This project is not yet completed.... Here are preliminary pics of the navi video conversion module from www.tvandnav2go.com. I ordered it with the 20-pin plug-and-play harness.
Here's the unit. it is pretty small and sturdy (metal box). The label was coming off when I got it. The colors mentioned must refer to the wire colors inside the DB9-to-bare-lead cable that must come with the unit when you don't order it with PnP. The way I received it, you can't see any of the wires that the label is referring to.
The brightness buttons are momentary push-button switches that appear to control some sort of microcontroller. The brightness setting you choose appears to be saved in some sort of non-volitale memory so that it doesn't reset to defaults when it loses power. The "RGB OUT" connector is a DB9 connector which is for RGBS in from the navi and RGBS out to the display. There is an RGBS/RGSB switch recessed in a hole to change the sync mode. The red/black wire pair goes to a toggle switch which selects between navi and video sources. The blue/white wire pair is intended to be connected to the reverse/backup bulb wires on the back of the car. When they see 12v, the unit switches to the second video in (for a backup camera), no matter what mode the toggle switch is in.
Video 1 is for the main video device. Video 2 is intended for the backup camera. The LED is a power indicator. The power cable with white adapter you see did not come with the unit. It did come with a dc power connector/cable assembly that terminates to bare wire.
Here you can see how the PnP harness attaches to the back of the navi unit. The larger white connector plugged into the back of the navi unit is part of the PnP harness. The wire bundle coming down from above in the foreground is the factory wiring that was originally plugged directly into the navi unit but is now plugged into the PnP harness. So basically it's a Y adapter with the 3rd leg going to the converter's DB9 input.
Screenshots. Sorry for the bad focus. It was darkish and cold in the garage. The video in these is being generated by an Archos AV420 portable DVR which can play DivX AVI files. The navi screen accepts a normal 480i 4:3 NTSC signal but the screen is wider than 4:3 so it does distort the aspect ratio of the video a little bit. It isn't overly annoying though. If you are encoding your own video to play on the navi, you could probably squish the video horizontally (with black bars on the sides) to compensate. I just noticed that none of my screen caps show the video filling the entire screen. This is just an issue with my source video -- you can in fact fill the whole screen with this converter. The menu system and audio play screen of the AV420 does not fill the whole screen so that it doesn't get cut off due to overscan on a normal CRT TV. (I wish that was selectable so I could turn it off).
My plan is to build an interface device to either talk to the Sony Unilink protocol that my SNHOND3 convterter translates the Acura protocol to, or to talk the Acura protocol directly. The AV420 has an IR remote control input. Then I can do things like tell the AV420 to turn on and off with the ignition and to switch to video-out mode automatically (it defualts to onboard LCD display mode at powerup) and hopefully even send it track forward/track back signals from the acura radio (including the steering-wheel control). I'd also like to replace the video/navi toggle switch with this interface too so that I can maybe use the Disc - or Disc + buttons on the factory radio to toggle the display when in CD-C mode. Yeah, this all seems like a lot of work, but I've got some 68HC711E9 microcontrollers to play with and I'm working on learning 68HC11 assembly now. Does anyone have a cheap (<$30) EPROM eraser they want to sell me?
Ok, I got an EPROM eraser and learned me some 68HC11 assembly and I've successfully sent IR commands from the 'HC11 directly to the IR in if the AV420. Now I just need to do the Sony Unilink side of the communication. That will be tougher because I'll have to do my development/testing in the garage with a laptop since I have no devices which speak unilink that I can take into the house.
In the meantime, I grew tired of all the temporary wires and stuff in the car, so I mounted the video to nav converter box in the trunk and ran a video cable and some control wires from the trunk, under the rear seat, under the rear floor carpet, and into the center console thingy between the front seats. Until I can get the AV420 integration stuff done, I just added a 3rd RCA jack into the center storage bin for video and just let the navi/video toggle switch hang loose next to the driver's seat. If I wasn't doing the AV420 integration, I'd just need to mount that toggle switch somewhere and I'd be done. Well, except for the backup camera :) That's next. Oh, while I had the trunk torn apart, I installed the Acura cargo net that I bought a year ago and hadn't installed yet... Why didn't they just install those 4 damn hooks when they built the car??
Here are pics from today's work. The coverter box is mounted with velcro. It is industrial grade velcro with really sticky backing, but I'm not sure if it will stay or not. You can see the video cable plugged into the video 1 jack. That cable goes down the side, behind the trunk lining, and under the rear seat. Along with it are 2 pairs of twisted pair wire (the blue/white wire hanging down to the bottom of the pic). I connected one pair of that to the red/black wires coming out of the converter box. I cut off the switch and relocated it for now to the other end of those blue wires next to the driver's seat. For 12v power for the converter, I tapped into the switched power wires going into the back of the navi unit. I guess I didn't take pics of that part. Later.
Here you can see the black video wire and the blue/white wire pairs. I fished them under the carpet to the right of the pic using fish tape. It was tight. I almost had to cut off the molded RCA connector on the end of the video cable.
All ziptied onto some factory wiring loom, ready for the rear seat to go back in. Trunk is toward the top of the pic, front seats toward the bottom.
This is where the cupholder sits between the front seats. For now, that video cable just gets connected to an RCA jack in the storage bin.
I added the left/right audio jacks from this picture in my first mod. Today, I added a 3rd RCA jack for video. Had I planned ahead for video, I would have installed the audio jacks up a hair to make room for the video jack under them. But instead I put it to the side. I'll just have to remember that the left one is video and the right two are audio.
After the integration, I may keep the AV420 here. The other possible location is in the bin above the not-an-ashtray (under the radio). For now, this isn't a good place for it because it is difficult to access the buttons for navigating the menus to select the audio/video or to turn it on and off.
Contact: tsxmodjason8282@truedesign.org