Hi, and here the story begins.

On the first day I bought my coupe I took original clarion out.
Rrplaced it with JVC headunit.

3 Years later (Now) decided that im bored of all the wires I need to get my satnav running etc.

I came up with Idea to put a tablet in the coop ( never thought that its quite popular these days)

So I started my research in whe cold evenings of december...

There was many options that I had between android and windows tablets.

I chose to go with Google nexus 7 32GB 1st gen.
Got it of ebay for £90 (secondhand in very good condition)
Fast processors for in car use, plenty of features narely clean Android sistem. And a with of it is exactly madr to fit a Coupe wink
Now I had the tablet and a long list of ideas that I want it to do.
And nearly same length list of what it cant do.
Long story short
It took me month and a half to :
-Downgrade Android software from Kitkat to Jellybean
-Root it
-Flash it with custom kernels and roms.
-Test everything on a bench

Now tablet allows me to
-Connect USB hub through Custom (homemade) OTG cable while charging.
-Fall in deep sleep mode when charging connection is lost (no battery discharge)
And wake up at the press of the button.
- many other features


Because I have fully functional usb hub it allows me to connect slave devices like :
-Flash drive (with usb socket fitted in the glovebox)
-Fit a usb HDD ?
-Fit reverse cameras ?
-fit camera behind grille that allows me to record in HD while I drive ? (Sounds cool huh?)
-Many more .

The idea is to put tablet in the dash and get rid of ashtray.
As the power and volume buttons will be covered I had to put them somewhere else , somewhere easy to reach and not to look ugly.

I came up with idea to make mirror control switch do some extra functions
More about this later.

I had to figure out how amplifiers will turn on as tablet has aux jack
And my coupe has sub and amp in the boot, so there was no power to inside speakers... I had to add anotherone.

And the modyfiing begins...

I took out hadbrake /gear/center concole

And I Found some space for another amp
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Had to cut the supporting frame from the back where headunit used to be and welded it to still be stiff.
Now the Aux jack will lead to new amp and it will pass signal on to the sub amp.
And a front amp exits are connected to euro plug. So the standart speaker plug now is plig and play. (Just dont want to destroy original loom)

Now how it will work.
I have modyfied connections and added 3 relays.
And few buttons, here how it looks now
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The button on the top (push connection) will turn tablet screen on/off
Button below (push+lock) will activate one big relay that will give power to amp signal wires , and charger for tablet (that will wake it up from deep sleep)
Or turn everything off.
Mirrors will be fully functional but when side selector is in middle extra two rellays swops connectors and by leaning it side to side it controlls volume (p.s. tested and working)

I know it sounds complicated well it is. I wire connected wrong in here and your tablet goes.

Ok . Now I need to connect alot wiring and hide everything
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One little usb hub wink

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Power supply for tablet + phone charger.

I hose this . Becouse it has 2 exits one gives 2.1A for tablet (It eats 1.8A
and another one will charge my phone.. the taped part is original cigar lighter from ashtray. So charger can be pulled out and replaced if needs to.

click to enlarge

Fitted it with cable tie in place where it will be easily replaced
By pushing down gearstick gator and its easy to take it out and replace it.


Ok by now I have everything connected there . But I need to figure out how to
Make external buttons for nexus 7.
I opened it . And took out the plastic button (that u push on the tablet)
Underneath there lies thin ribbon with tiny contacts. So I took my tools and killed it ....
Ebay time ...
Two days and 13pounds later
Second go on replacement ribbon.
Guess what ? Its done and looks nice !
click to enlarge sorry for poor picture.

Now I have tablet with plug sticking out, I have wiring done . Lets test it in the car !

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I KNOW it looked messy back then.

Center console time !

Stip it , disassemble it , clean it and Melt it !

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I have melted out the part that used to be bottom of the stereo,
Then measured to be stright and melted small ashtray surrounding to main panel.
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As you can see im trying to melt in the same part that I removed first lower
To make a smooth edge at the bottom.

But first - lets put the tablet in its place and adjust the angle of it to sit in the "slot".
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So now im happy with angle and I have bottom edge melted to panel.

But there is still alot of gaps under the edge I just melted and inner sides where was no walls .

I had to find plastic to melt together. And to melt two different types of plastic together its easy , but it wont hold!

I decided to sacrifice ashtray front cover cut it and fill the empty gaps. Like this :
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I took a small wooden block and some 60grit sanding paper smoothed it down ( does not sound like smoothing panel with 60grit but iw worked well)

Got myself some filler for plastic from halfords for few quid.
With filler applied and sanded down abit the result is here :
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Some filler primer on top and a first look in the car.:
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Filler primer was a big mistake !
For some reason it never dried out properly.
Probaby did not went together with plastic filler.
Had to sand / rub / wash everything down and do it again with regular primer.

When the tablet is seated it needs to have aux cable and usb connected , and there is not mutch clearance between inner side and side of coipe main panel, so buth connectors are 90degree bent. With slots made in center consele
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With paint on the front done had to fix tablet in place and make hole panel stronger .
I used 2mm steel rods for side thin parts and alot of PU adhesive glue ( same used to glue LE lips)

And glued tablet aswell.

click to enlarge

Well the basic installation is done now wink

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Will make a video later on how it actually works.

Note this is ongoing project and I will ad some more "addons"
The coolest thing would be if someone would make startrekk software work on android tablets ! (I have seen a topic a while ago with idea to do that)

Currently tablet is running
132GB memory
PowerAmp (for music) (bought full version as its best android player available)
Sygic satnav (GPS) works brilliant no lag and its in 3D (buildings etc.) Many nice settings , speed cameras , reports etc. Even asked to slow me down on more sharp turn becouse it was wet !
Internet , video player, and few more toys like
Secret video recorder - One press on the icon and it records faces of driver and passenger throuth front cam of the tablet (I chose perfect angle )
Have few videos of Mrs in car , makes me laugh everytime I watch.
Dont ask to upload becouse if I would do - that would be last time I was online wink

Still to come -
-USB FM or Digital reciever +app
- few hd cameras
- Parking sensors using Arduino Mega ADK?
- USB DAC (digital audio converter?) for top quality sound.


Last edited by laurysr; 11/04/2014 13:53.