With everything now nice and stable, I am trying to figure out how to mount the new bezel. I had thought of using some screws in the dash, but then realized my genius idea would work but for one thing... I would not be able to use the screws with the Nexus in place. I think I could cut the hook pieces off my existing bezel, and glue those to the new one, but I would hate to cut up my existing one, and then end up with none.
Strong magnets just hold the bezel in place, I may go rummage through my old parts bin and see if I have a hard drive laying around somewhere. I am guessing that I don't, but will at least look.
Still 50/50 on whether to pick up a reverse camera or not, I would like to, but I don't know if the Easycap is fully working yet.
Nothing yet, I noticed my log yesterday that something keeps waking my Nexus up from sleep, but not yet looked into it all that much. My main thought process at the moment is how to attach the new bezel, and whether to try and get an Easycap / reverse camera working.
But, as you said, I am just happy that everything is working nicely at the moment. It's cool getting in, turning the car on and having a ton of music readily available, navigation, streaming etc.
Nothing yet, I noticed my log yesterday that something keeps waking my Nexus up from sleep, but not yet looked into it all that much. My main thought process at the moment is how to attach the new bezel, and whether to try and get an Easycap / reverse camera working.
But, as you said, I am just happy that everything is working nicely at the moment. It's cool getting in, turning the car on and having a ton of music readily available, navigation, streaming etc.
Not really much of an update, I started working on the different bezel at the weekend:
At the moment it's held in with heavy duty velcro, while it looks nicer, I don't think the velcro is a solid enough mount to hold the Nexus in place while going over bumps. I may keep velcro along the bottom, but try to figure out some way of securing it a little better at the top. I also want to do something similar to my existing set up with elastic to hold the Nexus against the bezel, firstly to keep it looking flush, and second so when I take the bezel off, the Nexus does not just fall out.
I need to sand the back a little smoother, as there are a couple high spots on the plastic that sits against the screen. But, overall it looks a little nicer. Fiberglassing my own bezel may be the next step, but I am not sure if I want to try that out just yet. If anyone has any suggestions on how to mount the bezel securely, while still allowing it to be removed easily if I want to take the Nexus out, I am all ears.
Software wise, no issues. The lastest ROM allows me to just shut the engine off while playing MP3's from my flash drive, get back in, push play and it carries on from the same spot. I have found that if I use my Nexus in the house for a while, and then put it back in the car, it seems as though I need to allow it to switch off into deep sleep before it recognizes the USB devices again. For example I had it out all weekend using it for music in the house, put it in the car last night, and while everything showed up in the log, no sound came out. As soon as I turned the ignition off and on again, everything was working well.
I think that is the velcro I am using, but white/clear instead of black. It is some strong stuff, but I can only get a contact piece of about 1/3 of an inch along the bottom. Maybe if I can figure out a way to glue some blocks of plastic or something to the back of the bezel, I can use it at the top/sides as well, which then all I would need is the elastic to hold the Nexus against the bezel itself (and that's more just for installation/removal of the tablet).
I think that is the velcro I am using, but white/clear instead of black. It is some strong stuff, but I can only get a contact piece of about 1/3 of an inch along the bottom. Maybe if I can figure out a way to glue some blocks of plastic or something to the back of the bezel, I can use it at the top/sides as well, which then all I would need is the elastic to hold the Nexus against the bezel itself (and that's more just for installation/removal of the tablet).
That's some heavy duty velcro leo!!! lol My first thought was to use that too (my N7 still has it on the back since it's not yet mounted) but then I found a more secure way to fix it.
Been keeping an eye on that thread I am waiting for the track buttons to be on the bar along with the volume. I don't really need the clock centered as I have one that sits below my speedometer, track buttons will be awesome for when I have my wife riding in the car and she wants to change the song.
My DCDC-USB arrived today, the idea I had with Redzman is currently not working, so for now I just cut off the female USB ports from my Chinese power converter, and soldered them onto the outputs of the DCDC-USB. One set of outputs goes direct to the USB hub, the other goes to the charging side of the Nexus. My battery is currently 61%, and with a 90 minute drive tomorrow I am curious to see what it ends up at. For now I am just running the DCDC-USB in "dumb" mode, I am not sure if I will gain anything from switching to automotive, but will look into it at some point.
My bezel is slowly coming along, I have it attached securely, but there is a gap between it and the Nexus. I could use my boxer shorts elastic method again, but am debating doing something different. There are 2 bolts at the side of the Nexus, I am thinking of using some of this:
Coupled with those bolts to make a piece to hold the Nexus up against the bezel. I am also going to pick up a couple of these type of brackets, that I can bolt into the dash, and then use the heavy duty velcro to hold the bezel in place.
I have something similar with plastic that I am currently using, but it's too tall. Hopefully I can use a vice to bend the metal to exactly the height that I need it, and can also make it run the width of the Nexus to give more of an area for the velcro to stick onto.
I think I had seen someone else use them as well, and they seem sturdy enough that they should work well. Hoping that I can find one that I can use existing bolts in my dash to hold them in place.
Power issues again for me this week, could be heat related, but I am not certain. Yesterday on the way to work I lost 10% of my battery, today I lost 2%. This with a DCDC-USB and only using the Sirius XM app in offline mode (no network connections at all). I am trying to find an app that monitors power status, I am using Battery Widget, which seems to be working OK. The odd thing is that on the way home yesterday, it was showing as "Charging" until about an hour into my drive, then it changed over to "Discharging". This morning it was still reading as "Discharging" despite the built in battery settings showing charging. I also wonder if the battery drain is not linear, yesterday I started at 40% and lost the 10%, today I started at 66% and lost 2% on the exact same drive, same apps running, very similar ambient temperature etc.
Power issues again for me this week, could be heat related, but I am not certain. Yesterday on the way to work I lost 10% of my battery, today I lost 2%. This with a DCDC-USB and only using the Sirius XM app in offline mode (no network connections at all). I am trying to find an app that monitors power status, I am using Battery Widget, which seems to be working OK. The odd thing is that on the way home yesterday, it was showing as "Charging" until about an hour into my drive, then it changed over to "Discharging". This morning it was still reading as "Discharging" despite the built in battery settings showing charging. I also wonder if the battery drain is not linear, yesterday I started at 40% and lost the 10%, today I started at 66% and lost 2% on the exact same drive, same apps running, very similar ambient temperature etc.
I half wonder the same thing about my set up, the only thing I can think of though is if the solder connection between the female USB port, and the output wire of the DCDC-USB is not good. It's a shame I can't easily get to it (well, I can, just need an 8mm wrench) or I would would swap the USB hub and Nexus power at lunch to see if it makes any difference. If I still get the same charging/discharging behaviour on the other USB port, then I would lean towards my solder connections being good (unless they are both bad, which is also a possibility!!).
WTF... changed the DCDC-USB over to automotive mode, plug everything back in, and my hub is not getting power. Tested it on the laptop and it's working fine, so must be something odd in the car wiring.
Edit: Easy enough fix. The USB cable from the hub to the OTG had popped out. Annoyingly I had to remove my entire glovebox to discover this, but at least it was something simple. Put a bit of tape on it for added security as it felt kind of loose.
I still feel that something is odd with the power though, on Wednesday all of a sudden I charged 5% in 15 minutes. Since then, with almost exactly the same conditions I have been slowly losing charge. Using battery monitor widget, I show as always being connected to A/C power, yet 90% of the time the status is showing as discharging. I have my DCDC-USB on automotive mode now, pulling both switched and constant 12v power from the OEM stereo wiring harness. I am somewhat at a loss really. Especially with the random jump in charging in Wednesday, drove to work and lost 5% throughout the day (drive to and from work). Stopped for 10 minutes, then drove home and battery charged fully. All day Thursday the battery remained at 100%, on the way home I tried a few more battery intensive apps which dropped the battery down to about 95%, and since then it's just slowly gone down to the 82% when I got home today.
As to my power issues, I think there may be a problem with the connection on my Nexus. I brought it inside last night to fully charge, update etc. When I plugged in the A/C power, it showed charging, then a slight knock to the cable, and it showed as A/C plugged, but discharging. I tried it a couple times, and not once did it go to charging right away. It's almost impossible to check the connector, so I am not sure what to do. I may try to find the original receipt and return it for an exchange (assuming I can flash it back to stock).
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