06 Civic Build - New Build List on page 60

[scooter99]

Grrr! No HDMI piece today. Hope it's here tomorrow. If not I'll start getting it all set up and then I'll just have to plug it in when I get the piece. Wish it'd have been here today though.

[scooter99]

Now to update a little, but only a scare or a set back we've found. I say we, only cause there's another guy on another site that I'm kind of going hand in hand with. Not the same audio equipment but the same tablet, same functions for audio and video (i.e. he has a headrest monitor he's using as well), using the same converter.

This is what he posted last night.

"Huston... we have a problem

I've just tried the HDMI media adapter with the HDMI Converter and all i am getting is squelchy audio from the RCA's on the converter (haven't tried the SPDIF yet). Not good.

Thought it may be a problem with the convertor so tried the desktop dock and guess what?... the audio is fine. Very strange.

Just thought i would give you a heads up. "

This was my response to him, just trying to better understand his problems and figure out solutions etc.

"Let's clarify here. You used the HDMI Media Adapter, through the HDMI converter and got the "squelchy" signal? Then you tried the Galaxy 7 dock with HDMI or what do you mean by that? I was actually contemplating getting that dock today anyway, in case the adapter doesn't show up, I can still bench test. I just want to be sure of what you're talking about.

Do you think it's possible you have a bad converter? If the adapter isn't there tonight I may just go get the 7" dock tonight or tomorrow just so I can bench test it this weekend. I really don't want to get the more expensive converter but maybe it's going to be necessary if these aren't going to cut it.

Also, what does your noise sound like? Is it like engine noise or what is it?"

So as of right now, I'm not panicking just yet. I will see what happens with mine when I'm able to bench test it. I'm hoping that he just has a bad converter, or something wrong with his connections or something simple. I had originally, if you will recall, had my sights set on the Gefen Converter which was significantly more expensive than this unit was. I guess if I have to I'll go back to that unit, and see if it will work for sure or not, but I'm going to wait until I try everything with this unit first.

On another note, I'm going to go ahead and go get some carbon fiber and epoxy tonight for the shrouds. I went the other night but they closed at 6pm and I got there at 615. So I'm off earlier today and I'll go then. Tomorrow I'll be cleaning up the garage and setting things up for bench testing. Stay tuned, I should have some updates this weekend! YAY!

[scooter99]

Ok well damn! I just went home for lunch and no adapter. SO I'll be going to get the dock with the HDMI port tonight on the way home. So I'll be bench testing at some point this weekend for sure! Stay tuned!

[Parentnoia]

The vents do a couple of things if I remember correctly. First thing they do is keep exhaust fumes out. I've heard many many stories about folks removing them cause of rattles from sub systems. However, everyone who did take them out, said they put them back the same our the next day cause the exhaust fumes were so bad. The other thing they do is allow pressure to escape when you close the doors, with the windows up. I closed mine in a while back, and when I closed the doors when I had the windows up, it hurt my ears cause there was no where for the air pursue to go. Hope that helps your questions.

I asked because when my street floods, my trunk fills via those vents...

[scooter99]

Ok so here's a little update. Not exactly the update I was hoping to post up. I did a couple things Friday night, and took pics, so those are locked and loaded and ready to post. But, I'm holding off on that because of this; the reason I was going to clean up the garage, or at least my work bench, this weekend was to get the stuff set up to bench test the tablet. Well.......sometimes family just pushes pleasure aside!

Yesterday, I was planning to get the workbench cleaned up, but had a couple of errands to run in the morning, and then just when I thought I was going to have a few free hours before we were supposed to leave for a 40th birthday bash, I got told by the boss that we were going to be having a Grandparents Day Brunch on Sunday morning. (Have you called your grandparents today?!?!) So, she started prepping stuff for the breakfast and I headed off to the store and the rest of my day headed out in the car with me! Ugggghhh!

So that brings me to today! Woke up this morning and started getting stuff ready for the brunch and we had the brunch, which ended around noon. Had a great time, and then it was time to possibly get started on the garage.......NOPE! Suddenly I found myself in my daughters bedroom doing some cleaning and getting thing purged and ready for the season change. Yep, family stuff! So around 1:00pm I found myself on the couch with some lunch and then found myself watching the Giants game and the Niner game, flipping back and forth of course!

I actually planned to protest the season cause Alex "I'm a Piece of Sh!T quarterback" Smith is still starting for some unknows STUPID F-ING REASON! But I found myself watching anyway. So about halftime I finally got out to the garage and started cleaning! Here it is, 5:22PM, and as I type this the garage is sitting cleaned up, tablet gear out and ready to start putting it together for bench testing. However, that being said, it is 5:22pm on Sunday night, my wife (lovely as she is) is making dinner which is almost ready, my kids are out playing, and when dinner is done, kids need baths and story times for bed around 7:30 - 8:00.

SO, if I'm able to get out there and get that stuff put together for bench testing it's not going to be until later. If that happens, I'll take some pics, and videos, and go from there. Chances are, it's not gonna happen, but it is set up and ready to go. SO if not tonight, I'll get started tomorrow night or sometime this week. It will be bench tested before the weekend!

Until then, please be patient with me, it will get done!

STAY TUNED more to come real soon!

[scooter99]

**UPDATE**

It's not the update everyone was hoping it would be, but it is an update. This is going to be long cause I left out a bunch of stuff that was going be said yesterday but I've got pics along with talking so just bare with me here. Long read, but it'll be worth it.

I feel like I'm back on track with my thinking here. I'm not 100% confident in my direction as of yet, but after I get this bench testing thing done, I'll know which way I have to go. If it all works as planned, at least planned so far, then I'll only have one glitch in my plan that I already know about and have to some how deal with. I'll get to that in a moment.

**Headlight Retros Update**

We'll start here. I went over to Tap Plastics on Friday and after talking with the guys over there, I've decided to not do the carbon fiber on the shrouds. I got so confused by talking to those guys and they also suggested that for my first time I try something that doesn't have such hard radius's. I would have to agree with that. Here's my other fear. It's 46.00 per yard for the CF there and while I know I can order it cheaper from somewhere, it's still gonna be a pricey venture and with my lack of skills at this time, I just don't think I want to spend that much money to "try" and do some carbon fiber overlays.

Maybe later on down the line if I go with the quad set up, and I've done some carbon fiber between now and then, I'll give it a shot. For now, I'm going to just get these done and paint them black.

Along with that, I put them on the projectors in place last night and was less satisfied with them, knowing that they're gonna be painted and not gone over with anything. I want them to look nicer. SO, these are going to take a bit longer to do, but it'll be worth it in the end.

The issues I have with them, are that the spaces around the projectors themselves are uneven and honestly just ugly the way the sit now. The other issue I have is that they rock a little bit and I don't know why, but I don't want them to put pressure on the projector and be that guy riding down the street having the shaky headlight. I HATE THAT GUY! And knowing me it would drive me nuts and I'd have to open them up again and do it over or fix it. Might as well get it right now while they're open and I'm already working on them.

So my next step is going to be to finish the firs sanding on the second shroud. Then I'll tape up the projector lenses and frames. I'll put the shrouds in place and then fill in a little tighter to the lenses to get a good finish on them. Once that's done, they should be ready to go.

That's the only update I have for these.

**Scan Gauge II Pod**

I know I said I wasn't going to start another project but I just couldn't help myself. I'm tired of driving around with a piece of my dash missing. While I was cleaning up the work bench yesterday I ran across the dash piece and the Scan Gauge II. So I started fiddling with it, and trying to make the idea in my head happen. Here's where I started:

So I looked and looked and looked and after I was satisfied at the look of it, and envisioning it in that spot I decided to take the plunge, no pun intended.

Now this cut was just to see where i was at. I can, and did, cut out a little more at a time until I get the desired look and angle that I wanted. I didn't want it straight up and down cause I just thought it would stick up too tall and interfere with the other gauges on the dash. I use the mileage, and I use the temp gauge and stuff all the time and I don't want to have to look up over the Scan Gauge in order to see those. SO I trimmed and trimmed a little more.

This was the end result angle and the height I was happy with.

Now that's just sitting on the bench. The true test was going to be in the car. SO I went out and stuck it up there real quick. I have some trimming to do behind the piece on the dash so that it will fit. It does stick down a little bit and so in order for it to sit straight in there and the piece to fit properly I'll have to trim a bit. But at this spot, I'm completely satisfied with the way it looks. 100% satisfied!!

It may not look like it from the picture, and I forgot to turn on the car so you guys could actually see it, but it does sit lower than the gauges and doesn't impede them at all. Like I said, completely satisfied!

So my next order of business is how to attach it, get it to blend in real well, and at the same time, not ruin the screen or anything. So I took it apart and the insides are all one piece. This is a good thing. However, with it sitting at the angle it's sitting, I have a slight issue.

In this picture it looks like the face cover is bent, but it's not. That's just the way it looks in the picture.

So here's my issue and my plan. I'll use the pic from above as a reference.

[scooter99]

The face of the Scan Gauge is very thin and only the face. I've used an orange line to dictate where the two pieces meet. At the angle, part of the back piece is showing on the sides and the top. If I just use fiberglass, or even filler, and go right over the whole unit, then I can't blend the front in, and I risk messing up the screen and I'd never be able to sand over the buttons. It would never look right. Also if i get it in there permanently, I'll never get the brains back in it cause I could never take the back off of it.

So I've decided that what I want to do is basically build a frame around the units three sides. I'll tape off the unit completely, then use some thin abs plastic and glue it or epoxy it down to the dash piece. This will create a basic 3 sided box, two sides and the back, and will sit flush with the face. Once that's done, I can basically epoxy in the face to make it permanent to the dash piece. Then I can basically unscrew the back of it, and it should slide right out. This will allow me to be able to do all the finish work on it, make it look nice, and then when all is said and done, put the brain back in, and screw the back of the unit on. Blends beautifully, and I can work it and make it look great.

I just need to find some abs about 1/16" - 1/8". Shouldn't be an issue. Maybe I can snake one of the snapware containers from the drawer, without the wife finding out. YA RIGHT!!

So there's the latest project I've started. That should be able to be done a little bit here and there without too much effort. That's another reason I started it.

**Galaxy Tablet Update**

So here's the big project I've been working on. I thought for sure I'd have my HDMI adapter in on Friday, or even Saturday if it was coming USPS. Didn't get it on either. So I decided to go ahead and spend the money and get the Galaxy 7 Media Dock with the HDMI port on it. I also picked up a couple other things. The port on the Dock has a Mini HDMI out on it, so I had to get an adapter for mini to standard HDMI. I also had a screen protector on it, but wasn't real happy with it. SO I got a new one of those specifically for the Galaxy Tablet. The other one was a cut to spec one.

So what I did this weekend was sit down and get the 7" dock and the 10" dock swapped out. I'm possibly going to end up using the entire dock itself for the install. The frame and the body. So I had to swap out the bodies on the 10" frame. Pretty basic to do.

These are not the greatest pictures, but here they're the same on the back side.

Same on the left side, nothing there.

Right side you can see they're different. One has the HDMI Port and the other has nothing.

Also got my new cord out.

As you can see it's twice as long as the one they send you. This was just not a good job in planning by Samsung. The cord should be this long out of the box. But it is what it is.

[scooter99]

Ok so I put the NON HDMI body back on, cause I wanted to make sure and show that they both work. I connected the charger and here's what you see.

You can see the tablet out of the dock, not charging cause it's not plugged in. So see the battery has no lighting bolt in it on the bottom right of the screen.

Sliding it in the dock.

And now it's charging. Lighting bolt in the battery!

Now I changed out the bodies and we'll do another test to make sure it's going to work.

Plugged it in.

Not on the dock, no lighting bolt in the battery.

On the dock, she's charging!

Here's a video, turn up your sound, you can hear it beep when it's docked.

[scooter99]

Adapter

So that's about as far as I got with the tablet this weekend. I did run across a slight issue while playing with it. I have the screen set right now to 10 minutes to sleep. SO if it's not doing anything and sits idle it goes to sleep after 10 minutes. I downloaded Pandora on it this weekend also and found out that if it does go to sleep, Pandora continues to play. So that's a good thing.

But, here's the issue that I've found. When it does go to sleep, I cannot make it wake up to unlock by touching the screen. I've had to push the power button on the top of the unit. So I got online with Samsung last night and talked to their tech department, and they said there's no way to wake it up other than to push that button. So that's going to possibly be an issue for the install. The problem is that I wanted to do a complete enclosure for the tablet, only able to open via the actuator arm from behind. That puts the buttons enclosed and non accessible. See the problem!!

So here are a couple things I've come up with as a solution.

1) Go into the settings and put the sleep mode on "never". The problem with this is that if I don't remember to put it to sleep when I'm not using it, you can do this by pushing the power button, then it'll be on all the time. Now it's not that hard to do, and shouldn't be that big a deal, cause the only time it would be sleeping is when it's out of the car not being used. So I could just push the power button and put it in the case.

2) Another possibility is to some how, and I'm not sure how I'd do this and make it look good, incorporate some sort of button extension on the dash piece above the tablet. It would have to be something that was long enough to not impede the opening and closing of the tablet door, and yet be long enough to just touch the power button. It doesn't have to be pushed that hard or long. Once the button is pushed, you just swipe the lock on the screen to activate it.

So that being said, I have some designs to think about and solutions to think about with this. I don't know that I like the thought of leaving it on never sleep mode, to be honest, and yet I'm not sure how a button will look on the clean dash. I'll have to think of something.

So there you go. Those are all the updates I have at the moment. Here are the list of priorities in order, for me to work on:

1) Bench testing the Tablet and other hardware.

2) Finishing the headlight shrouds so they can be installed.

3) Get the Scan Gauge II pod finished and installed

4) Install the headlights, and wire up the side markers.

5) Get fog lights installed and retros done!

The bench testing should happen tonight, if all goes well. I'll be able to work on the shrouds and the pod at the same time, both dealing with filler, sanding, and finishing. The fog's should be pretty strait forward. I have to get the bumper cut and the housings installed an straight. Then I can get the projectors in there for the retrofits and Once those are straight in there, I'll remove those and fill them with epoxy/resin and when that's done paint em, and install them back in. Both the headlights and the fogs have HID's which need to be installed as well.

After all that, the audio will be main priority and that will be pretty much the only thing I'll be working on for a long long time! So I'm going to guess by Nov 1st all this will be done, and I'll be working on the audio.

Stay tuned! MUCH MUCH MORE TO COME!!!

[scooter99]

Ok so here's an update for the night. I'm very very frustrated. As I've said I have no media tab adapter yet. I'm frankly pissed at the company. I ordered this thing almost 2 weeks ago and I could have walked it to my house by now and gotten it faster. So I went and got the Galaxy 7 dock with the HDMI port until I got the adapter. At least I could get it running and figure out some stuff. Well I cannot get it to work and I'm pretty defeated and frustrated right now.

First the DC-DC converter doesn't charge the tablet. It shows the lightning bolt like it is charging it, but there's a red x through it and I can assure you it does not charge. The percentage went down as I was sitting there. So that's the first thing.

Second and most importantly, I could not get sound or video at all! When I plugged in the HDMI cord into the docking station, the sound cut out and that was it. Then I got no sound on the tablet or through the system, nor did I get any video out to the monitor. I don't know if I'm just not doing something correctly or what, but it's not working. I'm not sure if I need to change a setting or something, which there doesn't seem to be anything that I can find that I can change, but either way I'm missing something or this has been a huge gigantic waste of my money, in which case I'm going to probably loose it. I need help I think and a fresh mind to work with this stuff! I'm tired and going to bed. I have some pictures to post of the bench testing set up. I was going to get a video, but it all fell apart as I put it to work and so I didn't get the video done.

That's it for now, I'm open to suggestions or anything that anyone has that might help. Good night!