My New Double Din Stereo

Hi Guys,

I've recently bought a double din stereo. I've wanted one for a few months, but they are so expensive - or so I thought...
I'd been looking on ebay and after some digging, I found the company in China where the ebayers buy from. I was impressed with the features and price (under £300), so I took the plunge and bought one. It took under a week to be delivered. Sorry about the camera flash in the pictures. I took them in my garage



It has a high resolution 7 inch touch screen and DVDs look great. It also has GPS Freeveiw, Bluetooth, IPOD connector (music and video), Takes SD cards for music / pictures and movies as well as normal CDs. The operating system is windows CE and you have access to it to add your own apps.

It's even supplied with a WiFi dongle and Internet explorer. I also bought a reversing camera with (IR lighting) for £12 and mounted it below the twin exhausts. Now when you select reverse, the camera shows what’s going on. (I made the electrical connection to auto select the camera, to the reversing light).

I think the sound is an improvement even using the standard speakers.

The GPS supplied was IGO8 and includes maps for most of Europe with some 3D buildings (mainly in London).




I Fitted the GPS aerial just above the unit in-between the air vent pipes under the dash. The TV aerial is a small magnetic type and I keep in along with the IPOD connector in the glove box. The digital TV aerial attaches nicely to the steel frame above the rear window and works okay outside my house, but not when moving!



On the negative side, the screen does stick out a little and some times the touch screen is a little slow to respond, but overall I'm amazed. It will run quite happily three things at once (e.g. blue tooth, play a CD, and GPS).

Some of the options - like scanning the TV stations are a little fiddly and don't work quite the same as the manual says, but nothing I can't live with. The internet option is quite slow to load pages, but it does work!



Overall I think it is amazing value for money, considering you could pay well over £1000 for a branded unit, without all these features. Have a look here for more details. Fish4Digital.co.uk

P.S. Also check out the car alarm!

Rex.

 

The reversing camera

Just in case anyone is interested, here are a few details of how I fitted the reversing camera....

It has a wide angle lens and gives a good colour picture in the day. At night it has IR LEDs to give a clear black and white picture. There is a sensor that detects the light level and turns on the LEDs when required.

Here is a picture of the camera fitted. Hardly noticeable from a distance any without drilling any nasty holes (well, that not quite true as there are two fixing holes into the plastic bumper, but as they are on the under side of the bumper nobody will ever see them! I used self tapping stainless steel screws, so they shouldn't go rusty).




The next problem was how to run the cable into the car. In the end it was easy. There is a rubber grommet in the boot under the wheel jack. Presumably this is for draining the boot should it become full of water
This photo is looking down into the boot with the jack removed. The camera cable is at the bottom



I bought the camera the same time as the stereo from China (£15) to save postage. You can find the link to the camera on the Fish4Digital web page.

Rex.

 

The unit was delivered by UPS and was easy to track. When it arrived, they enclosed an invoice for the VAT and a small handling charge. (Better than Royal Mail, who demand payment before they will deliver!). For the Stereo and the rear camera, it came to £67.59. Strangley, UPS sent me a refund of £12 a few weeks later?? So total import cost was £55.59.

Rex.

 

Oh, Rushmere, such a simple question, but not so simple to answer...

I also had a preference for TomTom and had subscriptions to the speed cameras and quarterly maps. The new unit states it comes with ‘evaluation GPS software’ and will run other apps including TomTom. So, I was pleased when I found fully functioning IGO8 software installed and configured on a 2GB SD card with a ‘genuine’ sticker fitted to the unit . It has maps of most of Europe (East and West) – Certainly a lot more countries than TomTom Western Europe.

Software being what it is, I knew TomTom was interested to see if it was possible to stick with it (or am I getting old?). So I contacted TomTom regarding their ‘navigator 7’ software. Basically they were not very helpful, saying TomTom the company only support (very) limited hardware. That’s not to say it won’t work, but they won’t offer any support. In other words - buy it at your own risk! Great

From what I’ve read on the web, it seems like TomTom do not want to sell standalone software, only software incorporated within their own hardware, but have been pushed into a U Turn by the mobile phone market.

Remember IBM? – They didn’t want to get involved with software when the launched there first ever ‘Personal Computer’ so they sub-contracted it to a little company called Microsoft., who wrote ‘PC Dos’ and the rest, as they say is history (Click here) . – Must be a lesson here for TomTom.

So this spurred me onto investigating the IGO8 software….
It is certainly has more features than TT and is more configurable. but takes some getting use to. .See the manual here.

I like the fact you can see if a road you are crossing, but cannot join (e.g. motorway) goes over or under you. The 3D buildings look nice, but there aren’t very many. It can tell you your average speed when passing average speed cameras. Has a trip meter. Automatic change of day and night colours based on sunrise / sunset times.
The speed camera warning is an annoying bleep, but it can be configured not to go off if you are under the speed limit. If you are exceeding the speed the limit warning noise is horrible – maybe not a bad thing.
The map automaticall switches from 3D to 2D and zoomes out, if there aren't any further instructions for a while. This is quite nice, as you get a feel for where you are.

It seems to have a problem putting in the postcodes (you need to type in the SPACE, and they are not very accurate).
But here lies the biggest problem – the updating. The maps supplied were 2008 – okay, not too bad. There is software you can down load from Nav N Go . A Bit like TomTom Home. However, I could not get it to recognise the SD card! So I was forced to look elsewhere for updates.

Good sites I have found so far are:
GPSUnderground.
POI Plaza.

So far I've updated the UK maps (Had to join rapidshare) and speed cameras.
But I’m still investigating....

A word of warning - backup the SD card before you make any changes - (Coping to a folder on your hard drive is good enough), then you can always go back.

The more you 'play' with Igo8 the more you will learn, It means you will have to invest some time, but you will save money.


Well, here endith the epistle - at least for now - I need coffee...:-((

Rex.

 

Well, if you did get one I'm sure we could start a new thread, (or maybe forum!) as there is much to learn about the whole unit.

In the end, it does do what is claimed but running windows CE opens up many more possibilities. If you enjoy a little experimenting, the unit is great.

Rex.

 

Cables from head unit to boot.

Here is a bit more information regarding how to get cables from the stereo to the boot.

First, remove the glove box. To do this open it and press in the sides. It should drop down, then it will pull out.

Then remove the door scuff plate by prising it up from the rear. The picture shows where to expect the clips.



Next remove the side kick plate. To do this first remove the lower visible screw and clip.



Then reach up under the dash, to find another plastic screw. (Follow the plastic moulding up with your hand towards the front of your car.) I found it was possible to turn this by hand as it has a large head.



The carpet is secured to the door seam by a long plastic clip that lifts off.

.

So far so good. Now we have to get access into the boot.

To start, pull off the cover between the head rests. Again the photo shows the position of the clips.



Next raise the rubber rings around the head loops, then pull up the cover. 4 clips here.





This allows the large cover behind the seat to be removed. Note the position of the 5 clips again.



Finally this reveals the seatbelt and the opening into the boot.





Overall, this is quite a quick job, because except for 2 screws on the side kick plate, everything is clipped together.

Hope this helps.

Rex.

 

Thanks for the thanks Guys. As you can see, I took the pictures on a day when it wasn't raining in Wales - So it may be some time before another post like this!

 

As I started this thread, I thought I better update it.

The cheap double din from China - is no more - it has ceased to be!

It lasted nearly a year, but It died! Now replaced by a proper one - (Pioneer).

Rex

 

You should be able to fit any 'double din' system. You can use the exitising brackets that keep the clock and storage hole in place. Have a look at the 'how to' section on the 'features' tab. The only point to watch out for is some will stick out of the dash more than others.

Rex.