet connection please let me know, or how to carrier unlock an AT&Turd tab, I'd be grateful, Cheers

Warning, anything in this post that you attempt at home is your responsibility if anything goes wrong, Do not attempt, Fire hazard

More to come (Gathering images and sorting out bits and pieces)