Head Unit Upgrade

[emptyman Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close emptyman]

Here is a photo of my reversing camera as well that is attached to the All-in-1 unit. It attaches by two screws just under the 'lip' above the rear number plate. I chose one that has a wide angle, and is adjustable. Note the wires. Yellow connects via the extension RCA cable below. I also got a 10 metre long RCA-RCA Yellow tip cable in case the 5m was not long enough - but I never measured how much I used :-(

The 12v power comes from the reversing light power. Note that the reversing light 12v is on the car body (part of tail lights) - and not the back door, so the cable needs some extension wire as well - another thing to have handy on the weekend you plan to install this. The back door has the number plate lights - which I know does have 12v available, but I did not want the camera available only when I have my lights on.

For those interested, I will dig up the specs on the camera

I will also post some pictures of the view I get at the back of the Prado.



[img]Image%20larger%20than%20800%20pixels,%20please%20r e-size[/img]

[emptyman Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close emptyman]

This is a photo of a wiring harness that you may (or may not) also need. I bought mine from Repco (Supercheap had exactly the same thing for $22 - Super expensive!). There are only two harnesses for toyotas in the catalogue (one is early models, and one is for late models - I bought the late model version). BTW - You do not necessarily even need to buy a harness if you are good at 'popping' out and in pins from the existing harness.

[emptyman Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close emptyman]

There are many of these all-in-1 units available on ebay, oztion, markets, and car audio houses. Here is a photo of the back of my unit showing all the connections. I set it up on a bench before connecting it into the Prado, to make sure everything worked. It did. I will post photos of the front as soon as I take more photos. I did NOT buy if from ebay. I also bought it direct from the China manufacturer.



The cover of the chingish manual is below...



I am in the process of getting OziExplorer working on it. I successfully have OziExplorer loaded on the unit via SD-RAM, but cannot type in the registration key - as there is no keyboard. I will track down the Windows CE on-screen keboard .exe and all should be sweet. Lots more to talk about on this topic... whether it occurs here on in the GPS section is yet to be determined... My thoughts is to keep it in this thread.

[Damien Parker Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Damien Parker]

Got any pics of the unit itself and in operation?

[StormyKnight Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close StormyKnight]

...and a brief run down on features....please

[StormyKnight Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close StormyKnight]

I am in the process of getting OziExplorer working on it. I successfully have OziExplorer loaded on the unit via SD-RAM, but cannot type in the registration key - as there is no keyboard. I will track down the Windows CE on-screen keboard .exe and all should be sweet. Lots more to talk about on this topic... whether it occurs here on in the GPS section is yet to be determined... My thoughts is to keep it in this thread.

It may be good to start another thread...."How to load OziCE onto a WinCE head unit." That way questions relating to that can be asked there without effecting questions here about McBains install. Of course you can whack in a link in this thread to point to it as there will be plenty of people interested in a head unit that will run oziCE!

Cheers
Richard

[MTpockets Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close MTpockets]

emptyman,
Could you tell us your cost?
It would be good to compare your install to McBains.

I support you starting a new thread cos you have the oziexplorer almost sorted.

cheers

[emptyman Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close emptyman]

The specs of my unit are (it does not have a brand):

7 inch TFT LCD fully motorized double din car DVD with GPS and bluetooth
Compatible with DVD-R/DVD-RW/VCD/CD/CD-R/CD-RW/JPG/DivX
Fully Motorized Front Panel
7inch TFT Display
Touch Screen
Color, Contrast, Brightness, Tint controls
Motorized Viewing Angle Adjustment
Last Angle Memory
OSD (On Screen Display)
Car DVD Slot-in Mechanism
Digital & Mechanical Anti-Shock with ESP Memory (5s for DVD, 45s for VCD, 90s for CD, 120s for MP3)
Intr/Repeat/Random Play
Bass / Treble / Fader / Balance Controls
Preset EQ (POP/CLASS/ROCK)
Mute/Loud Control
Clock Display
Hi Power 50W x 4
ISO / DIN
Card Size Full Function Remote Control
2 Pairs of RCA Audio Output
1 Piece RCA Video Output
Video input
CD changer control (SANYO 6Disc box)
Support SD playing
AM/FM PLL Synthesizer Tuner with Memory Presets ( 30 presets Memory FM18, AM12)
Auto Store Pre-set Scan
Built-in TV Tuner (NTSC / PAL Selectable)
Bluetooth and mic built-in
GPS built-in


My capital cost was approx in AUD:
- All-in-1 unit delivered to my door via DHL ~$580
- GPS arial (included in above price)
- Reversing camera ~$80
- 10m RCA-RCA video extension cable ~$10
- TV arial ~$10
- Cable harness ~$16
- RCA to headphone jack (so I can plug my MP3player in) ~$8
- RCA 3-way (for line-in) ~$13
- RCA for line out for future external monitor) ~$13

I did not do the installation myself, as I got it installed at the same time as a UHF radio, antenna, trailer anderson plug, and a couple of hella plugs, which took quite a while!... but the local Alberts Hi-Fi quoted $200 and 2 hours for installation without TV arial. I chose a local 4WD place with an auto-electrican who knows Prados as I also wanted the other stuff installed while my dash and sides of the car where already apart.

I am in the process of writing all this experience up as well. Time. Time. (sigh)

For those who are more tehnically interested, most if not all of these 'all-in-1' units actually use Microsoft Windows CE.net 4.2 with a ARM chipset. The Mz change with the price (which is why the ebay people hardly mention the CPU cycles). Mine is a 300MHz chip. Some units use v5 of embedded Windows CE, but because you are not supposed to get to the OS level, the user should not care what the underlying OS actually is (hence the term 'windows embedded".). BTW - Windows CE embedded is in traffic lights to photocopiers to GPS to Phones to picture frames to Car instrumentation to Toys.

There are ways and means to get to the Operating System (OS) but changing the OS "shell" on these models. This is done by tricking the unit to run another .exe instead of the GPS exe file. This new OS shell exe file is the one that gets you to whatever is on the embedded RAM of the unit. This is where I am at at the moment. I only got it installed the other day so as I said before, I have only spend less than an hour playing with the unit (after work), and have got OziExplorer loaded, but not working fully... (wait for my new thread on this once I have more to say - and I have lots to share!). Once you get to the OS shell, there is nearly no limit to what you can do - but you have to ask yourself (in this case) - what is useful inside the car!

Tis early days. There are literally thousands of these all-in-1 units out there in all shapes and sizes. The Taiwan Taipei electronics show last year showcased many of these units.... hence the current ebay flood. Also an active somewhat underground "community" that is sharing ideas and tools to unlock the potential of these units. For instance - I saw adobe acrobat reader for these units last night - but why I ask?

Hope this helps.

[Squeaky Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Squeaky]

I have been researching this unit as well (Sunrisen G702).
Features not listed but included are:-
Plays mp4
DVD for passengers while driver uses GPS
Does not support Universal Steering Wheel Control
Rear-view camera input activated by reverse gear selection
Does not have USB but has 2 SD slots,one for GPS map,one for music, movie, other
Works wit Route66,Destinator,Gate5

[McBAIN Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close McBAIN]

Fantastic stuff emptyman! i'm keen to see how you went about getting into the OS. looks like lots of fun could be had there with the right software!


look forward to the writeup!

[McBAIN Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close McBAIN]

Re: TV Arial I used

This is a picture of the TV arial I used on my double-DIN "All-in-1" installation.
I had it installed on the front passenger side window. (I will get some photos soon). I bought it without really thinking about where it would go, and because the rear side windows of the Prado are openable, I could not install it there. Also the rear window is too far away for the cables (I know I could probably join it, but ideally I would like minimal joins). .

i got the same one, surprisingly it does make it to the back window (where i installed mine) and i powered it from behind the headunit. reception is pretty good!

[emptyman Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close emptyman]

:-) bummer about the arial position for me.... oh well... i am not moving it. nice to know that others can do it, as this forum is all about sharing gain as well as pain.

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Hi All,

I am looking for some info on the dimensions of the space provided for fitting a Satnav unit in the Sept build 120 series VX dash. I have measured the outside facia panel of my current CD stacker from Toyota and its measurements are:

Height: 100mm
Width: 200mm

However the unit I was looking at had the following dimensions:

230x136x180CM

Obviously by these dimensions it would not fit so does that mean the Toyota space is not a standard double DIN?

Cheers

Mav

[StormyKnight Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close StormyKnight]

Well standard Din is 7.2" x 2.11" (182mm x 53.5mm) & therfore double Din is 7.2" x 4.22" (182mm x 107mm), but this is the opening space only. i.e. the space that the unit itself fits into, not the facia. The facia can be any size the manufacture wants to make it blend in with the rest of the dash.

Is you current dash like McBains?



The unit you were looking at I think is bigger because the facia is bigger, It fills in the whole area in the dash to make it level with the rest of the dash, but the actual unit behind that will still be standard double-din.

Have you worked out how it will fit with the molding coming up from the airconditioning panel being all one piece?

Hows the little one going?

Cheers
Richard

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Well standard Din is 7.2" x 2.11" (182mm x 53.5mm) & therfore double Din is 7.2" x 4.22" (182mm x 107mm), but this is the opening space only. i.e. the space that the unit itself fits into, not the facia. The facia can be any size the manufacture wants to make it blend in with the rest of the dash.

Is you current dash like McBains?



The unit you were looking at I think is bigger because the facia is bigger, It fills in the whole area in the dash to make it level with the rest of the dash, but the actual unit behind that will still be standard double-din.

Have you worked out how it will fit with the molding coming up from the airconditioning panel being all one piece?

Hows the little one going?

Cheers
Richard

Hi Richard,

The unit I have been working on is not going to fit into the Australian spec Prado as the Facia is not designed for our dash unfortunately.

I will do some more research on this later and might go with McBains unit instead.

Hunter is still on CPAP and gradually improving, I am hoping that he will start to do better soon and we can look at getting him out of the special care nursery.

Cheers

Mav