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Thread: Butcher a chinese 7" GPS and factory Mazda flip up screen

  1. #1

    Default Butcher a chinese 7" GPS and factory Mazda flip up screen

    Updated - 17/02/2010

    A 7" GPS from ebay - 800x480 res, WinCE 5, 128mb RAM, 2gb Nandflash, 4gb SD card, bluetooth for phone hands free, av in for reversing camera, mp3/mp4 player.



    A factory US spec Mazda 3 Navigation system, complete excluding wiring loom. (flip up screen, nav dvd drive, nav remote control)



    I butchered the above to build a flip up touch screen gps / reversing camera / bluetooth hands free unit.

    I dismantled both the GPS unit, and the flip up screen from their respective housings to determine what could be refitted where.

    The flip up unit turned out to be the biggest issue. The circuitry to control the flip mechanism was split between a pcb located at the rear of the flip panel (right up against the windscreen) and another pcb located directly behind the original lcd. To get around that, I gutted the nav dvd housing and somehow the housing was just big enough to fit the two pcbs to control the flip up.



    The gps lcd fitted into the housing like a glove & after sorting out the alignment with masking tape, it copped the good news from a hot glue gun fixing it permanently into place.



    I also had to extend the cabling for the flip motor and sensors to reach the glove box where the old dvd housing will live.





    Drilled some holes into the side of the flip housing, and reused the small gps speaker, pointed directly at the driver.



    Tried to get a little creative and cut a USB connector into the front of the dvd housing, so I can easily activesync stuff on/off the gps.



    Finally got the pinouts for 12v, acc and ground for the main pcb to control the flip function and successfully bench tested.






    Custom Navigation boot up screen



    Fitted, powered on.



    Still to do;

    Auto on/off (I've got an Arduino board almost ready to handle it - Arduino - HomePage)

    Reversing camera (wiring ready to go, camera is still in transit)

    What I could have done better;

    - Probably not attempted it in the first place Would have been much faster / easier to strip down one of those oem looking flip up lcd's from the xenon store than the factory mazda unit. i spent sh1tloads of time tinkering with it.

    - I should have relocated the SD card from the flip to the dvd housing. I even bought the SD card socket to do it. it takes ages to transfer files via usb
    Last edited by 3ONBOOST; 17-02-2010 at 09:13 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    706

    Default

    WOW well done .... this is fantastic!

  3. #3

    Default

    that is awesome work!!! looks good. i guess it would b hard to redeem any warranty hehe

  4. Default

    Any chance of labelling parts for those that have no idea what they are looking at? Like me...

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Canberra
    Age
    52
    Posts
    328

    Default

    ..and all without shoes, well done!

  6. #6

    Default

    Nice effort mate

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Geelong, Victoria
    Age
    56
    Posts
    121

    Default

    Im "gunna" do something like that one day!!!! Too many options to choose from though.

    You have done a great job. Gives me more ideas!

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