[thorpee]

So I decided to mount a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7inch in my Holden Cruze dash to perform GPS and music duties plus a whole lot more.

I got the idea and product information from wmschoonover in this forum topic http://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/36-audio-electronics/8792-7-android-tablet-dash.html some members in there were asking for a step by step guide, so I took heaps of photos as I was doing it.

The housing kit for the tablet came from this site JY Custom CCRUZ-74 2 Piece Navi & Digital Display Housing. Basically my originally stock stereo still operates exactly the same except for a tablet being connected to it's aux input. This means steering wheel controls remain the same. The kit included an enclosure for the stock stereo information display so it could be relocated to the compartment above the stereo. Then a bezel was included to attach a tablet and install it where the stock display use to be. The kit was designed for a Magellan Roadmate series GPS so some modification was required to make the galaxy fit.

Higher res photos here http://imgur.com/a/le6K6#0

Here I had to sand back the tablet to make it fit with the nav kits bezel. No more warranty

I Pulled the tablets back cover off to ensure I didn't hit anything important when dremeling

A screw hole which will hold the tablet securely in.

Had to modify the dock connector the tablet uses. I really wanted to use a Nexus tab as it uses a micro usb, but the samsung tab's length was just a little shorter so it made a better fit.

Had to cut a little off the tab that holds the bezel into the dash. Later when I had to install it in the car I need to take more off.

Applied fine double sided tape to hold the tablet to the bezel.

Then I carefully aligned the tablet to the bezel and screwed a rubber belt that was provided with the kit. This kept the tab in position and added to the strength of the double sided tape.

It holds together nicely. You can see the tablet is a little bigger then the bezel, this made it a bit hard to install in the dash, I will get to that soon.

This is the power system I used. Again it came with the kit. They call it a smart box and it provides a regulated supply of power. It wires up the same way a headunit would accessory wire, constant 12v, and ground (-). As you can see it already has a female cigarette pulg on it. This allowed me to plug in a 12v usb charger. Make sure you get a 1.5 or 2amp one as the tab will not charge if you were to use a standard 0.5 amp one. The smart box also has a 3.5mm audio cable input and output which cleans the signal of electrical noise.

Now the fun part pulling apart the dash. I recommend following an online guide to pull apart your dash as I did with my Cruze. You can see the stock stereo screen is in the same place the tablet will soon be in.

Pulled the top compartment out. there was two bolts and two little rubber grommets holding it in.

Empty compartment area.

Empty Console

Screwing the stock stereo screen into its new enclosure. Two brackets held it in place and an extension cable was provided with the kit.

The extension cable plugging into the original cable.

Trying to get the tablet in.

Some hackery to the internal sides of the dash. I mainly did this to allow for the dock connector and audio cable to be plugged in.

 

[thorpee]

A dremel is your friend.

Things are a bit easy to get in now. As the tablet is a little bigger then the bezel I had to push and pull the soft dash plastic to get it in.

This is a photo inside the air con duct which is right next to the tablet.
I had get my hand in there to plug in the audio and dock connector.

See the dock cable running up to the tablet. This is the point where I had to cut a little more off the bezels side clip to make room for the dock connector.

Back of stock stereo unit. I tapped into the accessories, constant 12v, and ground here. I used a multi meter and worked out which was the correct wire. It seems my radio has two accessory wires, one for when the key is first inserted, and one for when the key is turned to accessories. By mistake I plugged the smart box into the accessories wire that turns on by only inserting the key, But I like it like that anyways.

There was a hole the perfect size to hide the smart box under the stereo.

I then run the 3.5mm audio cable passed the gear stick and towards the 3.5mm input under my arm rest. I probably could have connected it in the stereo, but I still wanted the option to unplug the tablet and plug another device in.

The old coat hanger trick to pull it through

There was a drainage hole in the compartment already, so I just ripped out a little bit of plastic in the center of it and the cable fit through.

The end result

For music updates I have a wifi signal in my garage so I just load up spotify and choose the playlists I want downloaded and then leave it finish overnight. Then in the morning my music is ready for offline playback.

For internet I have installed autotether on both my phone and tablet. It will turn your phones hotspot on by shortcut widget on the tablet. Saves grabing your phone out of your pocket or bag then thumbling through menus to activate it.

I use tasker to turn the screen on and resume the last song when the accessory power is provided from the car via the ignition being turned on. Likewise it turns the screen off and pauses music when car is turned off. The tablet has plenty of battery life to last days in an idle state.

 

[bci26401]

U had a little too much time on your hands to think this one up but job well done.

 

[obermd]

Nice write up. Why not put the BlueTooth PDIM in and improve your audio and eliminate the 3.5mm cord?

 

[Maxzillian]

I'm in the process of finishing mine up. I found that the tablet can fit the holder if you notch out about half the diameter of those two pegs. I've got the rubber straps that come in the kit arranged in a V-pattern with the bottom secured to a tab at the bottom of the mount and the top of each secured at the two pegs. This actually holds the tablet very well and doesn't rattle, but the tablet does creep up ever-so-slightly after a while.

This has allowed me to temporarily mount the tablet while I've been testing. I had to trim my dash to clear the Samsung connector, but I can manage to wedge the assembly in without cutting up more of the dash; the connector has to be plugged in after the tablet is mounted. I ended up mounting mine upside down so that I could reach the power button by removing the bezel around the radio, but I too have resorted to tasker to handle turning the tablet on and keeping the display from dimming due to inactivity. Ultimately I had installed the bluetooth PDIM previously to this job so I just stream audio to the radio with my setup.

Right now I'm running a nightly build of Cyanogenmod 10.1 which allows me to set the DPI (dots per inch) of the tablet to 240. This makes everything easily readable and the buttons larger, but being a nightly build it does have bugs. So far the only one that bothers me is that the icons on a quick-launch bar like to randomly stack on top of each other. Other than that, it's actually stable near as I can tell.

 

[thorpee]

Thanks guys. I like the Bluetooth idea only I know from experience Bluetooth can be problematic with pairing up, so I don't really want to add any issues when I know a solid wire connection will work everytime. I can see it might be a good idea for people that don't want to run the cable back to their arm rest. Also are you sure audio quality would be better? as I thought the devices compress the signal. Can I install the Bluetooth module and also keep/use my aux input?

 

[thorpee]

I'm in the process of finishing mine up. I found that the tablet can fit the holder if you notch out about half the diameter of those two pegs. I've got the rubber straps that come in the kit arranged in a V-pattern with the bottom secured to a tab at the bottom of the mount and the top of each secured at the two pegs. This actually holds the tablet very well and doesn't rattle, but the tablet does creep up ever-so-slightly after a while.

This has allowed me to temporarily mount the tablet while I've been testing. I had to trim my dash to clear the Samsung connector, but I can manage to wedge the assembly in without cutting up more of the dash; the connector has to be plugged in after the tablet is mounted. I ended up mounting mine upside down so that I could reach the power button by removing the bezel around the radio, but I too have resorted to tasker to handle turning the tablet on and keeping the display from dimming due to inactivity. Ultimately I had installed the bluetooth PDIM previously to this job so I just stream audio to the radio with my setup.

Right now I'm running a nightly build of Cyanogenmod 10.1 which allows me to set the DPI (dots per inch) of the tablet to 240. This makes everything easily readable and the buttons larger, but being a nightly build it does have bugs. So far the only one that bothers me is that the icons on a quick-launch bar like to randomly stack on top of each other. Other than that, it's actually stable near as I can tell.

Yeah I may not have had to cut into my tablet like I did, but I wasn't quiet sure how the kit went together as the instructions were vague. I also need to find a way to access the power button and in future I wil add one of these for hot swappable SD cards http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SDHC-SD-card-to-micro-SD-TF-extension-adapter-FPC-cable-for-mobile-phone-/221149974785?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item337d90 d101

So did you cut most of the bezels clip off to make room for the dock/power connector?
I did most of the work to the tablet before pulling apart the dash so I assumed I had to keep most of the clip, which is why I hacked up the dock connector so much.

 

[thorpee]

Nice write up. Why not put the BlueTooth PDIM in and improve your audio and eliminate the 3.5mm cord?

Hrmm, if this makes the steering wheel controls change songs on the tablet I'm sold. Can you confirm this?

 

[Lightz39]

Thats actually very cool. If only they still had unlimited data plans. >.>

 

[obermd]

Thanks guys. I like the Bluetooth idea only I know from experience Bluetooth can be problematic with pairing up, so I don't really want to add any issues when I know a solid wire connection will work everytime. I can see it might be a good idea for people that don't want to run the cable back to their arm rest. Also are you sure audio quality would be better? as I thought the devices compress the signal. Can I install the Bluetooth module and also keep/use my aux input?

When I installed my Bluetooth PDIM and tested my sound quality improved so much I thought I had installed a whole new stereo system, including speakers. The 3.5mm jack is good for "books on tape" and that's about it. It's response range is aimed a spoken word and not music. I also have full access to the USB and 3.5mm ports should I want to use them. Bluetooth A2DP also gets rid of the alternator whine that you can hear through the 3.5mm jack when your device is plugged in for power.

Hrmm, if this makes the steering wheel controls change songs on the tablet I'm sold. Can you confirm this?

The only thing I can't do from my steering wheel is select my play list. I also don't see the track information on my display. I can start/stop the music, control volume (I keep my Android at full volume), and skip/repeat/fast forward/fast reverse from the steering wheel.

The writeup for the Bluetooth PDIM is linked in my sig.

 

[obermd]

Thats actually very cool. If only they still had unlimited data plans. >.>

There is one android navigation software on the market that uses internally stored maps. You download the maps over wi-fi. I don't remember the name off the top of my head, however, but it's easy to find.

 

[bbdhomer]

What an awesome job - great write up with pictures. Scratch free result my friend, hats off!

 

[emanon9297]

Great write up, I am def sold on the tablet install. My girl wants it so im looking to get it very very soon.

 

[phantomknight321]

I would be all over this but i still dont like how you lose access to the power button...

plus i really like my galaxy tab, i would have to buy another one for it

 

[rpcraft]

Great write up, and for what it is worth to anyone wondering about the sound quality... I have played music from my phone over bluetooth and then swapped to the same song (same MP3 file) playing on my older ipod on the USB connector and there is some loss of bass over the BT connection. It's not bad overall, but it's one of those things where it is noticeable. I imagine if you get a little more advanced in your setup and add a subwoofer it will not be such a loss, or at least easier to compensate for. I'm thinking when I do mine I may use an Audison DSP and have an EQ setup for each input so it will be adjustable. I'd like to do the tablet in the dash but I'm trying to finish up a bike project that is kinda taking all my money right now, lol.

 

[obermd]

The USB port in the Cruze handles music really well. The problem is the 3.5mm port - it doesn't handle music well at all. OP hooked into the 3.5 mm port for sound. Bluetooth is far better than the 3.5mm port for music.

 

[rpcraft]

Yeah, Honestly I have never considering using it. I guess for anyone with some offbranded device that only plays through a headset jack I could see it being necessary but I just look at that thing with disdain........ lol :disgust (1):

 

[Maxzillian]

Yeah I may not have had to cut into my tablet like I did, but I wasn't quiet sure how the kit went together as the instructions were vague. I also need to find a way to access the power button and in future I wil add one of these for hot swappable SD cards http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SDHC-SD-card-to-micro-SD-TF-extension-adapter-FPC-cable-for-mobile-phone-/221149974785?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item337d90 d101

So did you cut most of the bezels clip off to make room for the dock/power connector?
I did most of the work to the tablet before pulling apart the dash so I assumed I had to keep most of the clip, which is why I hacked up the dock connector so much.

I don't have a photo, but I shortened the bezel clip enough to clear the connector without modifying the connector at all. Everything seems to fit just fine as what I removed was more just the section that guides the peg into the slot of the dashboard.

Here's some photos of my install.

 

[obermd]

Yeah, Honestly I have never considering using it. I guess for anyone with some offbranded device that only plays through a headset jack I could see it being necessary but I just look at that thing with disdain........ lol :disgust (1):

Mine plays through both the headset jack and the usb jack. My music is taking up about 25 GB of a 32 GB micro-SD card. Google Navigator also needs to use this card and since I use my phone for both navigation and music, I can't plug the phone into a data port via USB. Google Navigator requires the external SD card be controlled by the phone. Android has a design flaw in that the SD card cannot be accessed by the device at the same time its being accessed via a USB interface. I say this is a design flaw because Windows CE 5 and 6 didn't have this restriction.

 

[emanon9297]

"Thorpee"

I use tasker to turn the screen on and resume the last song when the accessory power is provided from the car via the ignition being turned on. Likewise it turns the screen off and pauses music when car is turned off. The tablet has plenty of battery life to last days in an idle state.


Man what settings do you go to to make the tasker turn off when the ignition is off...???