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

[PaulE]

Fred this is amazing, even though the chance of me buying one is remote I am following this thread with great interest. Would it be feasible/possible to incorporate a TPMS function? I'm not encumbered with technical knowledge so it's easy for me to think big! I do know from my own work that expanding a project to have every possible bell and whistle is a good way to fail. There are lots of aftermarket TPMS systems out now that use a solar powered monitor that sticks to the top of the dash or plugs into the cigarette lighter. How cool would it be if TPMS could be a readout on your unit?

This is an example of one of the TPMS kits available -

[Nine8Six]

Paul, I think you could even do this yourself? I'm serious bud. The IC (SP370-23-106-0) is $10 and a breadboard and mcu is around another $10. Bet you only need access to max 5 pins of the sensor. For the coding part just contact the manufacturer and they'll shoot over samples in C language for you to interface this in a snap. Normally how it works, for me anyway.

Mind you the kit has already a built-in MCU (ATmega32u4) with more digital and analog pins that you'll ever need for a car (I think?). You also have access to SPI/CPU if you need more serious processing!

Creative Developer's Dream Kit, basically.

So things like these, all good ideas I agree (tire pressure IS important), but if we do it all there will be nothing left for the chaps to have fun with Atm we need the unit to be available, simply made and reliable. That'd be a good start Goodies later bud!

PS: We already have a fella here who is already deep into prototyping his own applications with the same kit. I believe (I've been told) he is working onto an active suspension system. He is apparently using the can-bus ABS raw, add-on accelerators & gyro 'and process over the CPU'. Crazy stuff... all above my head of course but none the less, can't wait to see what ppl does with it.

Limitless, they say lolll

[Oggie]

This looks truly amazing. Dying to see the finished product.

[Nine8Six]

Very kind, thank you Sir

Dunno ab being amazing but surely a cool little project, glad you like it already. Hope to be sending the (prototype) enclosure to mfg in a week. Not rushing; but almost lolll

Quick Update

Think I got all of the components modeled. Those I'll using for the prototype anyway. Connectors pin'ed and labelled also, ready to be registered and passed over the Electrical Routing model. So much more to be done before however but all quite elementary stuff, as you can see.

Currently designing the individual compartments for each areas of the kit (cooling, usb hub, inputs/outputs, etc). The hardest part is trying to design this as 'simple' as it possibly can, keeping the cost of manufacturing at its bare minimum, placing and grooving material so to make it all easy for the end user to swap any part anywhere in the kit shall one fail.

Nothing really interesting atm, e-routing will be tough! I'll be starting-up on the simulation models this coming Friday also, that will be a tad more relaxing (for me anyway).





^ This really gives you an idea of how minuscule this thing is. Look at the audio jack lolll

[redciv1]

WOW Fred. You really give me inspiration for attempting all kinds of things. And what I love best is your willingness to share. If we had a MOTY, it would definitely be you in my opinion. I like tweaking with car audio so this is up my ally. Can't wait to see production.

[Nine8Six]

MOTY ; Most Obsolete Talented Yawny!

To bore you all more... here goes a Quick Update and more funny pics

Was struggling with the little four USB dip thingies I previously sourced online (seen in previous screen grabs; little independent pcb holding a single usb port). Wiggly stuff, and it needed a pretty complex system just to hold that stack-of-stuff together. Too many screws also and sure it would have needed bubble gum to patch things up loll

So I just tossed away that old stuff and went custom, again. Why making a fuss ab it and where does this leaves us?! Nowhere, just a week behind/late as we now need to wait for the parts to show up and test out okay :/

All better stuff tough… TE Connectivity /AMP only, a whooping $0.8cents/connectorX4 onto a $0.25 PCB. We’re so awll ruined

I’ll update nx week when things are working again.


^ Talking about this little 4 ports connector pack. Present itself on the ‘back’ panel (not the front, no worries loll)


^ Goes here, there, somewhere in that lower back corner.




^ As shown above, even the most advanced circuit board known to human (and other races) can take up to 5hrs to measure and put together in a CAD assembly. Thankfully, FREE software like Circuit Maker does it so well. So easy you could ask your sister to do those PCB for you



^ Once you've toasted this in C.Maker, aligned everything and made the current traces thick enough to cope with 500ma, you then shoot this over a PCB Printing Co in Gerber format and they'll do the rest for you. Example of this same PCB loaded onto OSH Park's backend.

And that is how its done, basically! Lucky for me, the pcb printing companies here does it in 24hrs (+1 day shipping). Hehhehheh

And $4 dollars later LOL (all very important Quick Updates fellas)

[Nine8Six]

Yayyy we have USB x4!!!

Hrrr.. that was hard for some freakin weird reason, for me anyway. Partly because I wasted so many hours trying to fit in those previous pcb/usb parts I got at a dollar each. Glad those are in my Royal Rubbish Bin now. See... trying to cut corners to get things done quick and dirty just never works :/ Oh well, at least I've tried lolll

Anyway, happy with below CAD fitment and look & feel. Solid kit; TE Conn/genuine connectors, all fun stuff!

Thank you very much for listening(reading), almost feeling better now

[CdnRD]

Amazing stuff Fred! First thing I look at when I open my computer in the morning!

[Wallace River]

My chequebook has one cheque set aside

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by CdnRD

Amazing stuff Fred! First thing I look at when I open my computer in the morning!

Oh man, that is so cool to hear. I'll try my best to detail the steps the best I can and update as often as I can. Unfortunately I have to leave a lot of stuff out as it would just bury the whole "car related" thing under a ton of technical rumble. I'd get bored myself loll I'll try my best to entertain more! Thanks for the encouragement bud

Originally Posted by Wallace River

My chequebook has one cheque set aside

Cheques are for important stuff my friend! Trying to built this kit in a way that we can pay them off with our spare change Already reached the $250 mark. Goes fast :/ (sukx, this world needs rebooting man)

Originally Posted by algiorda

Wow Fred, if you are supplying 4 USB you must have quite a power capacity for that voltage. Are these USB 2 or 3?

The whole system is rated at 5AMP. Runs both 12VDC and 5VDC independently and managed/filtered by a uninterrupted power supply (UPS) over a MODBUS logic. (Spanish for good stuff)

5AMP = 0.4amp for the whole system itself. Very energy/efficient. Intel Corp… pffff. That means it leaves you with little over 4 amps for your USB hub. Unseen yet in the screen grabs is a Hub Controller (pic below) which is rated at 1 amp per channel (has 4Ch).

Unless your GF decide to retrofit her hair dryer to USB one day or you plan on powering your HID lighting off the back of a Car PC, then we need to talk man loll As of most of today’s commercially available USB devices, we should have more than enough overhead with that 4amp Man that’s a lots of webcams lollll

USB 2.0 of course! Compatible to literally everything. If really you need the 3.0 digital signals (or xfer rate), something tells me this is something that normally doesn’t happen in a Car. Regardless, the mainboard already has 1 (one) built-in 3.0 port, few ways for you to access it if really (really really) you need that

Hope that answers your Qs bud. Feel free to ask any other questions (other than USB related LOLLL… man almost hate the thing now)




^ Spanish for S.M.A.R.T lolll

[algiorda]

Wow Fred, if you are supplying 4 USB you must have quite a power capacity for that voltage. Are these USB 2 or 3?

[algiorda]

Thanks for the explanation Fred. I was asking about the USB 3.0 since you are using a Windows Platform, it would be cool to be able to store or review photos from my Digital SLR when I'm in the field taking photos. I can transfer them to the Head unit and review them and USB 3.0 has a much faster transfer speed. Not important or essential, like everything else it's nice to have.

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by algiorda

Thanks for the explanation Fred.

My pleasure And how come my GH4 is full WIFI and a full frame DSLR is not?! You need an upgrade soon my friend

Any questions or concerns, do ask guys.

Last update of the week: the kit comes with a door! A lid, cover, panel, whatever you call this thing... it comes with one. Modeling that door is a good sign fellas... we are getting near(er) the manufacturing phase. Just need a heatsink(+CFD), and a frame for the IPS display and off it goes in the machines! The easy bits (hrrr finally)

(off to the river with the 2 dogs, wife and friends for the whole weekend guys - 4hrs driving starting 6am in the morning. Lets catch up next week, have a good one fellas!)


^ poor quality render, apologies. Ran this in less that 10min. Good visual none the less

[Nine8Six]

^ All very fancy pics, does it work?!

What a weekend. The dogs kept on barking randomly at some night critters the whole of Saturday night so most of us didn’t get sleep. Well, I did LOL but the others hardly slept (oops!). We stayed in 5* tents, of course (camping!).

Oh well. We came back at lunch time so I am already upstairs in my office carrying on the design validations (CFD) on our assembly while the wife and my puppies are catching up some good sleep. I am only doing flow atm… pointless to include coupled thermal at this stage, all we need to know for now is whether the heatsink I’ve designed a few hour ago is getting an ‘effective’ flow of fresh air.




^ Omitted in previous screen grabs is the front of the assembly. Nothing to show really… other than the frame that caps off (seal) the whole enclosure. That frame is modeled to accommodate both the IPS display & capacitive touch screen (sandwiched together).




^ Using a straight ‘fin’ system for our heatsink here. The whole idea was to get fresh air flowing between the fins with very little resistance/drag. Pins are also very effective, however in a design like ours, they would simply create excessive turbulence. So for us, fins are the most effective way.




^ Above is our fluid domain. It is the core fluid from our sealed assembly. Essential step to all CFD analisys. Inserting this pic because those fluid domain are quite difficult to extract. This is accurate to 0.2mm.




^ The-End-of-the-world here. Preliminary CFD on our design/assembly fails huge. As you can see from the grab above, we are not getting a ‘flow’ on the heatsink. We are surely getting so air (air is air) but not effective at all. My intention of having a inlet and outlet positioned the way they are now was a good one but results are not satisfactory.



^ Oh hang on, we are actually getting 'some' air (air is air!), but nothing like what I was aiming for. That is so NOT going to cool down my CPU and GPU, pretty useless in fact. Don't even bother doing thermal validation with this LOLL

So at that stage, we might as well just buy those $200 Asian (Android?) 2DIN kits. Those aren’t professionally thermally managed and often heat up to 90~100degree Celsius on a good summer day (I’ve heard/read a few weeks ago only).

The other option is to stop crying and fix our design by blocking where the air likes to go and channel ALL of it onto-our-heatsink! Sounds easy but let's see lollll I’ll get this done in a few hours and re-run the validations. This does NOT go into my machines for prod if no proven thermal management comes out before lollll

I'll update later this eve

[Nine8Six]

Bingo! We got it. All it needed was closing the top and bottom cabling trays (circled in red below). Thank god I took my time and didn't do the Electrical Routing before CFD, I would have had to run these wires all over again.

So there we have it. Every cubes of air is assigned to cooling the unit, no lost. Now if you ask me, this is the part where I get really exited in manufacturing this assembly. As long as I know this will work out as planed, I'm happy to trow the rest of the energy it needs for project completion. Goes fast from here

I'll run the thermal analysis this week, although not sure I'll upload as many visuals. Wouldn't want to bore anyone. Besides I am still waiting for a member to say "Hey, this is a CAR forum" lollll Pushing my luck with all this technical stuff



^ In red are are the two areas that needed closing, so to channel ALL of the air between those fins. Bye bye cabling trays however, can;t have it all!




^ Our updated fluid domain. Notice the 3 openings to let the hot air evacuate the central PCB area. This is done with a slight negative pressure




^ More than happy with this consistent flow. In fact, it performs far better than what I was hoping for (see for yourself in below grabs). Super exited about this. Hard work paying off, finally




^ Top view




^ View from the side




^ And finally, with some of the layers turned ON... so you guys can visualize what's happening in there

Enjoy!

[kjc2050]

Whatever the hell you want, Fred, I'm in. Amazing!!

[Troy.Boxster]

This is such a great project and I'm totally in for one (and Skybreaker when you are doing those again)! I love all the details and the updates and can hardly wait for the product.

[fridsten]

This is awesome! A question regarding the cooling, though. Where is the air intake? And how do you make sure it's not blocked in any way?
Am I correct when I assume that since this unit will extend far less deep than a regular stereo unit, there will be a lot of cooler air behind it, which will be used for cooling?

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by fridsten

..

Q:Where is the air intake?
A: Back panel, middle-left side. Is not an intake, its an opening. The fan act as exhaust.

Q: how do you make sure it's not blocked in any way?
A: I don't. You get to do this! Although not exactly sure what you mean by that

Q: a lot of cooler air behind it, which will be used for cooling?
A; Doesn't need to be "cooling" specifically. I do advise on air circulation however. Refer to previous thermal model to know the air volume you'll need to equalize the temp in the unit.

Lastly, on the subject of 'cooling';

Auto makers already design their vehicles for console cooling, that is how they get away with dash electronics cooling in most of today’s vehicles – also to prevent ears from popping violently when opening the windows (neutral pressure eq). Mostly passive and relying on buoyancy (although not exactly sure how they manage the latest in a 'n' shaped dash, secret I guess). Your cabin/dash is not sealed water tight but you guys knew that already.

Because our kit is The-Best-in-the-World, ours absolutely NEEDS active cooling! Really depends what you do with it tough, if for listening music or for deco only (1~2watts CPU usage max) then passive cooling is sufficient. I’ve plugged in the active cooling for “Ultimate Performance” reason as I (personally) plan on beating the CPU in many ways (real-time OBD fast query and data logging, listening to police radios + FM radio simultaneously (with my newly acquired UV HF RTL-SDR tuner!!!), and/or while encoding H.264 media, etc etc… All At The Same Time if I need! You get the idea

But again; Intel chip… it comes with factory built-in protection e.g. start throttling at 80dC and auto shutdown at 90dC. Gives you an idea of what this little devil can withstand

[redciv1]

WOW Fred. I'm trying to follow some of the tech talk and this is fascinating. BTW, the headunit was the first thing I replace a month after buying. Its only been about 10 months and already went through 3 headunits. BTW, Im not sure I saw this earlier but will there be tuning options like Xover points, subwoofer phase, gains front and rear...etc? I am running a Kenwood KMM 515 Mechless unit at the moment. I had an Alpine ute-52, but the Kenwoods speaker/sound tuning won me over.