2018-03-03

I'm Back!

In case anyone thought I had dropped off the end of the earth, I'm still toiling away at this project. 2017 was a tough year. After my previous post I had some health issues and so work on the project slowed down a lot. But after dealing with the health issues and finding out that some of my assumptions about this project were wrong, re-working those assumptions and updating some of the hardware used... Here is what the system now looks like:

You may have noticed that the touch screen is on the right-hand side now and the volume control is on the left-hand side where God and GM intended it to be. It turns out that by upgrading to a new capacitive touch screen, not only is the system more responsive to touch, it also allowed me to redesign the front panel layout and put the controls where I really wanted them in the first place. When I started this project, the capacitive touch screen wasn't available. Now it is. And it's cheaper. Yay!

I've reworked the Power Manager and made other improvements as well.

The GPS receiver I got for Christmas is now integrated into the system so now I can record road trip data.

And finally, I'm starting to work on displaying live OBD1 data. I'm still putting the puzzle pieces together and it may take a while (unless someone in-the-know offers to educate me) but the system is working for the most part and I'm happy with its appearance and features.

I posted these photos on the Facebook Corvette Forum and was overwhelmed by the positive responses I received. It is gratifying to see others getting excited about this project. Early C4 owners don't have a lot of options when it comes to replacing their old BOSE head units and I think this project will offer a viable option.