986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - View Single Post - Infotainment System for Porsche Car [from CAD, prototyping to finish]

Nine8Six · 01-02-2020, 12:54 AM

Hi Brian,

Wow, thanks for sharing this with us, good to know we have engineers on-site and sharing the same interest. You are correct on all points and your advise is well received. Windows XP Carputer, night-vision, interesting dev right there

Interesting you mention the smartphone-to-display because those top boxes just recently came out here in China. Got one at home that shoot up the phone display over the tele via hdmi. Although engineered for home cinema, I bet the same module could be re-used and an automotive screen adapted via e.g. an affordable Spartan-6 if one is familiar with verilog/hdl. Affordable and doable ideas for anyone ;-)

I'll have to agree with you that the software and theme was the best part of this project. It is what all started this at the first place in fact, sort of bringing in that "modern 986 theme" back to life in the dash. Although I respect the work that went into other head units (Android?) I am NOT fond of those colorful and displaced 3D buttons or features' look & feel lol

For the OBDII (fwiw) I've ended up using the MCP2515 from Microchip. The IC was interfaced to the MCU via SPI. Rather easy to use also (3 bytes) and can also be set-up to comm via UART if needed (need additional MCU). 12v to 5v (or 3.3) is as simple as using a voltage divider with a diode (or a low dropout) and off you go. Uses CAN-High and CAN-Low, PIDs are all wiki'ed. Few glitches but overhaul it was working perfectly fine (5mhz SPI if memory serves correctly). Was killer

No comment about the Navigation/GPS lol What a f n nightmare to code that was. Used the Bing's API, that's possibly what made it all hard to achieve but it was working fine at the end. Sort of...

Anyway. All good fun and great learning curve. Might jump back into this at some time but only if finance allow. You know, getting those screen custom made (in most cases) and engineered takes quite a bit of upfront investment :/

Thanks for sharing Brian, very interesting btw!

01-02-2020, 12:54 AM	#289
Nine8Six Registered User Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Montreal, QC. (currently expat to Shanghai) Posts: 3,249	Hi Brian, Wow, thanks for sharing this with us, good to know we have engineers on-site and sharing the same interest. You are correct on all points and your advise is well received. Windows XP Carputer, night-vision, interesting dev right there Interesting you mention the smartphone-to-display because those top boxes just recently came out here in China. Got one at home that shoot up the phone display over the tele via hdmi. Although engineered for home cinema, I bet the same module could be re-used and an automotive screen adapted via e.g. an affordable Spartan-6 if one is familiar with verilog/hdl. Affordable and doable ideas for anyone ;-) I'll have to agree with you that the software and theme was the best part of this project. It is what all started this at the first place in fact, sort of bringing in that "modern 986 theme" back to life in the dash. Although I respect the work that went into other head units (Android?) I am NOT fond of those colorful and displaced 3D buttons or features' look & feel lol For the OBDII (fwiw) I've ended up using the MCP2515 from Microchip. The IC was interfaced to the MCU via SPI. Rather easy to use also (3 bytes) and can also be set-up to comm via UART if needed (need additional MCU). 12v to 5v (or 3.3) is as simple as using a voltage divider with a diode (or a low dropout) and off you go. Uses CAN-High and CAN-Low, PIDs are all wiki'ed. Few glitches but overhaul it was working perfectly fine (5mhz SPI if memory serves correctly). Was killer No comment about the Navigation/GPS lol What a f n nightmare to code that was. Used the Bing's API, that's possibly what made it all hard to achieve but it was working fine at the end. Sort of... Anyway. All good fun and great learning curve. Might jump back into this at some time but only if finance allow. You know, getting those screen custom made (in most cases) and engineered takes quite a bit of upfront investment :/ Thanks for sharing Brian, very interesting btw! __________________ ______________________________ '97 Boxster base model 2.5L, Guards Red/Tan leather, with a new but old Alpine am/fm radio. Last edited by Nine8Six; 01-02-2020 at 01:07 AM.