4WD Head Unit

The aftermarket Android Head Unit was delivered today.  Shipping from China was very quick and I was pleased to see it had been well packaged.

Our original head unit is a 2DIN and consequentially quite deep.  I assume because it included a DVD player.  The new Android Head Unit doesn’t have the player and accordingly is roughly 25% the depth of the original.

The screen is larger (9inch vs 7inch) which required a replacement facia.

Included were

• Head Unit
• Facia panel
• Patch lead to convert the exiting 4WD wiring to the new unit
• GPS dongle
• Two (2) USB leads
• Reversing camera and cabling
• Patch lead to convert the existing rear view camera wiring to the new unit
• Patch leads for accessories
• Patch lead for the original FM radio aerial
• Plastic trim removal tool

Connecting all the cables was rather simple, although I found I had a loose red and black cable with no connection.  Eventually I realised it was the power cable for the fan inside the unit.  Then looking through all the patch leads I identified a grey & black cable with a fitting that appeared to fit

Does the Grey/Black cable connect to the Red/Black?

No screws we included to secure the unit to the facia but after several minutes of searching in my various “you might need these one day” jars I found some that were suitable.

The unit has a built-in microphone, but these are usually poor quality.  The accessory patch lead has a socket for an external microphone and I’ve therefore decided to buy one from Aliexpress.  I’m also going to buy a plastic screen protector in an effort to avoid scratches and minimise glare.

what I now need is a fine day to do the installation.

More work

Someone hit the left rear of our 4WD when it was in the local hardware store carpark.  Initially I thought the damage wasn’t significant, but a more detailed inspection revealed it was more extensive than I first thought.  My estimate was about $300-400 for a panel beater to do the repair.   Well I got that wildly wrong.  The first panel beater quoted $1400 plus $100 for a replacement taillight.  That seemed excessive and it was therefore a shock to have the second quote $2000.  The third also quoted $2000 but informed me it might be more if there was unseen damage behind the bumper.

The vehicle is eight year old and likely to be our last.  I don’t want to spend that amount of money on what is now an old vehicle.  I’ve therefore decided to attempt to do the repair myself.   First I need to identify the extent of the damage.

The bumper plastic has been cracked and distorted

There are also slight pressure creases

The left side has popped away from the metal body

Removing the broken taillight revealed more cracks and distortion in the plastic

The damaged taillight is actually the reversing light and red reflector.  I was able to araldite it back together.  That’s $100 saved!

My initial plan was to purchase a new bumper, but Isuzu wouldn’t sell me one.  Their reason was they had previously sold one to a owner who had subsequently refused to accept it because it was unpainted.  They were then left with an unsold bumper.  This sounded spurious to me as bumpers are likely to be frequently damaged and replaced by commercial panel beaters.  With no replacement available I’ll have to repair the bumper.

I will need a heat gun, a plastic welding gun, body filler and paint.  I already have the heat gun and body filler.  An order has been placed with Aliexpress for a plastic welding gun ($40) and the local auto parts store can provide the paint. 

Whilst on the subject of the vehicle.  I’ve decided to replace the original Isuzu head unit.  Actually I’ve been considering replacing it for the last five years.  The cost of a replacement unit was delaying the project. 

My assumption is Isuzu approached several manufacturers of vehicle head units (eg, clarion, pioneer, jvc, alpine, etc) and asked for a price to provide 250,000 units.  The manufacturers submitted their heavily discounted price for a volume order.  However they didn’t want these units to be the same as the high priced units they sold to the public so they supplied unit with ‘crippled’ operating system.  The head unit in our vehicle is made by Panasonic.  It only has four functions. 1.  make and receive phone calls via the owners phone.  2. display the image from the reversing camera.  3.  Play audio media streamed using Bluetooth from the owners phone. There is also AM/FM radio and a CD player.  4.   Navigation.   I have never made a phone call in the vehicle and can count the number of calls I’ve received on two fingers.  Never used the CD player.  Regularly use the reversing camera.  Frequently use the Satnav.   The latter is the most annoying function.  The maps are out of date and an annual update costs $145.  Because the navigation system uses commercial maps they are usually already out of date by 12 months when purchased.

 

A replacement head unit needs to fit into the same location and not have a ‘crippled’ operating system.  It also needs to connect to the existing vehicle wiring loom.

Time marches on; technology improves and prices drop.  When I first started researching after-market head units 5-6 years ago they were $1000.  After waiting for the China National Holiday Sales this year I think I’ve found a suitable unit for $167

 

Fengshida Manufacturer Store – Aliexpress

Jan did even better and obtained a $26 discount.

I didn’t purchase their cheapest model opting for the one that has 4GB RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.  After showing the seller photos of the connection sockets on the rear of our Panasonic unit they have confirmed the unit they supply will fit.

The advantages of the new unit are:

• OS Android 15 (not locked down)
• Android auto and Apple Carplay
• Steering Wheel Controls
• Bluetooth and WIFI
• Bigger screen with higher resolution
• Google Store (can download and install any Satnav program I want)
• Two USB ports to extend storage, etc
• Rear reversing camera. (optional front camera or 360 camera system)
• Radio and video player

All of the above at almost the same price as an annual upgrade on the Panasonic Satnav maps.   It’s going to be an interesting project

A month into spring

Our mulberry bush has produced a prolific crop of berries this year.

We have picked five bowls to date and there are plenty more ripening.

Berries on our breakfast cereal and some tasty jam for the next 12 months.

The daffodils were early flowerers and are now starting to die off.

 

Two of the three trees beside the pool have flowers.   The plum and the peacharine.

 

Two years ago the Mango tree was a sick looking twig.  Jan has nursed it back to life and we might actually get a couple of mangoes this season.

The hibiscus Jan planted along the fence line have produced a riot of colour.

 

One of her rose bushes in her front garden has an attractive bloom.

I know to not touch any plants in her garden.  Desired plants die at my touch whilst weeds thrive!

Design Weakness

The mounting brackets that hold the digital display on the ebike handlebars has failed again.  Twice I’ve attempted to repair the break in the mounts and both times the mounts have failed in a different location.  I believe it’s a design weakness.

Not wanting to spend the $100+ purchasing a new display I searched online to see if it was possible to buy replacement mounting brackets.  I thought this might be optimistic but to my surprise I found a seller on Aliexpress.   However the price of the brackets was $12.97 with an additional shipping cost of $18.23.  Did I really want to spend that much money on something that was likely to fail.

After  30 minutes of searching I thought I might have an alternative.   A seller on Aliexpress had CNC machined aluminium motorbike brake hose mounts and the hole for the brake hose looked very close to the size I required to mount the display.   Moreover the cost was $12.67 with free shipping.  I took a gamble I could make them work and they were delivered today.

You can see where I have attempted repairs on the original mounts in the photo below

After searching through all my ‘stuff that might be useful one day’ for something that might be used as a 10mm dowel in the hole of the new brackets I realised I could probably use the ends of the original brackets.

Below is how I plan to modify the new brackets.

I cut off the ends of the original brackets and then filed them down in diameter in order to fit them into the 10mm hole in the new brackets

Next I did a test fit

All good.  Time to remount the display on the handlebars using the new brackets.  I don’t think these brackets will break as easily as the originals.  AND they were cheaper!

Well that didn’t work!

Several years ago my brother mentioned his swimming pool involved a considerable amount of ongoing money and effort.  So when Jan said she would like a swimming pool I insisted on the components being both over designed and the best available.  This cunning plan would ensure the pool was almost free of maintenance.

Well that didn’t work.  Every Saturday I find myself brushing down the pool, cleaning the filters, sending Nemo for a swim and testing the chemical levels.  Then the expenses started to mount.  Components needed replacing.  First the filter.  Then the Chlorinator.  Then the Control Box.   Recently the pool robot.   Today it was the UV water sanitizer.

The ballast and UV lamp in the sanitizer had failed.  I hadn’t realised the lamp required removal and cleaning every six months.  The Ballast is quite small.  It’s actually a power supply.

The new ballast (black & green box below) is significantly larger that the original.  Don’t ask me why.

I needed to make a mounting plate to fit the ballast to the wall of the workshop.

After four years of pool ownership the only original parts are the actual pool and pipework.

On reflection some money might have been saved if I’d opted for cheaper components.

Trickery

Two nights ago I had one of those Archimedes moments regarding our DIY swimming pool heater.   To recap.  I’ve previously mounted two second hand solar water heater panels and a photovoltaic panel on the workshop  roof.

The water heater panels are connected to the pool pump with the input immediately after the filter and the output to the return pipe after the chlorinator.  Because heat rises the input pipe connects to the bottom of the panels and the output to the top.  The strength of the pool pump isn’t sufficient to circulate the water through the panels.  Instead the solar panel provides the power to a 12V water pump connected into the input pipe.

The solar panel produces approximately 27V, which is too high for the pump.  To rectify this the panel is connected to a small and cheap solar controller.  The controller has six terminals.  Panel input (+ & –)  Battery (+ & –)  Load (+ & –).  The output from the panel goes to the controller Input and the pump is connected to the Load terminals.  But the pump isn’t directly connected to the Controller Load terminals.   That would result in the pump running continuously whenever the panel received sunlight.  This wouldn’t allow enough time for the solar water panels to heat the water.  To solve this, the Load terminals are connected to a digital timer and the timer controls a 12V relay.  The latter is required because the digital switch is not sufficiently powerful to accept the required power to run the pump.

The 12V water pump is in the grey box and the controller, timer and relay in the box with the window

The solar controller is the orange box at the top of the window.  The timer is displaying 24 minutes until the next pump activation and the red arrow to the relay.

Through trial and error I have identified if the pump runs for a minute every half hour the water in the panels gets hot. 

However the system wouldn’t work.  I’ve since discovered the solar controller requires a 12V battery to be connected before it will send power to the Load terminals.

My ‘Eureka’ moment was when I realised I might be able to trick the controller into thinking a 12V battery was attached by making one from three of my old lithium cells I recovered from a tool battery I found at the rubbish tip.

I made a temporary system to check my theory.   AND it’s currently working!  I won’t make the system permanent until I’m satisfied it’s a long term solution.

Interesting Day

It has been an interesting day.  A clear blue sky first thing which went to great and then heavy rain by mid morning.

Jan is very pleased with her front garden which is currently a riot of colour.

It’s hard to recall this was once a scrubby piece of land containing a boring lone gumtree.

She also planted daffodil bulbs in all the tree rings and with the onset of spring they have flowered.

My main activity for the day was to observe the installation of our new residential house battery.   Three of the existing north facing solar panels are being moved to the west side of the roof and connected to the existing array

The remainder of the north facing panels (shown below) are being removed and replaced with ten new 440W panels.  I’m keep the removed panels.  They are rated at 275W and I’m thinking of installing them on the workshop along with the original inverter.  They could possibly be used to power the swimming pool. 

To be removed

The new inverter is rated at 10kW which is twice the capacity of the one it replaces.  It also has a maximum of four solar array inputs.  We currently only have two arrays and I’ve been looking at where we might install a further two.

There is only one suitable tiled area on the roof.  However it’s rather small.

I could probably only fit three panels here

The other location is the steel section of patio roofing which faces north.  I could potentially have eight panels fitted here which would give us another 3.5kW

The battery wouldn’t fit in the planned location in the garage.  The supplier said it would but didn’t realise there was an adjacent door.  I opted to have it located on the opposite garage wall.

 

It’s a Sigenergy, Sigstor modular battery.  I opted for four 8kWh stacked modules giving us a total of 32kWh of storage.  Hopefully it will store enough electricity to keep the house supplied for 2-3 days.

Finding Nemo

An 11½ hour flight from the UK to Hong Kong departing at 11.30AM arriving at 10:30PM UK time.  Sleep is unlikely as the body rhythms are on UK time.  A nine hour layover in Hong Kong waiting for the flight to Perth.   Whilst tired I can’t afford to allow myself to go to sleep as I might sleep through my connection.  By the time I board my last flight it’s 7.30AM UK time and my circadian rhythms are confused.  I’m very tired but part of me is saying it’s time for a new day.  By the time I reach Perth it’s 3PM UK time and 10:30PM local time.  I manage to force myself to get one hour of heavy sleep during the flight.   The good part of both flights is the adjacent seat is vacant allowing me more room. 

The next morning I’m up at 7AM and make a start on all the outstanding home maintenance issues.   Three of them are with the swimming pool.

Jacques Cousteau died before I left on my trip.   I had done an autopsy before leaving.  Jacques had suffered cardiac arrest.  A leaking valve had resulted in water egress that had fried both motors

Red arrow points to the motors.

Prior to his demise Jacques had three deficiencies.   He was expensive to purchase.  He wouldn’t climb the walls of the pool and he had a power cable connecting him to the house power box that always seemed to tangle.

He has been replaced by Nemo.

Nemo is much smaller and cordless being powered by a rechargeable lithium battery.  He will also climb and clean the walls of the pool.  Nemo also cost a third of the price compared to Jacques.   He is small, but it’s a small pool.

Off he went scrubbing the pool floor and walls.  Did he do a good job?

I think he has done a better job than Jacques.

Izzy hasn’t been started for five weeks.  Her battery has been slowly failing but I continue to use it in an effort to obtain as much longevity as possible.  There was enough power in the battery for lights and a slow crank but insufficient voltage to start the engine.   I then used the lithium jump pack on the battery to give just enough voltage to get her going.  It was going to be a short drive so I took the jump pack with me just in case she wouldn’t restart.  When I returned home I put the battery on trickle charge overnight.

Whilst I have the charger out I might as well top up the new battery which has been sitting in the garage for the last 6 months.

Back to the pool.   Whilst I was away the UV sanitizer developed a fault.  Jan was alerted to the audible alarm by he neighbour.  I was able to explain in an email how to disconnect the sanitizer power supply.

The sanitizer operates by projecting ultra violet light through the pool water after it has gone through the filter and before the chlorinator.

The power brick (Ballast) and lamp have both failed and will need to be replaced.

The third task was to replace the pH probe which controls the amount of acid dispensed into the pool.  The original probe wasn’t working.

Last year our son gave me his old GoPro Hero 5 action camera.  I decided to mount it on the rear of the bike and wanted to record video whilst cycling.   That meant I needed a remote control for the camera.  Not an easy task given the age of the camera.  Eventually I was able to purchase one and took it with me this year only to discover the remote control battery had a very short life.  I deduced the battery would be the original and had likely degraded in storage.

Today I dismantled the remote eventually reaching the printed circuit board.

Small circuit board with the arrow pointing to the battery terminals.  The battery was glued on the reverse side of the board with no visible markings.

I very carefully pried the battery off the board and was then able to read some of the battery specifications.

Jan has ordered a replacement battery from Aliexpress.  About $7.

Last task for the day was to reassemble the bike.  There are two reasons why it needs to be disassembled for the flight.  It has to fit into the cardboard box and I need to reduce the weight.  The complete bike (less battery) weighs more than the checked luggage allowance of 23kg.  By disassembling the bike I can spread the weight across both check luggage bags and my cabin bag.

Whilst reassembling the bike I discovered one of the motor controller display mounting brackets had been broken in transit

It’s not possible to purchase a replacement bracket and I want to avoid the cost of buying an new display and control set.   I’m going to attempt to repair the bracket by gluing a length of plastic strip cut from an old ice cream container across the break.

I enjoyed the holiday.  Europe has some great cycling infrastructure.  However Europe is expensive compared to Asia.  Which also happens to be much closer.