[graaja]

Originally Posted by PhiGolden

Hi graaja,

Mine too has a CAN controller, Some how the call handling buttons alone is not working. The seller says and I quote " did you connect our unit key1 and key2 lines to your car's steer wheel lines? if you connect them, all will ok" I am unable to decipher the coded language above. If you are able understand what this means could you please advice me?

Regards,

Hi PhiGolden,

Sorry for the delay in response. In cars that have steering wheel controls interfaced through CAN bus (like the Polo and other VW cars), the CAN controller that comes with the HU will handle the call handling through the CAN interface. In cars that do not have CAN bus interface for the steering wheel, there will be individual wires coming from the steering wheel for the buttons. These have to be connected to KEY1 and KE2 lines on the HU's cable. Check the image below.



Pins 5 and 6 are marked KEY1 and KEY2. You will have to connect the steering wheel signals to these signals on the HU connector. Check out the below threads in XDA forum and you should find the answer.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...10546&page=223
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...28349&page=787

Originally Posted by msiva75

Those who are facing FM radio quality issues, please connect the BLUE wire from the FM Adapter to the BLUE wire (ANT+) in the main power cable.

This FM radio connector comes with inbuilt FM booster which requires 12V power. After this connection, FM radio quality is same like RCD320. I have cross checked the same with Seller also.

That is an awesome find . Thanks a lot for sharing the information.

I will make this connection when I work on the reverse camera connection. Strange thing is that when I had contacted the vendor about poor radio reception, the vendor did not mention anything about this. He just said to make sure that the antenna connector is firmly connected.

[msiva75]

Originally Posted by graaja

I will make this connection when I work on the reverse camera connection. Strange thing is that when I had contacted the vendor about poor radio reception, the vendor did not mention anything about this. He just said to make sure that the antenna connector is firmly connected.

The seller didn't mention initially. When I was trying to source powered FM amplifier, realized that the existing one also a powered one. Then I checked with seller and he confirmed with connection details.

[graaja]

Installed the rear view camera on the GT TSi and connected it to the Android HU.

Credits:

I would like to thank:

• Gannu for his tail light swap thread which helped in removing the tail light and tapping supply from the reverse lights.
• Gannu for his idea to use a fishing wire to route the cables from the number plate light cutout into the boot area.
• TBHP'ian "msiva75" for his information about connecting 12V supply for the radio antenna adaptor. Though this part is not related to the camera, I completed this pending work as well when I opened up the HU for the camera install.
• User getrav in the Toyota RAV4World forums for this thread on creating custom guidelines.

Overview:

The installation had four major steps.

1. Choosing the right camera
2. Taking supply for the camera from the reverse light
3. Routing the video cable from camera to the HU
4. Calibrating the guidelines for the Polo

Choosing the camera:

There were various options for the camera.

1. VW original flip camera that fits in place of VW logo and flips open when the car is reversed. This is the most expensive option at around Rs.15k to 20k. I did not want to spend that much on the camera and ruled this out.
2. The second option was to get a regular reversing camera and fit it to the bumper. However, as this requires drilling holes on the bumper, I ruled this out.
3. The third option was to go for a retrofit that fits in the number plate light cutout. As this does not require any drills to the bumper, I decided to go with this. There is one drawback with this approach. The camera is offset from the center. This is taken care of by the custom guidelines. More about this later.

I found various options for VW reverse cameras in the below AliExpress link.

VW Reverse Camera

As they had many models, I first had to choose the right one for my Polo GT TSi. I measured the dimensions of the original number plate light and the cutout and sent this information to the seller. I then sent the photos of the number plate light. The seller then suggested model 107, and I went ahead and ordered it. I received the package in about 4 weeks’ time. I paid $25 for the camera at the time of order. As I write this post, the price is $18.70.

The camera came neatly packed in a small carton.


The box had one camera, one power cable and one video cable.


The camera.


The number plate light goes into this opening.

[graaja]

Power supply for the camera, and bringing in the cables to the boot:

The camera has to be powered from the reverse light supply in the left tail light assembly. I followed Gannu’s tail light swap thread as reference to remove the tail light and solder wires to the reverse light terminals.

Remove tail light assembly.



Open the back panel.


This picture shows the internals of the tail light assembly. Pins 1 and 2 are for reverse light, and pin 5 is ground.


Solder two wires to these terminals.


Fix the tail light back. The two power supply wires are now available inside the boot. Next we need to bring the power and video cables from the camera inside the boot.

First remove the boot trim. I have not taken picture of this. Refer Gannu’s tail light swap thread for this step. Once the boot trim is removed, you can find a cable assembly that goes inside the bumper area through a big opening. We need to bring the power supply and video cables through this hole. Initially, I could not find a way to route the cables from this hole to the number plate lights. Shining a torch through one hole did not show any light on the other side. I had given up and was thinking about taking the car to a workshop to remove the bumper to do the routing, when Gannu gave this brilliant idea of using a fishing cable.

Remove the number plate light. Insert a long spring (fishing cable) inside the slot. Push the spring.


Fish inside the hole inside the boot and pull the spring out. Just like fishing, this requires lot of patience to get hold of the spring. Pull the spring out of this hole.


Tie the power and video cables to the spring.


Pull the spring from the number plate side, and the power and vide cables should come out of the number plate light cutout.


This is how the cables come into the boot area.


Remove the bulb from the original number plate light assembly.


Insert the bulb into the camera assembly.


Connect the cables to the respective connectors on the camera assembly.


Secure them with some tape and push the camera assembly in the slot and let it lock. The camera is now fixed.


Routing the video cable:

I did not take enough pictures for this stage as I was working alone, except occasionally calling my wife for help to route the wires.

Once the power supply and video cables are inside the boot, connect the power supply cable of the camera assembly to the wires soldered to the reverse light. Here is a view of all the cables inside the boot.

I routed the video cable through the roof lining, from C pillar to B pillar, to A pillar and then behind the glove box to the DIN slot. Here are a couple of sample pictures.

Inserting a fishing wire into the C pillar from inside the boot.


The fishing wire comes out of the roof lining near the B pillar. The other fishing line is from the B pillar to the A pillar down to the side of the glove box.


Once the vide cable reaches to the side of the glove box, remove the glove box, remove the HU, route the cable behind the glove box into the DIN rail slot and connect it to the "Camera In" cable of the HU. Refer the beginning of this thread for details on removing the glove box and routing the cable behind the glove box.

Put everything back in place. Start the car, engage reverse gear, and the HU should display the reverse camera image.

[graaja]

Calibrating the Guidelines

Everything went well till the reverse camera image was displayed on the HU. The camera superimposes some guidelines on the video.


This is way off. See the pillar on left side of the image. The clearance between the pillar and the car’s left side is just about 10cm. But the guidelines show the pillar to be very far away thus creating an illusion of safety.

The android HU also has its own guidelines that can be enabled from the Settings -> Drive Settings option. These guidelines are also way off (I will show a picture later in the post)

I started looking for a solution for this problem. Came across the below thread in a forum called rav4world where a user had calibrated and modified guidelines.

http://www.rav4world.com/forums/98-4...it-huifei.html

Below is the high level steps involved.

• Place some reference objects behind the car, and take a picture of the display on the HU.
• Using an image editing software, draw your own reference lines aligning with these reference objects. Name this bg_distance.png.
• The image file for the reverse guidelines is located in the system app “MTCBackView.apk” with the file name “bg_distance.png”.
• Using a root file explorer, copy MTCBackView.apk to your PC. Open the .apk using an archive program like WinRar, replace the original bg_distance.png with the one you have created.
• Copy the MTCBackView.apk back to system/app folder.
• Restart the HU, and the new guidelines should be visible.

Disclaimer: The above process requires modifying the system folder using root access. Do this at your own risk. If you make a mistake, there is a chance of bricking the HU.

The Android HU comes with a rooted firmware. To get root access, go to Settings -> Factory Settings. In the password text box, enter *#hct#root#. Once root access is granted, use a root file explorer to perform update of the app. I used the Fx File Explorer app for this. Use the explorer of your choice.

I will only cover the calibration process. I will not go through the process to update the MTCBackView.apk file. Refer to the thread in rav4world forum for details.

First I parked the car on the road, and drew reference lines using chalk powder. I drew the parallel lines a few inches away from the side of the car. Then I marked distance markers for 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 meters. Below picture shows the reference lines behind the car.


Then I engaged reverse gear and took a photo of the image on the HU.


Then I cropped the image to get just the HU screen.


Then I used a free software paint.net to create an image 1024x600 pixels, and placed the photo of the HU screen in one layer.


Then in another transparent layer, I drew reference lines overlaying the while chalk powder lines, and added distance markers, and also a “objects are near than they look” warning message.


I then saved this layer as a png file, and updated the MTCBackView.apk with this new file.


I then copied this new MTCBackView.apk to system/app folder, restarted and voila, here is the result.


Note the center guideline is not actually centered on the screen. This is because the camera is offset from the center.

The only fly in the ointment here is that the camera also superimposes some reference lines which cannot be removed. I have written to the seller asking if it is possible to get a camera without these reference lines.

Some comparison pictures:

With original guidelines from the HU


With guidelines from the rav4world forum. Note that the 0.5 meter is aligned right, but the 2.0 meter is actually at 1.0 meter. This is because of different position and angle of the camera, and also field of view of the camera.


With my own guidelines


Here is a video of parking with guidelines.

https://youtu.be/49MM3ESpdp4

[praveen_v]

Thats a great DIY and really amazed at the way you went about creating your own guidelines. Brilliant to use paint.net for layering and ceating your own guide-lines!!

[srinivasnvns]

Brilliant DIY graaja. Let us know once you hear from the seller about removing the original guidelines.

Did you consider using imperial metrics for your guidelines? 0.5 to 1 m could be lot of gap when parking in cramped spaces. Also (presuming that your reverse parking sensors are working) what distance does the long beep/train of beeps correspond to?

[Abhi_Automobile]

Hi Graaja,

An absolutely noob question - I've been struggling to get a similar Apple Carplay based system. During your research, did you come across any such one i.e. is the re any such ones that you're aware of?

PS: I am aware that it's highly unlikely that there is some because unlike Android, which is Open source, iOS, which I assume forms the basis of Carplay, is wholly Apple owned. Just trying my luck.

[frankmehta]

You need not go in for an oe fit then. Carplay and Android Auto are already available in India since a while.

https://pioneer-india.in/product/avh-x8690bt/

https://pioneer-india.in/product/avic-f970bt/

[graaja]

Originally Posted by praveen_v

Thats a great DIY and really amazed at the way you went about creating your own guidelines. Brilliant to use paint.net for layering and ceating your own guide-lines!!

Thanks Praveen! Actually, I just followed the method described in the Toyota forum thread. But it was very exciting to see the final results after all the work.

Originally Posted by srinivasnvns

Brilliant DIY graaja. Let us know once you hear from the seller about removing the original guidelines.

Did you consider using imperial metrics for your guidelines? 0.5 to 1 m could be lot of gap when parking in cramped spaces. Also (presuming that your reverse parking sensors are working) what distance does the long beep/train of beeps correspond to?

Thanks Srinivas. I thought 0.5 and 1.0 meter marks would be good enough for judging near objects. I parked a couple of times with these lines as reference and I am able to park accurately. As I have hearing loss, I can't hear the beeps coming from the reverse parking sensors. That was the main reason for going for reverse camera as I needed visual aid. I will try to get my wife's help in mapping the distance vs. beep pattern and update.

Regarding the guidelines from the camera, the seller responded back and confirmed it is not possible to remove the guidelines. I also checked various other options and the guidelines are there in these models as well. So, for now, I have decided to live with this eyesore!

Originally Posted by Abhi_Automobile

Hi Graaja,

An absolutely noob question - I've been struggling to get a similar Apple Carplay based system. During your research, did you come across any such one i.e. is the re any such ones that you're aware of?

PS: I am aware that it's highly unlikely that there is some because unlike Android, which is Open source, iOS, which I assume forms the basis of Carplay, is wholly Apple owned. Just trying my luck.

Hi, I did briefly look for HU with car play with OE fitting for the Polo, but could not find any. Even the ones pointed by Frank are not compatible with CAN bus cars for steering wheel controls. It may be some more time by the time you get aftermarket HU's with CarPlay that integrate into the car.

[patron]

@Graaja: Thanks to your inspiration, finally installed this. Pretty straight forward install. It was a direct plug and play. One advantage with this system is that the android box is a separate unit. I connect it to any HDMI enabled monitor and can play around with it.
I installed XDAuto Rom before I even installed the HU in the car. Next Updated the MCU to the latest version. Only thing not working is the steering wheel scroller. Need to figure out how to make this work for volume control.

Also got an OBD scanner and works flawlessly. The HU being dual bluetooth, OBD is connected even when I have a phone connected.

- Overall happy with the install. The sound quality has definitely improved several notches and I can customize it the way I want it now. I use MixZing player.

- Being an 8" screen, the videos also look nice and the screen is very sharp.

- Maps: tried Google maps (needs internet), Navi maps and Now Maps. Both work well and get a satellite lock in seconds.

- Connected the dashcam to the unit and now everything is recorded/stored in the memory card. No need to fiddle with the dashcam to view the videos/pictures.

Next step: Reverse camera. The unit is fully equipped for reverse cam but unfortunately the camera I got does not fit. Will have to source another one.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by patron

@Graaja: Thanks to your inspiration, finally installed this. Pretty straight forward install.

I am very glad to know that this thread helped in your installation. I checked the product in AliExpress. The 8" screen looks awesome!! Please do post some pictures of the HU in action and also a review.

[petrol_power]

Originally Posted by patron

@Graaja: Thanks to your inspiration, finally installed this. Pretty straight forward install. It was a direct plug and play. One advantage with this system is that the android box is a separate unit. I connect it to any HDMI enabled monitor and can play around with it.
I installed XDAuto Rom before I even installed the HU in the car. Next Updated the MCU to the latest version. Only thing not working is the steering wheel scroller. Need to figure out how to make this work for volume control.

Also got an OBD scanner and works flawlessly. The HU being dual bluetooth, OBD is connected even when I have a phone connected.


- Being an 8" screen, the videos also look nice and the screen is very sharp.

- Maps: tried Google maps (needs internet), Navi maps and Now Maps. Both work well and get a satellite lock in seconds.

As per the specification, this has a 2 GB ram, good. Does it support usb dongle? And this device can also be rooted like graaja's device with the same passcode?

What does dual bluetooth mean? We can connect 2 bluetooth devices at a time?

[Tanveer_2558]

Originally Posted by patron

@Graaja: Thanks to your inspiration, finally installed this. Pretty straight forward install. It was a direct plug and play. One advantage with this system is that the android box is a separate unit. I connect it to any HDMI enabled monitor and can play around with it.
I installed XDAuto Rom before I even installed the HU in the car. Next Updated the MCU to the latest version. Only thing not working is the steering wheel scroller. Need to figure out how to make this work for volume control.

Also got an OBD scanner and works flawlessly. The HU being dual bluetooth, OBD is connected even when I have a phone connected.

- Overall happy with the install. The sound quality has definitely improved several notches and I can customize it the way I want it now. I use MixZing player.

- Being an 8" screen, the videos also look nice and the screen is very sharp.

- Maps: tried Google maps (needs internet), Navi maps and Now Maps. Both work well and get a satellite lock in seconds.

- Connected the dashcam to the unit and now everything is recorded/stored in the memory card. No need to fiddle with the dashcam to view the videos/pictures.

Next step: Reverse camera. The unit is fully equipped for reverse cam but unfortunately the camera I got does not fit. Will have to source another one.

Hello! Which car did you install this on? looks very interesting, Some pictures/ Videos please? A review would be highly appreciated actually, Looking to get it for my jetta.

[patron]

Originally Posted by petrol_power

As per the specification, this has a 2 GB ram, good. Does it support usb dongle? And this device can also be rooted like graaja's device with the same passcode?

What does dual bluetooth mean? We can connect 2 bluetooth devices at a time?

Originally Posted by Tanveer_2558

Hello! Which car did you install this on? looks very interesting, Some pictures/ Videos please? A review would be highly appreciated actually, Looking to get it for my jetta.

It comes pre-rooted out of the box. As I mentioned I did a full root using kingo root and installed XDAuto ROM.
Yes, dual Bluetooth is for 2 devices. I connected obd scanner and my phone. Not sure if we can connect 2 phones/other devices.
My car is 2015 rapid. There are connectors for Jetta as well and will fit. Shouldn't take more than 30 mins to install. Mainly because of the GPS receiver and mic to be connected and concealing the cable. Otherwise a fairly straight forward job.

I will post pics soon.