Brainiac 10" Tablet Mod - Who is rocking these?
 

Im referring to this, for the ones who dont know... The best looking infotainment upgrade that ive seen
https://workshoptwelve.com/nissan-370z/

Ok, so who out there has it installed?? Problems, no problems?
What paint did you use, and did it match the dash, etc [ yes there is a youtube on painting but they dont specify the product number ( paint can ) that works perfect...] What was the order to delivery lag time and did you come up with great fixes for some of the lost functionality from OEM?

Car: 370z sport tech
Goal: OEM nav gone and sexy dash in

So, I went ahead and ordered this kit with the 1.5 option .. path of least resistance. The idea is to get the ecutek dashboard setup ( completly craps all over the mini gauge dash screen for the R35) and of course have google maps among other things.

So, right off the bat, im accepting that I wont have steering wheel infotainment controls, back up camera or or hands free ( FOR NOW) There are solutions for all of that, but If i can take it in stages then im happy.
:driving:
Aside from trying to figure out an Arduino approach to making some night hud displays, this looks liek a bad *** project...

Thoughts?

That looks really nice! BUT, the lost functionality, having to paint stuff yourself, kinda loses it for me. Your goal is to have the ecutek dashboard, so this would be great for you though. Update this thread after you have everything installed :tup:

I believe there is a few in this thread. Not sure if they are still around, but you can PM them.


http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...-brainiac.html

I have the V1 of the kit. It's great but definitely involved. I had a body shop sand and paint mine for $100. PM me if you want the details for the audio and other stuff as I have to dig through my order history.

I have the V1 version in my car as well, and as husam2012 said: it's a bit involved, especially if you want it to sound good.

The paint I used was Duplicolor RBA100 flat black, but the Duplicolor PAE101 semi-gloss black is a close match as well.

You can order a JoyCon to have steering wheel controls work, there's a brief write-up somewhere on the forum that explains how to wire it up. I haven't cared enough to figure it out just yet but I did go ahead an order the parts. Heads up: they've been difficult to order in the States lately and had to have a friend in Germany order one directly from the company, then send it to me from there.

Back up camera/hands free... they're working on that but I just added the OEM reverse camera mirror to my Nismo; cost around $250-300 off of ebay but not a route everyone may want to take.

Problems.... not a lot, but enough to be frustrating.
1. With the V1 kits, if your tablet dies you have to take the entire center apart to pull the tablet for charging. There is a workaround where you can configure the tablet to power up once it sees power, but I ran into an issue where either a) it would take 5-10 minutes to do so then b) eventually, it wasn't pulling enough power to run the startup while powering the tablet so it would get halfway through powerup then shutdown and enter a reboot cycle indefinitely...

Solution: I added a USB "Y" so that I now have the option to plug my tablet in through the wall outlet in my garage so that if I'm not driving it often (which I don't), I just plug it in and it can sit.

2. Sound from the tablet's 3.5mm is garbage, plain and simple. I already had an aftermarket 4ch amp, however even when using the amp's built-in crossover, it wasn't enough to separate the frequencies so the sound was muddied.

Solution: I added a Clarion electronic crossover and used that for complete frequency separation before going into the amplifier.

2a. With that, the crossover was picking up interference from the 3.5 once the engine was started, but only when the car was running. If left in the ACC/On position, no interference whatsoever. I rerouted all the cables, checked all my grounds, etc. but couldn't get the sound to go away. I hypothesized that the sound was a product of pulling from the 3.5 or something to do with the crossover. I bypassed the crossover, and it went down, however it was still there (the crossover amplified the noise). So , I determined it had to do with the 3.5 outlet.

Solution: I added a DAC (NextDrive SpectraX) to pull sound from the USB of the tablet, and eliminated the 3.5 entirely. This helped out two-fold. First, the interference was completely gone. Second, the digital sound is on a whole other level above the analog provided by the 3.5.

2b. Another problem surfaced when using the DAC: the DAC was pulling power from the tablet (this was before I had a solution for Problem #1). So, due to the natural power drain combined with the power pulled by the DAC, the tablet would die overnight. Low and behold, the DAC was always pulling power, regardless if the tablet was charging or not (I had figured it would cease pulling power once the tablet went into standby but nope).

Solution A: I tried adding a USB On/Off switch inline between the tablet and DAC so that I could manually kill the connection, thus turning the DAC off. While this did help battery life, there was still some parasitic drain and the tablet would die after 2-3 days vs overnight. So this solution was a failure.

Solution B: I spoke with Workshop 12 and they recommended adding a Lava USB hub, with a caveat: the hub would need to be modified. This would add additional USB ports and the modification would ensure the power was killed once the tablet went into standby (the mod was just clipping a connector within the hub itself which took all of maybe 5 min start to finish).

With that, I had better sound, better battery life, and could keep the tablet charged when I didn't drive the car. However, shortly after Workshop 12 came out with their electronics box that solves most of the issues I encountered minus still pulling sound from the 3.5 would I'd still recommend going with a DAC.

Hope this helps :tiphat:

Great review, appreciate you taking the time!

Yeah, thanks for that write up..

Im glad that the V2 is out. I suppose it will make life easier, though i prob envy you since the V1 might offer a bit more of an anti theft deterrent. I garage the car, but its not always in the garage.

Im not sure about what will happen with the bose system... i really need to crack open the FSM to see how its harnessed and amped if not just in the head unit. Ill start playing once the braniac deal shows up...so, thanks for the heads up on all of that... I used to be a sound reinforcement engineer for concerts and a light tech for 6 years, so this should be right up my alley. Another fun project :):)



I did do a bit of research on the other items i need...

the back up cam....:eekdance:
I do have the sport tech - so i have a hard wired back up cam... Now i just need to see how the cam activates/deactivates from the OE navi unit. im guessing ill find the reverse signal on one of the harness pins - Otherwise, ill have to pull from the reverse lamp and get a 5v stepdown..

For the cam, it looks like i will need the easycap usb DVR to analog device... I actually found a model in amazon with a review from someone who did this operation on their car... Also,that dude used an app called USB camera and described how he used a usb extension from the easy cap to the usb hub , spliced out the red power wire and used that as a power toggle to activate the app and thus the camera when in reverse..

Ive seen similar deals on youtube... Im going to bench test the idea myself with some spare av equipment i have lying around this week.

The steering wheel control: :eekdance:
I did see that, and I see there are a few models for resistivity controls. I want to contact the makers if possible to see if the 1/2 price versions for resistivity controls only would suffice (the JOycon EXR)

FM radio ( and FTA TV for that matter):
I bought an FM receiver for USB that ill be testing when it comes in.. After using "nextradio" app in the past on my phone, im definitely going to want that for the tab. I can run sling TV all day, but it would be nice to pick up FTA TV also for morning news, etc.

Hands free phone::eekdance:
My only beta solution here is to buy a cheap hands free device with a talk button and a 3.5mm (then fitted to RCA and out to the amps on a splitter), pull the plastic apart to expose the circuit board, solder in the steering control for phone pick up... if that tests well, ill hide it in the headliner or somewhere where the mic will work, and call it good..

Most of the testing should happen by the weekend... but I wont give a final result until its all in the car.

The FAB...
im all about paint these days. Knowing the color now, is more than 1/2 the battle.. I spent a week straight sanding and clearing a fly1 hood that was supposed to be fiberglass but turns out it was hex CF underneath. (a reject because of some bubbles in curing) Since the virus thing is happening I couldn't paint it, so what the hell, lets expose the CF for a while. It looks good :):):)

:happydance:

Yeah it would be cool if it was a finished stand alone product, but im cool with it.

I get into DIY like nobodys business.. I think i have a solution for most of the issues.. Im going to youtube all of it, and post it all here and in the workshop 12 forums if it all turns out perfect.

Fully functional, this is prob one of the best updates (in my opinion for this Z)

As for ECUTEK... I made a few dash screens already for the tab... looks fking amazing... Its nice to see live knock sensors, wheel slip AFR etc etc in real time. Being able to make the gauges in any color and add in custom backgrounds to further make it look OEMish makes the setup worthwhile...:happydance:

I have the brainiac mod.

I installed a tiny single din headunit back there and plugged the tablet via usb, so when the car is on, the tablet is getting charged and sound quality is exactly where i wanted it.
If you do go the headunit route, make sure the one you pick allows you to control the tablet. I went in-store and plugged the headunit to a few units that were on display.. Allot of the newer headunits out there with all that fancy android auto and whatnot sometimes takes away the tablet control and forces you to use the headunit. i can get the name of the headunit i used if you'd like... was like $90 and its very very small.

I uninstalled and disabled all apps/programs/features on the tablet that i would not be using. Set brightness and screen response timer/dim etc.. accordingly for car setting... turned off network since i dont care for internet and put tablet to airplane mode. This make the tablet use little power that you'll never really worry about it. I've left the car parked for several weeks and tablet was still good. The tablet has never died on me, its never gone below 95% and i drive only weekends

I just got mine installed last week. It's a project that I've been putting off for a year because I couldn't get the plastic to look good enough even after following workshop 12s videos that offer some guidance. After my third attempt didn't come out how I wanted it too I put it off for another couple months until deciding to vinyl wrap it. The 3M matte black vinyl ended up being a great match. I can post up some pictures if you like. I'm a little concerned about the longevity of the vinyl but I wouldn't mind wrapping it again. It was my first time using vinyl and I have the v1 plastics (one piece instead of two) which gave some difficulty on the bottom of the 3 dials. It's wrinkled but I can hardly see it in the car so I will live with it. However, I think the v2 plastics would be really easy to wrap. I do have noticeable hiss but I'm optimistic that I can troubleshoot that issue (workshop 12 emailed me some steps to take). I do see myself upgrading to a setup like NorthStyle mentioned one day. I do plan to wire up the Joycon EXR on Friday to my steering wheel controls. I used a donor metra harness to remove some pins to fit into the brainiac mk1 elecronics harness so that I won't have to splice into the factory wiring at all.

Update: I got the steering wheel controls programmed using the Joycon EXR today! Wiring it up to the car was easy thanks to detailed instructions from forum user bigaudiofanat in scope22's thread; Thank you! The programming process was straightforward after watching some youtube videos. I did have to make adjustments to the sensitivity screws on the joycon board in order to read all the buttons. Speaking of buttons, I was able to detect 5 buttons (Source, Switch Up, Switch Down, Volume Down and Volume Up) which you can program a short and long click for each, so a total of 10 buttons really. I keep seeing documentation on making the joycon EXR detect the reverse light and I think that's my next little project for the tablet.

Did you have any issues with the EXInterface (Manager) program? For whatever reason, whenever I launch it (Windows 10) it automatically goes into "Not Responding" and I can't do anything with it... I tried it with the JoyCon plugged in, unplugged (although it'll recognize it being plugged in but that's about all) and the site is pretty much useless for troubleshooting information. Pretty frustrating

I didn't have any issues with the software starting. I'm also on windows 10. Where did you download it from? Have you tried reinstalling? That is frustrating, I wish I had an answer for you.

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I downloaded it from here: http://www.exinterface.com/cpjexr/

I even went so far as to try installing previous versions but they always had the same end result which would be the not responding then freezing/restarting as soon as the program ran.

Yeah, that's where I installed it from too. My antivirus was initially interfering with the installer. I had to run the installer as admin to get it installed. After installation I didn't have any issues. Maybe try a different computer. Good luck!

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Not sure why but when I swapped over to my wife's computer I was able to run it. Now, I'm just trying to figure out how to configure the controls along with the button frequency range...; I was really thinking this would be much simpler than it is lol.

Cyber, would you happen to have any of the programming video links you mentioned previously?

Awesome! Yeah I struggled to figure it out at first. After I understood the interface however it was fairly easy. Playing with the screw adjustments to get all the buttons working took some time as well.

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I just came here to ask you about how you went about your Y cable usb setup and noticed that I didn't answer your question. Sorry about that, I think I read and replied from the notification shade on my phone and must have missed it. Hopefully you got it all figured out by now but if not here's the videos I used to sort of get an idea of what to do. The videos are both from the same channel which has tons of setup videos for different devices so watching them gave me better context despite not being the best tutorials.

https://youtu.be/JtzPmfz6J4o
https://youtu.be/V50JKljC5LQ

Under the "button" tab you then go to the A sub-tab and hit auto detect and then push all the buttons and hit auto detect again to stop the detection process. So long as all the buttons show up on the bar (not all on top of each other or so spread out that some aren't read) you're good. Otherwise make an adjustment on the screw and try again. Then repeat for channel B. Assigning the keyboard presses was fairly straightforward.

I also plan to pick up an AXXESS AX-NIS32BT to jump some pins on the bluetooth module harness to give access (no pun intended) to the bluetooth steering wheel controls.

No, I could never get it to recognize the steering wheel controls so I figured I'd just have one of the local audio shops handle it whenever I had some time to drop the car off.

As for the Y, which part are you referencing, my power, my audio, or just how I have everything setup? I can take some pictures and make a diagram of my setup later this evening.

I was interested in your power setup that allows you to charge the tablet from an outlet at home. I'm having an issue about once a week where half the battery drains overnight and it would be nice not to take the tablet out to charge.

Would it be helpful if I took some pictures of my joycon exr wiring?

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Sure, that'd be great. I tried ordering a new Metra harness that had the steering wheel wires pre-sorted/separated, but I could never get them to register with the Joycon once I had the program running on the laptop and everything wired in the car.

I ended up falling asleep early last night but I'll make sure to get it for you once I get off this afternoon.

My wires were a bit cluttered since I haven't cleaned everything up from the Joycon "install" (if you could even call it that); so I ended up making a diagram that should break it down.

https://i.imgur.com/Nzfcrpnh.jpg

So basically, coming out of the Metra harness it goes as such:
1. Metra > JTRON power adapter

2. JTRON > USB extension (needed a male/male)
* Only one of the JTRON outlets are used

3. USB extension > [Male input] USB to Male/Female Micro USB splitter
a) Female is used for wall power input
b) Male is used for vehicle power [Acc/On]

4. Male Micro USB to Lava OTG hub (#TL-002)
a) Power < Micro USB [Male]
b) Tablet > Galaxy Tab A (I used 5-pin OTG cables from the tablet to the Lava hub)
c) USB > DAC > 3.5mm to RCA cable > Crossover


Input (under driver's side knee pad)

https://i.imgur.com/3I0fqixl.jpg


Powered from wall with vehicle off

https://i.imgur.com/uYxL9kLl.jpg

Thanks, that makes sense. I'm thinking about replicating it but hooking up that y to the usb port in the console using another harness. Have you tried that?

I'll probably have everything out tomorrow to take pictures of the joycon because I just found out that I have to self isolate for 14 days because a coworker had symptoms. Also I forgot to hook up my ac controls a few days ago when I was messing around with things, haha.

Until then here's a picture I found on my phone that has most of the information I think you'd need. My car has the bose system and no navigation. Pin 6 and 16 went to channel A and B respectively although it shouldn't matter. I grounded the joycon ground wires for channels A and B as well as pin 15 from the Metra harness to the same bolt I used for the mk1 electronics.

Let me know if there's something more specific you want a picture of for when I have it out tomorrow. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...a97401bd4d.jpg

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My car didn't come with a USB outlet so it wasn't an option. I added one in place of the center blanks, but it's only wired to vehicle power so it wouldn't make a difference lol.

Thanks for the diagram, I'll check it out again this weekend.

I also just ordered one of these, does not look like an off the shelf install. I did find a hopefully simple solution for reverse camera.
Easycap is a ~10 dollar video to usb device. The app looks a bit dates but hopefully wont be an issue.
Depending on the sound quality from the 3.5mm I might try and usb or bluetooth option.

BTW what paint did you use?

Let me save you some time: The sound quality from the 3.5 is garbage, even with an external crossover and amp (think worse than OEM).

Paint was Rustoleum (either satin or flat), but if you just ordered the newer Brainiac plastics come with the black ABS plastic look from the factory.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...colid=&coliid=

Thinking this may be better, it's still an 3.5 to what will be a splitter.

TaoTronics Bluetooth Car Kit, Bluetooth Receiver, Bluetooth 4.2 Hands-Free Audio Adapter

Today I finally got around to implementing a usb y setup similar to yours. I was able to make it work with my factory usb port so I was pretty happy about that. Now I just need to figure out whats draining my tablet overnight on occasion.

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I have the V1 kit installed and am having the same power issue as people in this thread have explained. I want to do the Y charge cable as multiple people have done here, however I have the Brainiac all-in-1 electronics box instead of stand alone parts. How would I go attaching a Y cable to the Brainiac electronics box outputs and what cable should I order?

Thank you,
Nick

Sorry, didn't see this before but I know with the Lava hub, you had to open it up and snip one of the connections so that the accessories wouldn't continue to draw power from the tablet once the car was off. There's a video on Workshop 12's blog that shows how to do it (if you're using that device).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noyLO9bN0H8

No clue really, I'm not sure how it's wired inside of the box. You may be able to simply add a male to female USB-A extension to one of the open USB outlets and just plug it directly into the wall how we do, but that's really a question for the guys at Workshop 12... unless you just want to experiment (that's pretty much what I did :rofl2: ).

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

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.

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!