Brainiac 10" Tablet Mod - Who is rocking these?

Asus_

I have this done also, here were my solutions that most of you may find much better..

First issue was, keeping the tablet alive when the car was off without charge. This was not too difficult. I gutted the tablet of all bloatware and disabled everything that i was not going to use.. limited background applications & processes and also the battery stays in its power saving mode too. I lost 7-10% battery in about 3 days of no car use, so that is pretty damn good.

However, sound quality for AUX was not going to cut it so i opted to hide a single din (no cd port) head unit tucked away in the back there zip tied and plugged my tablet using USB. Done. Quality is a TON better & in terms of power, i ended up jailbreaking the tablet so it turns on when the car turns on and turns off using an app called MacroDroid, where you can program actions based on events, for ex i have it set to 5 seconds after the screen times out and there is no active charge detected (car is off) the tablet will power off. I've also got it to action on when it detects my wifi at home, it automatically lowers the music volume. Great app.

Only con is you got to wait for it to start each time, thats all but i dont have to touch it anymore or worry about it, it now feels like a proper integration

If you do go the head unit route, make sure its cd-less.. they are tiny if you want the smallest and most importantly, make the the head unit doesn't lock the use of the tablet during USB connection which then tries to force you to do everything using the head unit. Some do this, i think the newer head units do this, not sure if its a feature like apple car play or the unit itself but the older head units seem to be more consistent for this

Csharpminor

I was wondering which single din headunit you used for this? I am having a hard time finding a head unit that allows me to still use the tablet to change musics.

Girald

So, a bit more of an update on my Braniac setup... This truly is a project for people who like tinkering. Some FYI on things that i solved or am in the process of solving on this kit

For the braniac kit, you dont need to root your device, unless you have some custom hacker-ish ideas for the tablet itself.

MacroDroid app works great to sleep the tablet and wake it up. You just have to set up a few macros on the free version and off you go. Android App.
you definitely also want to set up macros that airplane mode your tab in no power state (and off that mode for back on of course) for power conservation. you also want it to pause whatever music you have on or to kill all open apps. Goal is to power conserve the tab when you turn off the car completely. My Tab lasts over a week in the car sitting pretty w no charge.

For the back up cam
, if you have the nav version of the car, then you have an existing cam feed to tap into. if not, you have to rig a cam and wiring to the radio stack. The easycap usb device works well. To activate the cam in reverse, you have a pre existing wire in the harness that emits voltage when you throw it in reverse. ( look in the FSM for that wire) alternately, you can tap the reverse light. you are powering the camera with this voltage. This will USB into a USB Hub

Braniac app works well for gestures. bottom right to wake up volume control.. then swipe 2 fingers up or down for volume adjustment right and left peak out gestures back you out like the left arrow on a web page, or open cascade mode so you can quick change to another app.

For the steering wheel controls... RcJoyCon.com - check out the CPJexc for resistive controls board. This will USB into a USB Hub. You need to download the software on your PC and setup the board by connecting to the PC via usb wire. There is also a downloadable manual, that walks you through the setup proccess. you will want the FSM handy to mate wires from the joycon to your harness.

Grounding...
So, i used a combination of things. First, i used an axxess ( brand) 12 volt emi isolator... still got some feedback. I found a better ground point,, sanded and soldered it in.. that improved but not perfect.. then i swapped out to gold plated RCA male leads to 3.5mm male > cheap ground loop isolator with good amazon reviews > male to 90 degree male low profile 3.5 mm wire. The jury is out as to whether the ground loop on the 3.5mm is good, or if the wire upgrade was the trick.

Sound leveling...
I used PAC ROEMINS-2 .. Since the rear pulls more juice than the front (bose), you need an inline leveler ( its called fade on a radio unit) to add more to the rear and balance out the system. I bought it, and use it.. works perfect. Its going to go between the braniac electronics ( or 100 watt amp ) and your bose system..

Note about Bose: think of the head unit as having a 100watt pre-amp 'amplifier' that preamped signal is going to the bose amp, and off to the speakers.

Tablet Charging and OTG hub...
This one is sticky since its a pita for the makers of these kits. They did solve some tech in the beginning stages of development and I did some research of my own..

Tablet charge and Sync:
So - how to charge the tablet full blast and also fully power the USB devices you are OTG'ing in . This is what i came up with ( partly based on what workshop 12 came up with):

lavalink Lava TL-002 - This is a 1 port true charge and otg interface... 3 ports. 1 is micro usb otg to tablet, 5v micro usb ( that I ran under the center console to the cubby and jack into a high end oc 3.0 charger the other is a usb port ( to a hub..
*NOTE: there is a youtube about severing a connector on the lavalink tl-002 board itself to block any tablet power draw when the power is turned off. (battery savings)

Pluggable 4 port powered hub - So i tested it for power back feeding (if i plug the tablet in is it going to send 5v to the host tablet? ) Answer is no, just sync, which is the goal....
(The TL-002 does try to feed current, but when i tested with both devices, it seems that the chip on the hub switches to its own 5v, and blocks out the incoming. So, no overvolting the usb devices. (so far so good)

So- 4 port hub with its own power, lavalink otg interface with its own power to tablet. between them just the sync portion of the usb.. - perfect...

I found this hub, by searching for powered hubs approved for use w older rasberryPi.. The rPis were having trouble with voltage back feeds burning out the boards, so the users made a master list... this hub was 1 of them.,

A/C
On the Workshop 12 site there are some great tutorials on how to convert from nav hvac to non nav ( 3 dials). At first i thought i screwed up or bought defective crap on ebay... turns out, i had a swapped tx and rx line. At the moment, i have it all up and running except the rear defrost.. i need to double check my wiring , but im sure its a simple fix. Someone made some boards for easier plug and play, but i wired mine in old school and, like i said, up and running for the most part until i get unlazy and search out the defrost problem

At first, I was pissed that i bought this unrefined aftermarket crap. it took a break on it to do other things. But, after getting my hands dirty and playing this like a fun research project, ( along with help from the forums) slowly i started solving problems. At the moment, its 90% done.. i have a couple of little bits. to sort out, but for the most part, it functions as if it was OEM. And it looks fking cool!

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AAM tt'ed // Soon: Moving back to the East Coast