earlier i attempted to make a custom phone dock to replace my stereo head unit, but my fabrication skills were lacking. I wanted something cleaner and a little bigger screen size. I bought a acer a100 7" tablet and permantly installed in my dash and so far I love it.



first order of business was using a razor blade to remove plastic ribs and the 2 clips that were preventing the tablet from sitting flush



checking the fit to make sure I could get the whole screen visible within the double din opening

the using some double sided mounting tape around the edges of the inside bezel I pressed the tablet into place, hooked up the charger and the headphone jack to the factory amp




finished product, I should have been a little more careful with the mounting tape, was too close to the edge and is visible, tomorrow I will pull it back out and have the mounting tape a little further from the edge so that it isn't seen

better pic in daylight with toyota wallpaper


Update to include parts list
1x Acer A100 Tablet
1x Acer A100 Vehicle Charger
1x 12V Accessory Socket
1x 90 degree 3.5mm to RCA jacks
2x Male to Female RCA 2 way splitter
1x Wiring Harness Adapter for 6 speaker stock amp
1x Volume Control
1x 3M double sided automotive mounting tape

This post has been edited by b22ri22an: May 19, 2012 - 4:24 AM

So this is just taped into place?
Whats the advantages of using this over a touch screen double din?

its automotive mounting tape like used on exterior trim, very strong bonding. advantages over a double din is that this was $189 for a 1ghz tegra dual core cpu with 1gb of ram w/android 4.0 capacitive multitouch 1024x600 as opposed to $900 for an 800mhz single core cpu 512mb of ram in a double din w/ android 2.3 resistive single touch 800x480, maybe one day the double dins will catch up with tablets as far as power goes, but for right now this year old tablet kicks the crap out of a brand new android double din and saved me over $700

This post has been edited by b22ri22an: Apr 30, 2012 - 3:03 AM

............ this is

iwas never into the double din look, mainly because of the price...but this...

interesting, can you download one of those equalizer apps for it to have more control over the sound ? I guess in my case I would need to get a amp first, as my speakers get all their power of the headunit.

really cool idea.

EDIT. what about stealing the internet of my iphone so I can have GPS everywhere I go ? and Pandora ? now that would send me to the store right after work.

This post has been edited by Culpable04: Apr 30, 2012 - 6:44 AM

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All possible =P

Have fun, can do just about anything on them

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1324

This post has been edited by rave2n: Apr 30, 2012 - 7:34 AM

damm it, now I'm looking more and more at this,

planning to take it apart to remove the rear camera and mount it somewhere else useful ( driving vidoes ? rear camera ? front bumper camera for moving clips ? ) need to jailbreak my iphone so I can use my phone's internet on this so I can enable GPS, video calling and Pandora. I think this is a great idea, the only thing left to cinfirm is if this has HD sound or not.

some needed apps for the install
Volume control app.. This app puts a volume up down and mute control in the notification window so you dont have to hard wire a gain control if you don't want to
Android FTP server.. allows for wireless access to your tablets internal memory and SD card to manage your music collection and movies
Sound EQ tweak your sound till you get it where you want it
OBD2 app.. connect via bluetooth to have real time diagnostics (have to buy the bluetooth scanner receptacle seperatly
Automate It. sets automatic triggered actions, I use it to turn display sleep off while power is connected the to turn sleep to 5 seconds when power is disconnected

then on your mobile phone if you dont already have mobile hotspot FoxFi will allow you to mobile hotspot or pan bluetooth tether

This post has been edited by b22ri22an: Apr 30, 2012 - 11:45 AM

This is a very nice option I may consider.

It is lacking slightly in all things I wanted to accomplish with my ITX mini PC build to a screen about the same size as the tablet.

If I can figure the means to program it to read rs232 data and vice versa from a PLC then we'll be in business for a fraction of the cost.

Only other concern would be space limitations, but I'm sure it has a expandable port to attach a removable SDD. Or one can hope.

it takes SD up to 32 GB

it also has a usb host that you can put any size drive you want in. Here's the 1TB drive I am installing on mine to host my music tv shows and movies, just need a microusb to usb a female converter i haven't sourced yet

This post has been edited by b22ri22an: Apr 30, 2012 - 11:53 AM

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Well then, with USB solves my RS232 and Storage...

I no longer have excuses =)

hmmm this would be a real nice set up and i know android very well especially the developing side of it as i do have the hp tablet running ICS and can def do some real customizing on that table and get my droid phone to supply it wi-fi. only thing is i would have to make it so its removable i wouldn't leave that in my car in the area im sometimes forced to park. maybe make like a custom mount and make it just sit in place w/ Velcro or something then detach when i leave the car. but its def a nice way to use a tablet.

This post has been edited by spy00005: Apr 30, 2012 - 12:04 PM

Car Charger This is a must as this tablet does not charge via usb

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Did you plug that in the front of the 12v socket, or did you cut the connection off and splice it into the lines of the 12v socket behind it? Would be a bit cleaner, and should keep it on fine.

I often thought about this after a friend of mine molded his iPad into the dash of his blazer..

Very nice

This is awesome. But it lacks one thing for me ... I need a CD player or iPod hook up. I have over 1200 CD's that take up over 140 GB on my ipod

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i used the power and ground from where the head unit would have received power right behind the tablet

i like

awesome..

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Derp! Forgot about that, perfect!

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I have 830GB of music movies and tv episodes hooked up to it on an external drive, got the cable needed to hook my external today

been lied to micro usb is not a host usb its slave only, after hours today trying to hook up my hard drive i called acer support where the sad truth was handed to me that host support was not included on the a100 even after it was used as a selling point.

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yea sadly i kinda doubted that it could host i was pretty sure the mirousb were never design for that. only connection option for external data that are usable is network drives, blutooth and card slot i believe. microusb is for transfer only (on most tablets)

I'm already looking for parrts for my setup

it will consist of

500 watts amp
Acer A100
16 GB SD card
New phone ( have iphone currently and will jump ship to Droid )
misc cables

and reading about how to take my tablet apart, I want to see if it's possible to remove the rear camera and install it somewhere useful, as well as micro USB and memory card slot so I dont have to remove plastics in the card everytime I want to plug / unplug something from it. some of these stuff may not be possible, but I dont know that yet.

i can tell you right now most of the internal components of 80-90 % of tablets are soldered directly on the board usually with the exception of the screen. IF your willing and brave enough you could prob de-solderer and run wires but the connections are usually very close to each other making it difficult to accurately solder components and not cross anything. i'd say look around an see if you can find like extenders for like the SD card if they even make that for the cam you might be able to take it out as far as i know most tablets use generic cams with ribbon cables (don't think you'll be able to do much with unless you find a extender for the specific type of ribbon as well) micro usb gonna be soldered on the board its all do able but gonna be dificult and probably a PITA don't know if you've ever took apart a ipod/itouch/ipad before but the cram a lot into those little spaces.

i still stand by what i think get a laptop with bluetooth and connect through that can add remove stuff on table just get a big SD and leave it in or if you can park close enough to get ur tablet in range of your wifi there plenty of programs/apps that will let you manage your tablet and data on it from a computer via the network and sharing which would probably be the easiest and quickest way.

This post has been edited by spy00005: May 2, 2012 - 5:26 PM

So how do you run the audio jack to the car stereo? Does the factory amp have rca jacks? Or do you need to install an aftermarket amp?

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scoshe makes an input for the factory amp to be connected to the lines out of a headunit, you connect the headphones jack to the lines in on the scoshe connector link for connector you may want a hardwired gain control for volume but I use a software controlled volume myself, in my case the connector from scoshe was already in my car from the cheap ass head unit that was there, oh btw you need to tie together the power wire with the amp remote wire to have the factory amp turn on.

This post has been edited by b22ri22an: May 3, 2012 - 2:33 AM

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alot of talets these days have usb host, sadly the a100 wasn't one of them. I do believe the Archos tablets have usb host capability, and the a500 Acer does but its 10" and wont fit the double din. will have to do more research into the tablet to buy, at least more then i did. I however am quite happy with what i got, being able to hook up a 1tb drive to it would have been a huge bonus though. that all said just the android user interface and capabilities alone far exceed that of a car stereo even if I cant hook my external drive. Also the sound is extremely good, very clear and no noise I highly recommend using the power and ground from the head unit or picking a suitable ground other then the lighter socket for optimal results

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there are micro sd extenders available that you can buy, but i don't recommend trying to solder new connections to the board unless you are experienced in micro soldering, from what i have read soldering to these wave soldered boards is a real pita that you probably wont want to attempt as a novice. for the plans I have read in this thread you are far better off buying a netbook and a 7" double din touchscreen with a copy of centrafuse, then you could use all the usb objects that windows offers as far as cameras and expand-ability , for me what android offers was enough and chose that as my option. Read up on mp3car.com before committing any money on a project such as this to weigh everything you want from your installation. For me the android installation met my needs.