Rav4 59 Plate Dab Radio Conversion

[crofter]

Hang on in there Big Kev and don't do something you are sure to regret.

You're made of sterner stuff than that

[abraxas]

WOW!!!

Thank you so much for such a great post!

It will take me another good 4-5 reads to get at least a wee bit better understanding (and I'm a slow reader :P )but it is all great stuff. And more imprtantly gives me something to read while I am recovering which is great! Thanks.

At first glance I do recognise some bits (ARM processors, WoL (although I am not sure what you'll use to send the magic packets and how you'll route them yet). The other stuff about CAN data on-screen sounds great. But it means I'll need a bigger screen ! :)

The idea about a blog is also very very good. As I found today, finding a post in this forum ain't easy.

I'll go read and google some more than...

[Davrav]

Hang on in there Big Kev and don't do something you are sure to regret.

You're made of sterner stuff than that

I guess he figures there's less to worry about with a crystal set, an 8 track plus two tins and a piece of string

[anchorman]

8 track - something I recognise. I had the posh Radiomobile one with the coloured lights. Stack heels, flared Sea Dogs and penny rounds. Now we're on the pull

[bothwell_buyer]

Done A Bothy i.e. souped (Cream of Tomato) up a RAV. A DABrav then? Hang on, that's a member in southern most Glocingcestershire.

Right, first let me apologise for the following. It probably belongs on an electronics forum, or something worse, but not here. It is to keep Mr abraxas entertained.

Mr Abraxas is probably going to regret this anyway ;).

Where to start? This latest satnav system is OK, but you can't do things like load music files directly onto the hard-disk. Possibly I could disassemble the head-unit and probe the hard-disk to see if the file format is anything like readable/understandable, but it is not exactly user-friendly for adding more music files.

The satnav has an aux input, but having a dedicated audio unit (like a CD changer or ipod adapter) attached is so much nicer than that, as you can then control the audio source from the head unit keys and do stuff like automatically pause the music if you use and want/get RDS traffic reports. Likewise for the latest RAVs with aux inputs and of course the earlier 4.3s don't have an aux input at all.

There is audio bluetooth streaming available on my satnav unit, but I don't have anything that supports the version of the bluetooth protocol (AVRCP 1.3 and above) which gives full text capability. Also, if I want to hack something myself I've either got to wade through tons of bluetooth spec or base it on something else and there's not a lot of code out there to do that as far as I can see. It is being upgraded slowly in linux. I've streamed music from a laptop, but there is only basic control of the pc from the head-unit and no text display. There are commercial bluetooth stacks for windows which support the correct AVRCP version. So, in some respects going the Toyota "CD changer input" route for an aux box is a bit simpler.

I also want to mix in receive audio from my amateur radio stuff, so that it comes out of the vehicle speakers.

Nothing really so far that you can't get with a commercial unit. I've also got a load of other ideas to play with though. So, this board will also be a bit of a development play thing.

If I talk about the main microprocessor I intend my "aux adapter" have, it will lead on to most of the other ideas. PIC micros (www.microchip.com), are quite popular with both professional Engineers and hobbyists. I was all set to use a PIC32 micro, but then discovered the mbed site (http://mbed.org/) and the rather nice LPC1768 (http://ics.nxp.com/products/lpc1000/all/~LPC1768/) processor they use. The thing I like about this is I don't have to faff about loading development tools onto a windows PC. I can compile software via their web-based compiler and work on it from anywhere. Plus, there are software libraries for various functions. This can sometimes be more trouble than just writing you own, but it can be useful as well. The LPC1768 is also an "ARM" core processor. ARM effectively grew from Acorn computers and you would be amazed how many ARM based processors are in phones/gadgets and also automotive ECUs. It is a huge percentage, plus they are British!

So, in it's features it has (and what I have ideas to do with them):

• USB capability - Can possibly use this for reading music files off USB based storage devices. i.e. sticks and maybe caddy based harddrives. Also a possible control connection to a in-car netbook PC. Also for controlling USB DAB modules. ;).
  
• Ethernet - Another car PC control possibility and also a way of waking up a suspended PC @ ignition on via "wake on lan", without hacking the PC about too much.
  
• CAN - how about engine parameters displayed on your radio, via the OBD connector? The protocol is well known, so should be implementable. How about fault codes too? i.e. a bit like a "scan guage". What about a "calibrate-able" mpg readout (like the scanguage does) on the radio display also?
  
• Serial interfaces - A way to control an ipod from the adapter. The apple accessory protocol is out in the open (http://nuxx.net/wiki/Apple_Accessory_Protocol) so should be DIY doable to control the ipod from the radio.
  

There's a lot of different audio source in there which I will want to select at different times and/or mix together. So, I've got some of these:

http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LM4550B.html#Overview

Which are intended for PC sound card type stuff, but should make various audio source selection straight forward and there are enough audio inputs to play with ( so a simple "aux in" can be included ;) ). That needs a bit of logic around it, but see below.

On the Toyota side of things, the communication protocol with the radio is easily done in software, but when I was experimenting previously, I did the protocol in a FPGA (google that), just because I can and I felt like it. :P. It is sort of a way of producing hardware with "software". Google "VHDL". So, I will include a small FPGA, because I already have the Toyota code done, it is a useful thing to have for modifications and it can also be used to keep the audio source mixer (LM4550B) happy.

Not sure whether the processor has enough horse power to do the mp3/ogg/flac/aac decoding in software and I can't be bothered to try and implement all that in a FPGA, but this chip does the trick:

http://www.vlsi.fi/en/products/vs1053.html

In fact that beast is used in the Grom unit. Just feed it data to keep it happy. It is also firmware upgradeable (note to me: I need to get some serial flash memory chips for that).

This is not going to be cheap, but that was never my intention. Probably more in the cost region of a commercial unit and it is something I can tailor to my own exact requirements and perhaps others. Keeps me out of trouble too :D.

It can probably be made to work with the standard radio too. I think the text handling is slightly different to my satnav, but it should be doable. It would be nice to have a display like the Xtenza on the old standard radio:

http://www.xtenza.eu/product.html

rather than just text. I expect that is done by emulating a "turn-by-turn" sat nav as well as a cd changer. I don't know how to do the "turn-by-turn" emulation at the moment.

Bit of "professional"(?) pride - rather than just throwing together a prototype or etching my own PCB, I'll probably get some made. It's not that cheap, but much cheaper that the tooling used to be. People like PCBPOOL (www.pcbpool.com) provide a good service.

Assembly is a pain, but I'll probably have a go at "pizza oven" reflow soldering, which makes things a bit less hassle. Google for that.

Then there is something to house it it. Always a bit of a pain to give a nice professional box. I'll probably just stick to a standard off the shelf box.

I'm buying 3 sets of major components, because I always do, in-case I kill something during development. So there may be 1 or 2 spare boards available. Once built, it just becomes steady software development, which is a nice virtual environment :).

This is all well intentioned, but I don't normally like talking about such stuff, until I have something to show for it. Circumstances may chance and the thing may not get completed. As I said, the RAV could be dust and/or things may have moved on before I've finished. Guess I better get my finger out ;).

I thought about using the "blog" section on here rather than posting in the main forum, because I don't think it interests many and there's probably a lot of stuff I've forgotten to mention that I could add. I think the personal "blog" bit has gone now though with the latest forum software? couldn't find it anyway.

Any constructive comments welcome.

ONE THING MISSING - WHERE DO YOU LINK IN THE CARD READER THAT LOADS UP THE FORTRAN IV ??? :lol:

[abraxas]

I am still reading/googling.. :)

Interestingly enough, even though "FPGA" and "VHDL" go waaay above my head, I was trying to package [and SMS/SCCM distribute] "Xilinx ISE" just the other day. I never really knew what it did. At least I have a vague Idea now. :)

I think I saw that pizza-oven reflow on one of the videos for fixing "rings/lights of death" on Xbox/PS3. I used brute force/machine bolts to fix a mate's xbox recently. Reflowing done courtesy of massive heat produced by the GPU. :)

Seems like this dude's got some similar ideas:

http://www.softservice.com.pl/corolla/avc/video2.php

(you have to remember I am a sysadmin/scripter and the first rule of scripting is : google it, just in case someone else already wrote it. :) )

That Xtenza looks really cool. Except I love how they went throught the trouble of designing and producing it, making a website... and no effort towards actually selling it! How would you buy one?

And a final daft idea for the day before NyQuill kicks in and knocks me out for the night. There has to be a DAB tuner in here:

http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Acoustic_Solutions_DAB-ICS100_DAB_car_radio.html

...and it is cheap enough. The product itself appears to be umm.. not so good. But... any parts we could use from there, then? :)

[shcm]

but whatever it is you make can I have one?

Of course you can! and you've got fully comp insurance, so you're covered for fire (opps, sorry the ****holes in the industry make me call that a "thermal event")

Where's the Landrover shop....need to escape, fast.....

Big Kev....ex owner, Rav 4

Hang on in there Big Kev and don't do something you are sure to regret.

You're made of sterner stuff than that

Yeah, you tell him Crofter. Big Kev? More like Big Wuss if he's scared of that! :P........

......Kev, YOU do know I'm jesting don't you? I don't want to get a Big Kev Glesga Kiss ....even if it is a wussy one. :D.

ONE THING MISSING - WHERE DO YOU LINK IN THE CARD READER THAT LOADS UP THE FORTRAN IV ??? :lol:

I can only get hold of a paper tape reader. I forgot to mention the vibrator (careful! :shutit: ) for the valves HT supply.

Interestingly enough, even though "FPGA" and "VHDL" go waaay above my head, I was trying to package [and SMS/SCCM distribute] "Xilinx ISE" just the other day. I never really knew what it did. At least I have a vague Idea now. :)

If stringing logic gates together by hand is analogous to hand machine code assmebly, then VHDL is kind of the equivalent of something between assembler and C for generating hardware. To get the best and most efficient stuff out of it you really have to "think in hardware" i.e. have certain standard hardware stuctures (shift registers etc) in mind when writing the code. Usually means you can't just chuck programmers with no understanding of hardware at it. Verilog is also something similar you might come across, which has some 'C' type looking code. I know ISE fairly well ;).

Seems like this dude's got some similar ideas:

http://www.softservice.com.pl/corolla/avc/video2.php

(you have to remember I am a sysadmin/scripter and the first rule of scripting is : google it, just in case someone else already wrote it. :) )

Absolutely, all credit to Marcin, he got there first with some of this. Lots of useful stuff there, it's a fine site. Some info on how to do text display there, but nothing I could find that actually worked. Still, I got there in the end. I should probably really feedback what I found.

And a final daft idea for the day before NyQuill kicks in and knocks me out for the night. There has to be a DAB tuner in here:

http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Acoustic_Solutions_DAB-ICS100_DAB_car_radio.html

...and it is cheap enough. The product itself appears to be umm.. not so good. But... any parts we could use from there, then? :)

You're a bit smart with google - I didn't find that - nice find Yeah, interesting, particularly as it appears to be two boxes. What's the betting it's just the standard DAB module in the other box, with just the serial link over the cable? Reverse engineer the link protocol and you are well on your way. I say that, because I want to control everything from the radio, rather than having multiple control "heads". I've got a bit of "multiple control" at the moment in the car and I'd prefer the "uncluttered" look - control through one device.

Dunno, I will muse over it. There is info on the link protocol on the other one I found and it turns out they will also sell you just the DAB module for £30. What that one has done is just added a power supply board (and I think also a fairly well known USB to serial chip) to it for the £70.

[bothwell_buyer]

Found the receipt for my stuff - the DAB aerial was £34.99, the DAB radio unit was actually £134 and the JVC unit was £170.

[firemac]

8 track - something I recognise. I had the posh Radiomobile one with the coloured lights. Stack heels, flared Sea Dogs and penny rounds. Now we're on the pull

A Radiomobile 8-track with stacked heels and flared Sea Dogs - must have been the top of the range model.......

[anchorman]

Perhaps my punctuation needed smartening up!!!