Another Sat Nav to Smartphone Conversion Project
 

Inspired by the thread “Samsung Note II in place of Sat-NAV” by the member “panastas” I thought I'd give it a go as well. My plan is to use the original Samsung Note instead of Note II as it is slightly smaller and (supposedly) a better fit for the existing center dash panel (which I intend to use as is) cut out. My plans also include the following:

• Use the original cassette/radio head unit as it is.
• Fabricate a fastening system out of sheet metal which can be screwed in the place of the old Sat Nav unit.
• Make custom plug-in cable(s) to tap into the CD changer Ai-Net audio input (no need to change/destroy the original wiring). My car has the standard audio system but I believe this should work with the premium audio system too (someone to verify this?).
• An extra 3,5mm stereo aux-in socket with automatic switching for plugging in yet another audio source.
• Add a switch for selecting either the CD changer or the phone/aux-in as the audio source.
• Power and volume buttons of the smartphone will be wired to external push buttons.
• A USB port to interface the phone for uploads and upgrades.
• Wire the existing in-car hands-free mic to the smartphone.
• Install a car phone charger behind the panel which will be powered whenever the ignition is on. I might add a switch to this as well.

I've got most of the parts and materials already and have begun the fabrication/installation process. All the buttons, switches and sockets will be installed in the place of the original Sat Nav unit buttons. Wherever possible I will try to do the entire thing so that the whole installation can be reversed to original if needed. Will upload some photos later.

Big thanks to Sam for showing how to remove the center dash panel without breaking it:
Here's some work-in-progress photos:

I am really curious to see how the external button will look like in place of the old SAT / NAV buttons.

I am currently having a hell of a difficult time sourcing the CF weave to wrap my new custom panel so if I could use the old panel and fill the holes with something aesthetically nice would be awsome.

Also, I rooted the Note 2 which means I could get rid of the 3 hard buttons and instead replace them with soft buttons which are part of the screen. That means the fit to the original aperture is almost perfect plus it looks a lot more stock without the 3 hard buttons showing.

Really curious to see your progress

Pavlos

Well this is proving to be rather tricky but it's getting there slowly I guess. I'm using only 0.5mm thick aluminium sheet mainly because I have only limited amount of metal working tools. It seems to do the job just about but some reinforcements will be necessary. I'm planning to glue some birds eye maple veneer behind the buttons when I get everything else in place and working. The veneer will be dyed, varnished and polished.

I've drawn some CAD drawings of these parts I'm making so PM me if you want to have a look. I used the free open source LibreCAD software but they're in .dxf format so in theory should be compatible with any CAD software...

Project going ahead slowly. Started planning and doing the electronics. I will be using stripboards to avoid any messy PCB etching etc, which this project doesn't really need anyway. Drew the attached schema with KiCad. I have not tested this out yet so it might contain errors. Please let me know if you spot any. Use at your own risk :)

Edit: Ok, looks like the way I designed the USB connections is not going to work so ignore that bit for the time being...

Regarding the Ai-Net tap-in cable I made it from one of these (for the female connector) and one of these (For the male connector and wire. You only need less than one meter of it. I still have the rest of my cable with the other male connector attachet to it. I'm happy to send it over to anyone in the UK if someone wants it).

Don't get one of those cheap Ai-Net to 3.5mm aux-in plug adapter cables as they most likely don't have a full Ai-Net connector.

Looks like the way I designed the USB connections is not going to work so ignore that bit for the time being. I'll update the schematic in post #5 when I have a working solution.

JagTheRipper, what ever happened to your install? Did you finish?

I actually didn't finish this. There was always something bothering me about this approach. It somehow didn't feel right so the phone I got for this has been in my pocket all this time and the center panel is still missing from the car :\

My new "plan" (if there is such thing) is to actually put a Raspberry Pi with a touch screen in place of the old SatNav. The idea would be to keep the external look original and re-use the old buttons for some functionality via the GPIO in the RPi. I started a thread about this here a while ago:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...rry-pi-157252/

It's getting somewhere after post #6 but progress is slow as there's too many other stuff to take care of too in life :\

Ahhh. I understand.