Loud & Low 8th Gen Civic UBL #2

[scooter99]

Ok so here's the deal. After thinking about it, I decided to just post up what I did last night. I'm pretty happy with it, and I know I didn't come up with it, but I was able to figure out for the most part how to make it work etc. Saves me some money cause frankly I didn't have the money to buy the one that's out there. The only money it cost me was for the fan control, and the temperature gauge. So about $18.00. Everything else in here I had laying around. So at the end of the day, if there's an issue, I'll go ahead and delete this, but for now I'm going to just let it fly. Here goes!

First I got some parts (pictured above but I wanted to keep this all together):

Nice little ebay temperature gauge - $7.50

Then I got a PT021 Adjustable Fan Control Switch (90 - 130 Degrees) from ebay - $9.99

Then I got out the rest of the stuff. This is all the stuff I had laying around:

Multiple colors of Primary wire

Stinger fan

Barrier strip

Spade connectors

Fork connectors

Relay

Switch

Plank of wood

Screws

Tools: wire strippers, cutters, screwdriver, crimpers

and my instructions that I wrote and drew out.

Got everything set up in an ordered manner on the plank of wood. Added another strip to allow the fan to attach to something, and it actually worked out there really well. You can see the order of the components from upper left to right, relay, temperature gauge, fan; lower left to right, switch, barrier strip, fan control.

Then took my time and wired it up. Looks a little messy cause of the coiled up temperature gauge wire I put under the other wires in the back. But I think you get the idea.

Wire colors go like this:

Orange - From pin 30 on the relay - out to the fan/s

Green - Ignition wire (from switch) - to pin 86 on relay (needs a diode between it and pin 85)- to temperature gauge

Yellow - 12v constant power source (battery - NEEDS FUSE) - to pin 87 on relay

Purple - From pin 85 on the relay (needs a diode between it and pin 86) - to fan control switch

Black - Ground

So in this case the green and yellow go on the battery positive because I'm using the switch to act as my ignition on the test model here.

The switch

The fan and fan control switch

[scooter99]

Next I'll run through what happens!

First we turn on the ignition source, the switch here

We have power, except my temperature gauge doesn't work right. What do you expect from ebay I guess! I'll have another one before the final product.

Now then, we have power everything is ready to go. You're pushing your system kind of hard, your amps are heating up (here I'm using a heat gun to simulate that. YES its a cheap one but I couldn't find my good one.) The control switch is going to sit near the amps where it's going to get the most heat. You set your temperature where you want it, by the way what is a good temperature to set this at for your amps? Where do your amps best perform where they're not too hot? Anyone have any suggestions? Really asking!

So you see in the background there, the fan is off. The heat gun is now going, you can see the orange light thats on at the tip.

Once the temperature gets to your set point, whatever you want that to be, then the fan control switch closes and sends a signal to the relay. Then it goes through the relay and switches on, in the video you might hear it click, in real life close up you will hear it click. The signal then gets sent through the orange wire and turns the fan on. You can see that here in the background.

After that, it will stay on until the temperature goes below that set point, I think about 5 or 10 degrees. Then it will open the control switch and thus switching the relay off, thus turning the fans off. Here I put the fan control switch in front of the fan to cool it and turn it off sooner.

So the only things missing in this test set up are these:

1 - Diode between pins 85 and 86 - this stops back current (i believe) when the relay is shut off.

2 - Fuse on the power wire, for obvious reasons

3 - Bigger gauged power wire.

I'm going to condense all this and put it in a project box. If you don't know what those are, they're small boxes, actually they come in all sizes, and you normally use them for small circuit boars or battery holders or stuff like that. You can find them at fry's and probably radio shack. I have this all spread out so it would be easy to see and figure out. Once I get it all condensed into a little box, it'll make it much more compact and easy to install. I'll show it when I get done with it.

Here's a video explaining all that I just went through up above. Enjoy.

Again, as I said before I don't want to piss anyone off, or step on any toes. But this was made on some looking and figuring out on a model that was on the internet and on here and there was a video of it done kind of explaining it. I'm not here to take money out of anyone's pocket or anything like that, and if it comes back that this is wrong by their standards I'll happily delete these last two posts. I'm NOT an electronics expert, or anything even remotely close. I'm just a hobbiest, who liked what he saw, and decided I could try and make it and save my self some money. It worked, and that's why I'm posting it. That's my disclaimer! Thanks!

I'll post the finished product when I get it done!

[scooter99]

Now then let's move on. I made a little progress on the tablet. Not a bunch but I got it sanded down, I think that's where I left off last time. I threw some primer on it, found there were some pinholes in the side walls. I also found that there was a rather large dip in the center of the back panel. I built the sides up I guess and didn't think about the middle. That's why i had the gap in the middle when the tablet was in. So I fixed that by getting a piece of scrap ply that was straight, from when I made the strips for the enclosure, and spread some filler with that. Then I added some to the top. That should allow me to sand it to a nice straight finish.

This is how she sits tonight!

Tomorrow I'l sand it out, and then primer it again, and most likely put the front on and start working that!

That's it for tonight folks! Thanks for checking in!

Please feel free to comment, or make suggestions, or just simply join in on the behind the scenes banter in my build log which is linked in my signature!

[scooter99]

Ok so here's today's progress thus far.

Got the rest sanded down and was pleased with it.

Much much better on the seam there between the bezel and the tablet. I'm holding the tablet with my finger on the far side that's why it looks closer there and not on the other side. But it's very close so I'm happy with it.

So then I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with it to give it a kind of grippy back and not put suede or something in there. PLASTIDIP to the rescue!

Ready to spray

Now after that I had a bit of a set back. I tried to take a picture of it but it didn't come out. It's cold and rainy here in Sac today. So as I've said before I pretty much only have my covered side of the house to work in. SO since it was cold I used a shop light to speed up the curing process on the plastidip. Well I must have left it on there too long cause the epoxy let go a bit and the spot where the back panel meets the dock. But after bringing it in and working on it a bit, and then the epoxy cooling, it has set again and is solid again. There isn't much of a line there at all anymore. I thought about re spraying it, but then looked and the front frame is going to cover it and it won't be seen at all. So I'm just going to let it be.

The tablet sits on there nicely and doesn't move around like before when it was just the filler etc. So I'm happy with it thus far.

[scooter99]

So speaking of the front frame, I went ahead and plastidipped the back side of that as well. Now the whole inside cubby of the tablet holder is plastidipped.

Set the timer on this one. LOL

I just put the second coat on and when that's dry, I'll go put it on the main piece. So that's it for now. More later!

[scooter99]

So I have more progress. I guess though, if no one is interested in pictures, I'll just save them from here on out.

So here's the finished front piece. This is the inside

and outside

Next I had to protect my investment!

Time to take the next step. Dash piece, taped up tablet, epoxy, front piece, and a christmas piece I had to fix!

Starting to take shape!

Couldn't help myself! I got real excited here!

Then I decided to reinforce the sides

So, now that's drying, and I'll give it an hour or so to really dry. In the meantime I'm going to go have some lunch, fold some laundry, and then I'll see about getting some filler on it. I'm trying to decide if I want to fill the sides so it tapers down, or leave it as a step down the way it is but just clean it up. I think i want to taper it. I think it'll look a lot better then the step down.

So that's it for now. I guess I'll stop posting pics today since no one seems interested!

Feel free to comment in my build log. linked in my signature.

[scooter99]

Ok here's the rest of what I did today.

I cut a piece of foam board so I could protect the plasti dip and as well, fill these corners so that they sit flat on the underside.

Then the first layer of filler.

sanded

Second layer on.

and sanded that.

then test fitted the tablet.

[scooter99]

Then it was time to get a coat of color on it so I could see where it's at. That's not the actual back by the way. It's the foam board, that's why it looks so bad.

Tablet test fitted!

So that's where I'm at now. I stopped to watch my niners play, but they're getting worked right now.

So I'll probably not get much more done in the next couple days. We'll see what happens. I have some pin holes to fill, some fine sanding to do and then I have to figure out the paint color. Once I get the paint color figured out, I'll hopefully be ready to paint.

Thanks for checking it out!

Feel free to comment or check out the behind the scenes talk in my build log. Linked in my signature!

[scooter99]

Head unit will be here next friday as well!

Ok so here's what's up! So I sat down and tried to do the CF Vinyl on the dash the other night and it just didn't work out. The parts that didn't work out are the parts where the HVAC knobs come through. They bottoms of those are just too steep of a curve to get it to lay down right and i got frustrated after I ripped it trying to get it to work. I could paint those black and then just cut the cfv around the bottom of them but it would look terrible in my opinion and I think we all know how that would go over with me.

Vinyl and the dash piece were sitting in the garage so both were cold. SO I sat them in front of the fire to warm them up a bit.

Then went to work.

That's as far as I got with pics. I never took one of it on cause I never finished it. But while it was on, I did like the way it was looking. SO I'd like to be able to do it. But that got me to thinking about what I would do with the HVAC controls. I think we all agreed that it would look out of place under the dash right? This picture!

I mean I don't mind that too much, but it will take a lot of custom work to get it in there properly. So I got to thinking about other things. But first I wanted to see what the internals looked like before I started planning. So I took her apart!

This is the front without the internals. Buttons stay in, and there's a bit of room between the buttons an the knob holes that it could be cut up I think if I wanted to go there.

Back side

Then the internals made my discovery worth while! The knobs are separate from the rest of the unit. They're connected by some ribbon cable, which really is just wires connecting the two bards. There's also more space between wires then there was with the head unit failure, so if I decided to extend them, it should go a lot smoother then that did.

So I got to thinking about it, and looking at the internals. The main board unfortunately is pretty close to the size of the whole thing. So there's not really any shortening that down. Just isn't going to happen. So I got to thinking about a few different places to put it whole, and apart.

This is my center console cubby that goes right in front of my shifter. in the picture above, the first one where I'm holding the HVAC controls up to the dash, you can see where it goes there sort of.

I was thinking about putting it there, which is where I was going to put my buttons, vm's and temp gauge,

but it's a tight fit, and even though it would fit in the cubby black part of the center console, I would have to cut the under frame out to make it fit as a whole. I wouldn't leave it up like it is, I'd flush mount it in there.

I could try to figure out where else to put the gauges and buttons, and separate the controls, put the buttons in the upper and knobs below it. That wouldn't be bad.

Then I came up with this. Remember the faceplate in the dome light!?!

Well, I could put the buttons up there, and then the knobs somewhere else!

Then I looked at it, and with some widening of the light unit, I could fit the whole thing up there. I only need to add about an inch to it.

So that's where I'm at really. Another thought would be to go down in the center console pocket as I showed you, with the vm's and squeeze the temp gauge in there too somehow, and then do all the buttons up on the dome light area.

So I'm running through some ideas. I have to test how far I can lengthen hvac controls and if I'm going to have issues with that or not. I really would like to go to a wrecking yard and get a separate wire harness out of a wrecked unit so i can make a test harness to see without destroying anything else. I have a separate HVAC control unit as you can see, so that's not a problem, but I don't want to go cutting wires if I don't have to. I can't seem to find the connectors anywhere. So wrecking yard it may be.

So there will be some of that coming up this weekend.

Also I now have all the parts to finish the fan control units and I have also simplified it for installation as well. I'm hoping to get that together tonight and finished up. Will be nice to finish a project for once!

So that's it for now!

[scooter99]

Ok guys, I finished up the fan controller. Check it out, and the video in the end!

So I couldn't screw the relay to the box, cause I didn't have room to put a board or anything like that in. So I just epoxied it in there.