Using factory altezza screen for any 3 Rca Av device

[Maximum]

I have posted this on the australian altezza forum, but thought someone from nz toyspeed might be interested...

My ultimate goal in this was to be able to play mp3s, and have some kind of interface on the factory screen. I didn't want to mess with the factory console.

With this install, you could potentially put a dvd player in ur car, or anything that has 3 rcas - 2 for audio, and one for video.

This install cost less than $250, and I now have 80gb of storage for mp3s, movies, and pictures. I can easily upload more media to my car, or plug in another AV device at will if needed.

The ideal device based on my requirements was the mediagate mg-25 Hard drive based media player:




http://www.airlinktek.com/english/prod_mg25.htm

This harddrive based media player allows you to add mp3s, pictures, and movies and play them on any tv via composite video.

Before the HD could be installed, I had to find a way to get video and audio to the factory screen and speakers. Since the TV tuner was of little use to me (since I don't really want to watch tv in the car....), I decided to hijack its video and audio outputs, and put the HD video/audio in their place.

First, I had to remove the panels to get to the tv-tuner:









Once the tv tuner was unbolted, I had a look at the wiring. On the left hand side of the tuner was the aerial plug. No need to worry about that. The next plug had nothing plugged in - so not sure what its for. The third plug was video - luckily, composite. This means theres no need to mess about with rgb + sync. Just two wires - +ve and -ve. The final plug has 12V power (always on), 12V (ac switching), ground, few others, and the left and right audio wires.

It's worth noting at this point that the TV Tuner I have is model number 86010-53020. I think the one that cpufix has is 86010-53010. Not sure if this is a is200/as300 difference, or because my car is a 2001. However the wiring does seem to differ slightly...

[Maximum]

-------------
Video input
-------------
Video comes in via two wires - a blue and green wire. Strip back the black plastic tubing around the video wires, and find a white wire containing a green and blue wire. These are composite video + and - respectively. Wire the green to the pin of a female rca plug, and the blue to the outside pin. You now have video on your factory monitor.




-------------
Audio input
-------------
Audio comes via 2 channels (Left and Right) on the right hand side of the largest plug. The four wires in my car are green, white (right +ve, -ve respectively) and red, black (left +ve, -ve respectively). NB - For these wires, I'm not 100% sure about the polarity - sorry about that, I can't remember everything So please check with a meter of some sort to verify.




(please excuse the black female video rca - jaycar didnt have any yellow ones, so I just went with black...)


You now have audio out of your factory speakers.




-----------
HD Install
-----------

The final step is to add the HD into the car. The harddrive comes with a remote, which I'm using to control it. I want the HD to be in the boot, along with the rest of the wiring, tv tuner, e.t.c. so I had to extend the infrared sensor on the HD.


Close up of infrared sensor - needs to be unsoldered:



Extended the infrared sensor:



I mounted the infrared sensor underneath the bit of plastic that the traction control button is on. Just pull it out, and put it back in with the wire coming out from underneath. The plastic piece will hold the wire in place nicely, and its virtually invisible.

To get power for the HD, I used the AC switching power wire from the far right hand plug (biggest plug) on the tv tuner. I don't remember which wire this is - I'll check and post which one soon. I used a 5v, 2a regulator to convert the 12v to the required 5v for the HD player, and bought a power jack from jaycar so I could unplug the HD player easily. NOTE - these power jacks often have different polarity so check which yours is - usually its on the power pack...

More pictures of the screen in action coming soon...


-Rob-

[snwtoy]

Nice effort!!!

[Maximum]

Thanks very much

Did you used to have a white turbo caldina?

I think my mate bought it from you...

[-DC-]

the screen controls are integrated with the factory headunit (kindof) eh... although the controls seem to be beside the driver in the glovebox area. IIRC everything still plugs into the factory headunit; so I'm guessing this wont work with an aftermarket headunit?

[Maximum]

From what I've read - pulling out the factory headunit makes everything else stop.

However, I thing the way it works is that each component gets a constant voltage from other components as a sort of "hey I'm here" message - its just one wire.

If you wire acc power to this wire, then you should be able to trick the other components (i.e. tv module, nav movule) into thinking that the factory headunit is still there.

If you have a multimeter it won't be too hard to figure out which of the remaining wires in the tv module are for this.
-Rob-