The Ugly Blue Truck - Now With Feeble Attempts at Remapping Volume/Seek Buttons!

It's good enough with Android Auto that I don't see a need to upgrade.

If it was upgraded I'd opt for something like the Alpine Halo that I had previously, or equivalent. That's something like $1,100 just for the head unit, plus another few hundred for installation and various harnesses (HDMI, headphone, mic, etc.) with another $150ish for the Maestro.

Figured this project might be fun to do (if it's possible to pull off...) and could help lots of others who don't have aftermarket head units or the funds for that plus a Maestro.

After purchasing enough materials for 100 harnesses they'll come out to $3 a pop in parts, plus another $15-20 for an Arduino and you'd be in business.

That said, I'm not fully confident this is possible. There'd have to be a power source for the media controls that could be tapped into with enough power for the controls and 6-12V for the Arduino.

 

I can definitely pull power and ground off the OEM 10 pin if you 2020+ guys still have that one. And I think @kmorgan3 may have some poutlet T harnesses brewing too for 12v power. My aftermarket charging pad came with such a T. That part is very solvable even if it has to be a dumb add-a-fuse on one of the poutlet circuits.

You think 100 people would want this? I suspect you could get that many interested if it also came with a new left side module with the swapped button, so it all looked completely stock but the way stock should have been.

 

I'm not sure on interest, honestly, but I'd have ~96 sets left over and could whip up a harness for anyone with the gumption to do this themselves.

As for the button, I'm not sure what route I'll go on that. This spare set of controls has me thinking I could strip the paint off, repaint the black topcoat, and then laser etch new icons. But that's a ton of work and may not look great. I do suspect that Toyota laser etched them at the factory though, it'd be surprising to learn those icons were stamped on.

A generic button solution (that I'd personally dislike) would be a vinyl overlay people could apply.

Honestly though even if I made it simple as buying the harness from me, buying an Arduino somewhere, copy/pasting the required code onto it, and installing; it seems doubtful many people would follow in my footsteps.

 

I may be interested in the spare set of controls you have… if you don't plan on using them.

Super cool write ups too! Lots of really good research and information shared.

 

I think you initially had the right idea on button mapping using the jumpers. You just gave up too soon on finding someone to do the work. We use to do this all the time when a PC board we designed came back with a few undocumented features. You would be surprised just how many first production products have jumpers installed to rectify design errors.

Your tag line is a bit vague as to where you are actually located. Portland should have some electronic manufacturers, the West coast is full of companies. Cleveland totally unknown to me.

HAM operators do lots of their own electronics work as well, find the local club and get ahold of the president, etc. Radio shack use to be a good source of referrals for this type of stuff, unfortunately they are long gone. Perhaps there is a replacement store for Radio Shack in Portland.

Don’t look to have a manufacturer do the work, but ask who in their company could do the work on the side. Hang out in the parking lot, show people what you want, someone will help you… or have security run you off.

 

Zak moved from Portland to Cleveland. I moved to Portland just in time to miss him. Too bad, woulda been cool to meet the man.

I have too much in the air to attempt to follow his lead but I'm willing to schlep stuff somewhere to help out the cause, just no spare brain cells b/c I owe too much to too many others.

 

Why would you move from the San Diego area to Portland, burrr. Do you like it?

 

Interesting that you think the worst move is SAN->PDX instead of PDX->CLE

I hate to mess with Zak's fun thread (he's such an entertaining writer) but we moved to be closer to family. I am renting my San Diego house b/c I got it in 2009 at the bottom of the market as a foreclosure so my cost basis is nice and low. May return once the kids are out of the house, it's a nice little pad. We were kind of stepping on each other a bit, though, and two boys can suck a lot of the oxygen out of a place. So, now we have 4 adults on 4 kids and more cousin play time plus a lot less travel for holidays and closer to the rest of my wife's extended family.

ETA: My sister-in-law's place is 10 min away. They are 2 adults w 2 kids and so are we. I wrote the above in a confusing manner, documentation specialist I am not

 

Ah, yes family.
Zak was not here for a question and I have experience with North County primary and San Diego many years ago. I would rather be in San Diego county than either of the others. The Portland and Vancouver area I have traveled through many times. My Dad was born in Cleveland and had many fond memories of the greater surrounding area, but what kid doesn’t. I looked at a map of the Cleveland area for Electronics Manufacturing and many of those old story locations popped up. Highjack over.

 

@daveeasa quick question.

If the truck is depending on resistances to determine which button was pressed, but resistances are calculated by measuring voltage output vs. voltage input... then can I get away with simply outputting whichever voltage is measured for each button press and "trick" the truck into thinking that voltage was the result of an unmodified button press rather than an Arduino faking a press?

 

Sounds worth trying. You thinking IC? Seems harder than jumpers since the whole thing works already.

@Puppypunter might have ideas too.

Zak, your plan right now is a man in the middle sort of module? Detect voltages a,b,c,d for the 4 presses and output voltages b,c,d,a respectively? Or something similar to that?

with external power it seems possible to do.

 

Yep, that's the current plan. I've abandoned the idea of an Arduino on the steering wheel in favor of putting it in the dash for both ease of install and to not worry about how to plumb power.

I'll tap into this harness which as far as I know connects directly to the back of the headunit:

This'll be accomplished modifying this harness I found on Amazon, similar to the modification I outlined for the steering wheel harness:

$30 28-pin Head Unit Wiring Harness Adapter Fits Subaru and Toyota

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BSE5X9Y?ie=UTF8

 

We can build that 28 pin for cheaper but fine to use that for a prototype for now.

 

Have you considered the CPU might also expect to see the normal resistance with no buttons pressed? Sort of like the switch module saying hey I’m here, plugged in and ready to work. Notice on the switch resistance ladder those two resistors between ground and the two inputs. You are probably correct in that the CPU is expecting to see voltage changes when a button is pressed, but could also be measuring the current change to detect the button presses. Not likely though.
In years past if a manufacturer wished to change the function of the buttons the jumper mod would be done, today I believe they would change the software.

 

Hoo boy!

So SCS finally released some Gen5 in gloss white and I managed to snag a set!

Can I afford these right now? Absolutely not.

Am I stoked on the purchase? Of course.

 

Glad white rims are making a come back. Always looked good on older trucks

 

Yeah. I'm happy with how powder coating the TRD SEMA wheels turned out, but these SCS will be a big upgrade from that.

Should look real sharp

 

I am just so much happier having read the saga of white wheels for the blue truck. I hope the SCS ones have decent drama too.

 

Sadly it'll be a couple months before I can afford a new set of KO2 for these beauties.