2020 Camry.

[Donanon]

These showed up about 10 minutes ago, cute little things, now I can carry on with my new pod build.

[Donanon]

Got the new pods just about finished and the drivers dry mounted...look good to me and very ballistic. I'm going to use small hanger nuts and bolts to mount the mid and tweeter, put a bit of damping fibre in the enclosures and run the 'speaker wires straight from the amplifier to the drivers with EC3 Connectors to break the wires behind the dash. Going out to work on the media player enclosure for a while before it gets dark.Attachment 13683

[Donanon]

Painted the first coat of resin mixed with graphite powder on the media player enclosure and wet sanded to 800, going to apply another two or three coats tomorrow and wet sand it to crocus 2000 and pretty up the cutout edges. The photo shows the momentary switch for on/off/sleep, the XLR for 12 volt DC power delivery and the pogo-pins for connecting the power switch to the SBC. The front of the box is where I will flush mount the high power magnets that will allow for attachment and removal of the Samsung Tab A tablet that I'll use as a control centre for the 'headless' system using the HiBy Music Player app:

http://www.theaudiophileworld.net/20...r-android.html

[chithead]

Very nice work! Curious to see your copper clad enclosure too

[Donanon]

Thanks. I am a few steps away from lining the interior of the media centre box with the copper cladding and when I do I'll make a bladder from a heavy duty garbage bag, apply resin to one side of the cladding, attach to the inside box walls, insert the bladder and apply 20K pascals (6 inches) of mercury to the bladder which will balloon out to fill the box volume and force the copper cladding onto the box walls and corners while the resin cures.

I'll try to make a video and/or photos' when I do it.

[Donanon]

Spent a few enjoyable hours working on my car today, got most of the power/ground wiring done for the media centre...still have to pretty things up a bit and finish with the loom. The photo shows the 12VDC to 12VDC buffer I am using to keep the media player out of direct connection to car 12V power. The media player is rated for 2 amps max. and I am using a 1.5 amp inline fuse to the positive of the media player from the buffer with a 2 amp fuse from the main audio relay to the buffer so I am fairly certain I am covered there.

I am going to make a carbon fibre cover for the buffer so it's not such an eyesore.

I've decided to fab a second enclosure for the media centre so the original will be a duffer for working out mounting and dash installation.

[Donanon]

I've determined that the DC buffer is not going to work out on the kick due to lack of foot space and the distraction of it's presence so tomorrow I'll install it behind the dash...which also hides it from view so no need for a cover. Going to install a second relay in the engine bay for it with both relays activated by an 'add a circuit' connected to the switched cigarette lighter fuse.

BTW, if anyone reads this thread and thinks I am doing anything wrong on this install please tell me...I'm still learning.

[Donanon]

Learned a couple of things today. I was planning to use small neo magnets to attach/detach the Samsung tablet I was going to use as an interface to the single board computer media centre but the magnets make the tablet go berserk with constant reboot and screen flashing. So I tried high strength velcro, which worked. I had everything installed and ready to go when I discovered that I could not get the HiBy audio player to automatically connect from the SBC (server) to the tablet (client), so after every restart-shutdown-restart cycle I had to remove the SBC from the dash/enclosure, connect it to my PC and restart the HiBy player server app. This would not do at all so I am back to using an LCD display connected directly to the SBC and using the HiBy player directly, this is not really a big deal but the tablet would have been nice as it has built in GPS, Internet Radio and a few other goodies but such is life at times. Tomorrow I'll be back at it.

[Donanon]

Today I finally played music over the car PC system and I am still smiling. The VIM3L-Toneboard playback system so thoroughly stomps anything I've owned before that comparisons are laughable. Nothing rolled off or euphonic, just the music. Tonight I'll work on the new copper sheathed enclosure and get everything buttoned up before the rainy season starts in earnest.

Sorry about the manky photos', I had worked on the car all day it was getting dark.

I do have an issue with the occasional loud turn off pop and I am hoping to get advice on how to tame that on another forum here at CAJ.

[Donanon]

Spent a few hours today on my install, the photo shows the 5" LCD touch screen I bought from Khadas taped to the front of the enclosure duffer...the screen is way too small for my use and I'm working on finding a 7" HDMI screen that will work with the VIM3L. No luck so far.

I did a quick and dirty tuning by ear and even with this highly inaccurate method the system sounds simply amazing. I had never realized how lacking and rolled at the frequency extremes some head units are when it comes to sound quality but I'm getting an education now.