Infotainment System for Porsche Car [from CAD, prototyping to finish]

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

hey man - load it w pirate pst2 software and an obd2 interface and you will have a lot of buyers i think.

We can plot as fast as 200ms with the CAN raw data on the 986 (wired). Getting the interface ready for you guys using a contractor based here in Shanghai with me. Prototyping bluetooth and wifi, both to see which is faster and what kind of buffer we'll need for that. Aiming for both DBC and UDS data. Early stage but flying colors, you'll get it I think lolll

Originally Posted by The Radium King

add a high-res gps with lateral-g sensing, some inputs for cameras, and ability to run current track apps and you will have even more buyers.

inputs there are. 2.4ghz wifi and solid Bluetooth. Has USB also of course but that sounds a tad like DVD/CD no?

Sygic GPS Navigation, Google earth, Bing maps, all works beautifully. Got C# controls also avail in API format so we can customize those mapping tools (adding sexier voice?)

[78F350]

I suspect that the final product will be amazing beyond my imagination. Not sure if I want 2 or 3 ...or 4. One of my Cayennes has a PCM1 - CD Nav
Sounds like you have the good ideas already, but here's what I think...
No legacy disc stuff u less you can rig a fold - out turntable for vinyl too.
Interface with vehicle for OBD/CAN/ ...similar to Autel MD802 or a good Win10 app if one exists.
Video in input.
The sensors and display for a track/race session as TRK mentioned.
Voice control - microphone input. Would that be Cortana?
I love the pic you have of the console integration. Smooth. Clean.

Anyway, that's my contribution to muck up your thread. I'm starting a swear jar in my garage today to get the funds together. Please target the cost to be a bit less than a base 986 with >100 K miles.

[Nine8Six]

There, thank you. All brilliant functionalities (useful should I say).

All good fun and development ahead I can feel it! As a reminder, let's see if we can fit this in our car first, requires: power management + thermal management initially. Promise you'll get to see plenty of material from porn wallpapers -up- to your LIVE Streaming Kit so we can all watch your track/race day LIVE on the forum, but first let's see if we can work out this thing to fit lightweight ~ for a Porsche

Connectivity: WIFI - Bluetooth. Hell this is going to force you guys to use/buy the recent and modern peripherals (Cams, sensors, whatever we'll need). Whatever comes with a windows 7/10 driver in 64bits is working full throttle on the kit. Simple as that guys

So nope, there are not going to be all kinds of ports, wires everywewhrhe plugs/pcb/herethisthat. Wifi and bluetooth only! Got USB3.0 also if really really really you are that old school

That dash can turn 986 poisoned during nite time

[Nine8Six]

Oh, hints: has a micro controller built-in. Those that likes sensor signals in either analog or digital... you have not been left behind. You can use your vs or arduino ide/libraries if you wish for. How did I forgot to mention about that

Remember, we can compute this at over 1.92Ghz 4x cores CPU. You are starting to be talking serious here. So so so going to be fun lolllll

[ccjazz]

I'm not hugely tech savvy...I'm running Windows 7x64 on my laptop / desktop and can get by ok I think.

Maybe this will be my opportunity to sharpen up on some new technologies

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by ccjazz

I'm not hugely tech savvy...I'm running Windows 7x64 on my laptop / desktop and can get by ok I think.

Maybe this will be my opportunity to sharpen up on some new technologies

My vision is everything that gets developed and useful for another should find its way on github/google code (for instance) and shared among those who run these type of car PC systems. You as a User e.g. if you like the "Harmonic IMS Sensor Toolkit w/ filters", you download the toolkit and click on set-up.exe, and enjoy. (yikes, thatd be almost funny... who knows)

Can't see it being fun "or useful" any other way

[ccjazz]

Originally Posted by Nine8Six

My vision is everything that gets developed and useful for another should find its way on github/google code (for instance) and shared among those who run these type of car PC systems. You as a User e.g. if you like the "Harmonic IMS Sensor Toolkit w/ filters", you download the toolkit and click on set-up.exe, and enjoy. (yikes, thatd be almost funny... who knows)

Can't see it being fun "or useful" any other way

I think that once this new kit of yours is in our hands, we will see lots and lots of our Porsche friends here with great ideas to personalize to suit our needs. That's where guys like me can learn.

[JayG]

Holy infotainment Batman!!

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by JayG

Holy infotainment Batman!!

ahhh finally, I was waiting for you and this exact comment!!! thanks man

I can go sleep now. Ta da all

[BRAN]

it was only a matter of time until you picked up on that...one of my fav topics

I would like to see an all in one solution:
Comfortable: One system to do it all, no new operating systems to learn
Weight reduction: With merging different systems into one
Theft protection: Nothing visible, a thieve would consider "wanting"
Quality: Max 2 Stereo speakers + subwoofer for a better than standard sound

My solution:
I got rid of my 2 Din Blaupunkt: Way too heavy, always the problem with EOL support stop, and as a aftermarket solution...always attractive for theft. Low resolution...endless list

IPHONE (6S/7/8 etc) PLUS model (landscape display mode capable) + car amp with Bluetooth & subwoofer amp included
Still on the lookout for such a perfect "lightweight amp" (atm using a single DIN half size car radio with Bluetooth)
Amplifier will sit in that empty 2 DIN space, and upfront a holder for my BIG SCREEN phone
the mockup frame (my old Blaupunkt one) and the IPhone case will be color matched of course


A power connector would be possible, but I noticed, that when I drive the Boxster, I barely listen to music/radio anymore and the phone is usually always charged to run a couple of hours without recharging. I do have a usb powered charger installed in my armrest, just in case I need to charge it. And the future will bring cordless charging phones anyway, so I am not wasting anymore thoughts on that. So you can have an all in one solution for radio/music/maps/phone/rear camera screen, OBD screen, tire monitor, garage door opener....ENDLESS possiblilities.

[BRAN]

Originally Posted by BRAN

it was only a matter of time until you picked up on that...one of my fav topics

I would like to see an all in one solution:
Comfortable: One system to do it all, no new operating systems to learn
Weight reduction: With merging different systems into one
Theft protection: Nothing visible, a thieve would consider "wanting"
Quality: Max 2 Stereo speakers + subwoofer for a better than standard sound

My solution:
I got rid of my 2 Din Blaupunkt: Way too heavy, always the problem with EOL support stop, and as a aftermarket solution...always attractive for theft. Low resolution...endless list

IPHONE (6S/7/8 etc) PLUS model (landscape display mode capable) + car amp with Bluetooth & subwoofer amp included
Still on the lookout for such a perfect "lightweight amp" (atm using a single DIN half size car radio with Bluetooth)
Amplifier will sit in that empty 2 DIN space, and upfront a holder for my BIG SCREEN phone
the mockup frame (my old Blaupunkt one) and the IPhone case will be color matched of course


A power connector would be possible, but I noticed, that when I drive the Boxster, I barely listen to music/radio anymore and the phone is usually always charged to run a couple of hours without recharging. I do have a usb powered charger installed in my armrest, just in case I need to charge it. And the future will bring cordless charging phones anyway, so I am not wasting anymore thoughts on that. So you can have an all in one solution for radio/music/maps/phone/rear camera screen, OBD screen, tire monitor, garage door opener....ENDLESS possiblilities.

Sorry FRED, i got carried away...

[Nine8Six]

That's all great, thanks for sharing some ideas Bran.

If I can have a fully power-automated and managed system, an OS that I am familiar with (e.g windows), "lightweight installation", and without any of those proprietary toddler style smiling magenta & purple tiles/icons, I'll call this project successful.

We'll make it ultralight, simple/humble looking, and worthy of a Porsche car, I promise you that.

Stay tuned. Hopefully I'll received the board I've designed for power management early coming week. As silly as "power management" sounds to you guys, that is actually what will define if the project will be successful. As in the hardest part of this whole design. Can't wait!

[jaykay]

I am in! Fred, thanks for your message the other day....all I can say is ....dude

I was headed for an Ipad mini head unit but ....should I wait???? I really like the clean look of it; Carplay or whatever it is does seem heavily dependant on a smart phone near by.

I the design of this should be very clean an unobtrusive such that it looks factory...and better!

Some nice to have functions:
-WAZE nav/detector interface
-virtual gauges especially for oil pressure / temp and batt; dash command app?
-lap timer, harry's etc support
-engine diagnostics
-phone pairing
-rear view camera; forward too
-music and radio
-sophisticated looking UI maybe even McLaren P1 like..

I was planning on using this amp: KICKER | PXiBT50.2. It seem to be especially designed for use with no audio head unit.

[Nine8Six]

Cool ideas! Ipad is plenty sufficient also, I'd think, I'm so out I've never own one myself. And I would never stop you to do what you planed never ever dever me do something like that.

Your amp choice is cool, although no product dimensions, or tech/chip used details so can't tell much unless you ask. Sure it will be fine, response looks ok for that size amp. Price is reasonable for the amount of features... Bluetooth, so cool

Wires 4ch(in) + 4ch(out) scares the hell out me tough. I'll try to chop half of those 8 wires and have built-in amp. i.e. just plug the speakers.

I am looking into the newest class-d amplifiers, which is possibly what your amp there is made of, and see if we can have that 4ch amp built-in. But that is all to a paused due to the complete lack of thermal work on the enclosure. Those amp chew quite a bit of current so we'll only find out when we got thermal data on both the amp and the cpu. There is only two options in the class-d amp at the moment. Well, half-decent ones anyway, and some that I can afford lollll

hot stuff :/

[The Radium King]

hey fred, if you are providing a windows machine, then you will be relying on a relatively small group of enthusiasts for the software development, so might run into bottlenecks w adoption there?

also, opportunity for a pcmcia card? that way perhaps users could put the bosch pst2 card in there?

for sound, perhaps just make it compatible with the oem amp? dunno about the most systems used in 03 and 04, but the earlier amp just took an on/off signal and LRFR signals. the oem amp actually works with just a converter cable from ipad dock to four rca, so perhaps just a build-out of your outputs? you'd need some sort of minimal sound card i guess, but no big amps or anything.

[Nine8Six]

TRK – thanks for jumping in bud! One of the main challenge for this project is to have this Porsche Infotainment working OOTB. If not priority #1, then its #1.1. General public access. Some notes below RE scalability and advantages (in Greek, beware).

1. All of the commercial devices available today comes with drivers that are “tested & signed” for windows. E.g. cameras, microphones, odb, hands-free this & that. On a Linux architecture (for instance), then you’d need to rely on that group of developer to write the drivers for Linux, if none avail from mfg at the first place. Will all those work!? I can easily picture that same product SPF aka cheap LED problem coming up again (Single Point of Failure).
   
   I want to: stop by my IT shop > buy a $15 Mini WiFi Keyboard w/backlighting > connect > and instantly having fun.
   
   
2. You are new to all this and want to write your own MP3 player? Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition is entirely FREE. I’d like to think that Microsoft is gifted with a pretty well established KB loll You have tutorials & blogs w/ source code for the Beginners up to full access to their class libraries (Experts). All of this material isn’t written in frenchglish I assure you. So plenty of material and availability for ‘everyone’. Fun!
   
   
3. Developers and/or manufacturers aren’t excluded. At all in fact, just aim for the latest .NET framework, or Python, there are a few others IDE also. You can compile in pretty much anything you want using the native Microsoft; C/++, C#, VB, SQL,ASP,….. can’t remember them all, or can do cloud based/web app shall you prefer to use other language libraries, or even if you prefer to host/compute the backend to your solutions yourself! Anyone’s choice these day really.

Could go on. So as it being ‘windows’ or in terms of scalability, I don’t see that part being a major failure “yet”.

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

the bosch pst2 card in there?

No need bud.

We already all have direct access to the Porsche CAN bus (you and I both). If you ask me that is the easiest part. What exactly do you need because I can already see and manipulate the bus data and obviously have the API to interface with the ODB for saying this (peak-system.com) e.g. live sensor monitoring, start my cooling fans ON/OFF with my index finger, cam degree monitor, silly things like that. We are also experiencing with interfacing and UDS atm, just so you (TRK!) can quickly upload your favorite tuner’s timing map – again, with your index finger. Something you could eventually call “SPORT-MODE” or “TRACK DAY MODE”

In fact, so easy that I am developing this whole Infotainment friendly to MOD/CANBUS. Even the unit's power management module itself is controlled using modbus. So you have to tell me what it is that you desperately need on your Porsche cars (986, 996, whatever it is you have), and we’ll just plan for it and crack on eventually.

Not now though… busy learning English and designing enclosure

[Nine8Six]

There. That's all very easy to replicate inside our Porsche Boxster 986 isn't it!?

(^^ Coming from someone who believe in aliens and can walk through walls)

[jaykay]

Originally Posted by Nine8Six

There. That's all very easy to replicate inside our Porsche Boxster 986 isn't it!?

(^^ Coming from someone who believe in aliens and can walk through walls)

Looks about right!

[algiorda]

That Panamera dash is amazing. Some purists will not like it since it's no longer analog, but I love high tech. I want it bad.