And I thought the AMP crimpers I mentioned above were spendy

Do you have a reference for the $300 battery disconnects, out of curioisity? I'm genuinely curious.

 

Today was more progress toward having the Android head unit installed, a bunch of little tasks that will allow me to mockup and install the head unit tomorrow.


^^^ External microphone mounted to the headliner after I "fabricated" (term used very loosely) a metal clip bracket for the microphone to attach to.



^^^ For those installing the ATOTO dash camera as well, the pigtail connected to the camera plugs into this yellow connector which will need to be about to the middle of the visor, or just toward the passenger side of the visor. This orientation allows for the provided USB cable to reach the head unit inside the dash. I had a USB extension cable on hand just in case, but was glad to see the Super Duty cab was not too big for it to reach. The less connections the better in my opinion and experience.



^^^ Camera will go about there. I am going to mount it with the help of my wife to allow for the best viewing angle of the camera and the most hidden by the mirror as I sit in the driver seat.



^^^ My wallet and the wireless charging pad being mocked up. I often drive with my wallet in the cubby and wanted to maintain the normal driving experience that I have become accustomed to.



^^^ Wireless charging pad set up and installed with 3M VHB tape on the bottom. The opening of the cubby is a bit wider than the rear, so if I need to I will put something on the right side of the cubby, but I don't think it will be required. The wave form is a non-slide surface as well and I think there will be no issues with the phone staying on the charger. If needed, I can rotate the charger to be perpendicular to me, but will try this first.



^^^ OBDII 90* adapter which is connected to the OBDLink SX USB scan tool that was donated to the project by an FTE'r. Thanks again!



^^^ Brackets modified according to the guidance from @SkySkiJason in post #36 and @BWST in post #164. I will try and use the plastic trim pieces to give it more of a finished look if needed, but have not decided on their applicable use yet.

 

I could not wait any longer due to the excitement of being so close to having an Android head unit, so I went back out to the garage for a bit...

All I can say is WOW!!! Both @SkySkiJason and @BWST were right, this thing is great! @Shovelheadrob , you are going to love it!

I am so impressed with it that it is in my top 3 purchases of 2020 for sure. The sound quality is really quite good, the screen is responsive and clear and the menu/apps are customizable just like a smartphone. I love it! Looking forward to getting out on the road with it streaming a YouTube podcast while running Google Maps live and FORScan just for $h|ts and giggles.

Definitely a good move for me and I highly recommend it for anyone else that is on the fence considering one.

This is a picture of me mocking up the head unit. I took a different approach to securing it to the dashboard than Jeff (BWST) did. You can see the slots I cut in to install the Jensen VX7020 below the screws, but the VX7020 was still attached to the bezel like Ford intended. Not the way of the wise though and not the way I was installing this head unit. I cut slots in line with the head unit sliding in by itself and separate from the bezel. This is how Ford should have done it.

I used lock washers and fender washers to act as spacers and good anchor points for the head unit. This thing isn't going anywhere due to the modified brackets that now act as stands and the securing screws.



A picture from the top of the head unit to show the orientation and placement I went with. This is about the same as what BWST did on his truck, but he has an S8 and I have an A6, so the front may be slightly different thickness, but I didn't notice anything obvious when going through his images.



This is where I put the WiFi antenna which is about 18" from the smartphone sitting on the wireless charging pad which is also the WiFi hotspot source for phone/data/internet.



This is where I put the GPS antenna. It is just to the right of the opening and sitting on the vent top, similar to the WiFi antenna.



FTE on the Brave interweb browser. The buttons at the bottom of the unit are able to change color. There is something like 8 colors to choose from.



Hank Williams Jr. on Pandora playing one of my favorite songs by him.



The "rear camera input" port #2 didn't work the way I wanted it to, so I had to pull the head unit back out and try one of the others. Port #6 is to be used with the app "FCAM" and port #9 is to be used with the app "AUX" as seen below. I tried both of them and they both work with the back up camera. This is the same backup camera I bought many years ago and was using with the Jensen VX7020. It uses a standard RCA input as found on most other nonproprietary connection cameras.

I ended up using "AUX" instead of "FCAM" simply because it is the top left app when going to the app menu. I don't feel the need to have it on the home screen since we rarely use it now that we don't have the travel trailer any longer.



Backup camera in use by selecting the "AUX" app. Keep in mind I have the camera powered by 12v accessory on, not the reverse lamp circuit. I have a ZF6 and often times if I am using the rear camera I may not have the transmission in reverse. This is somewhat low light looking at the inside of the garage door.



Two quick shots of what the head unit looks like now sitting in the dash. Almost done!




I did have to trim a bit more of the bezel in order to fit it nicely around the head unit. You can see where I slipped and hit the bottom left corner of the bezel next to the head unit with the dremel. I am going to try and clean it up tomorrow, but it is not a concern.

Tomorrow will be testing and verifying the OBDLink SX works with FORScan and making the bezel around the head unit look a bit better. I am going to trim and modify the side pieces that I pictured in the earlier post and see if I can get them in the bezel to give it a bit more of a finished look.

Other than that, I am very happy and impressed with the head unit and the features it offers. I would not hesitate to recommend this or a similar unit to a friend. I will be loading our custom My Google Maps to it tomorrow as well. Everything works so far and that is a plus, the only thing I haven't checked is FORScan connected to the truck because I have not started the truck yet. I am going to attempt to pull my saved PID profile from my tablet and load it to the ATOTO A6 FORScan app so that I don't have to load the PID's individually and change the settings for them.

More to follow tomorrow.

 

That is SWEEEEEEET! It sure looks very good! I am also glad to know others are not appreciative of Ford's choice of radio mounting methods in these pickups...and not just the Super Duties...had an 04 F150 that was the same way...such a pain!

 

I am really quite impressed with the functions and features it brings along with the aesthetics. I look forward to testing it out on the road soon.

Definitely a from me and the others that have tried it it seems.

 

Arrrgghhhhhh. I have resisted changing out my headunit but this might push me over the edge. Having full FORScan diagnostics onboard all the time is very attractive.

 

Leonard, I too resisted the "want" for quite a while and didn't really "need" this upgrade, but it is the creature comforts in life that often tilt the scale. This is just that... I no longer have to grab my tablet for FORScan, hook up a charger to my USB ports in the dash for my phone to charge and/or use my phone to listen to a podcast on YouTube through the BT stereo connection.

Now, I have everything right there in the dash and my phone is charging the entire time, even while being a WiFi hotspot for the head unit to connect to. In our experience of traveling the country, very rarely are we without a cell signal for very long, if we are moving. That is a different story if we are camped out in the middle of BLM land somewhere, but I have other devices for that.

------------------------

I already positioned the dash camera this morning and am now going to work on copying my 7.3L FORScan profile from my tablet over to the Android head unit. If this works, it should allow me to simply load the profile (one time is all that is needed) from the copied file on the head unit and I will be good to go. If this works, I will post instructions here and in the thread that BWST created for us all to utilize, which I have linked below for ease of locating.

FORScan/FORScan Lite Class and Q&A

This is a picture of the dash camera secured to the windshield looking at it from the driver seat. You can see the tiny red light and the microSD card which is inserted into the camera housing. It is a 256GB capacity card that should hold hours and hours of video footage.




A more zoomed out look at the camera from the driver seat. Yes, I used a level to make sure it was level vertically... Attention to detail is a gift and a curse at the same time for me... The bench in the background is what it looks like mid-project. Almost done though, so it will be cleaned off soon enough.

 

I could not successfully get the existing profile from my tablet transferred over to the Android head unit. Really, I could not figure out how to load a profile from a file folder in FORScan Lite. Maybe Jeff can tell how that is accomplished if he has time in his schedule in the future. I will hold onto the pictures and screenshots I took during the transfer process for a while.

Below are a couple of pictures of the finished product with the side pieces installed from the VX7020 installation kit. I trimmed them up a bit and think they finish the look quite nicely.





Now for the FORScan app running on the head unit. It took me a moment to remember what settings needed to be and this was my first time using the FSL app and a USB cable. I had always used the OBDLink MX in the past, so I scratched my head a moment and figured it out.

The setting I used was "USB FTDI". There were several other USB types, but I could not get the others to work.




I also turned the Auto-connect feature to "connect when app is opened" after first having it set to "connect and run dashboard" as seen in the image below.



If you want FSL to connect and start each time you start the truck, then simply set the Auto-connect to "connect and run dashboard" and it will do that. I do not need FSL each time I start the truck and may only run it every once in a while to log data or just because I feel like it.

The head unit boots up to the main page within 1 second of turning on the ignition and by the time I turn the ignition from start to on, is ready to go for a command or task. Once I push the FSL app button on the main page which is the second button from the right in the screen shot of the home screen below...



The FSL app almost instantly brings up the vehicle information screen as seen below.



From there, I can select dashboard or table based on how I would like to view the PID's I have selected. I trimmed down my list of PID's because I don't need some of the ones I was logging. I also zoomed in a bit which put the less viewed PID's at the bottom of the screen and requires a swipe up. I put MPH and RPM down there. The images below show all of the PID's I am monitoring at the moment for the sake of this post.

I can zoom in and out just like on a smartphone and the interface is very quick to respond, just as it is on a tablet or smartphone.




I now consider this project complete and can now move onto the next project.

 

Looks great, Sous!

I did not transfer my PID file from my phone, and went ahead and manually set up the PIDs again on the headunit, saving the PID profile on it.

So you are not using bluetooth2, but a wired USB OBDII dongle right? What port did you plug it into on the headunit?

I might switch to a USB wired OBDII dongle for easy and dependable connection, as I still have to manually turn on bluetooth2 on the S8 each time I want to run FSL.

 

This slot goes all the way to the screw, right? Really like this approach. It allows you to put all the washers on the screw, separate them and slide the unit in place. I was trying to figure out how to do that.

 

I was able to transfer the profile to the appropriate folder, I just could not figure out how to load a profile from the transferred file. I assume it would be the same procedure to load a profile when FORScan pushes an update and the profile needs to be reset. I just couldn't remember how to load the profile is all. So, like you, I just set them manually and indivually.

I was originally planning to use an OBDLink MX or MX+ BT scan tool, but an FTE'r donated an OBDLink SX scan tool they no longer had a use for. It was brand new and it works great and I am grateful. I plugged the USB OBDII tool into the USB port on the rear, not the one that has the quick connect and easy connect propriety connection.

The red arrow points to where the OBDLink SX is plugged into and the blue arrow points to where the wireless charging pad and ATOTO dash camera are plugged into.



The dash camera was just going to make the connection to the rear by a few inches, so I decided to move the camera to the "easy connect" point on the proprietary USB cable which gave me an extra 2 feet. Plenty of wire to get around the dash and up to the rear view mirror space.

I saw in the settings of FSL when trying to figure out what I was doing that you can active the BT connection automatically, maybe try that first? No activating anything with the USB dongle. I just push the FSL app button and it is up and running in a second, literally a second. I suspect I will do like you for the logs I want to transfer and just email them to myself. Or, I can put them on a USB drive with the front facing USB port.

I am very impressed with the unit thus far. Well worth the cost for the features it brought with it.

 

Yes, the screws are about 1" in length with appropriately sized washers for the head. This way, I do not have to remove any screws or anything if I am looking to remove the head unit. Also, since they stay in the head unit, they serve as a positioning point or locating pin on each side of the head unit. The notches are longer versions of the one below them. I thought this was a simple and secure method of mounting the head unit and makes positioning easy. You could adopt this method quite easy by cutting a groove to the hole you used if you feel you wanted to.

 

Smart (and fortunate) choice, as the hardwired USB connection is both faster and more reliable than BT or WiFi, and the lack of MS-CAN switching capacity in the STN-1130 UART chip is irrelevant to 99-03 7.3L PSDs.

The SX makes even more sense because you are not using a hand held device like a phone or tablet (most people remove and hide their tablets to avoid being targets of smash and grabs), but are instead using a fixed Android device that is not expected to be removed and replaced every time you get into and out of the truck, and because your device has built in USB ports, you wisely took advantage of the simplicity, reliability, and faster speed potential of USB... even it was by the happenstance of receiving a gift from a fellow FTE member.

One of your screen shots showed 16 ms (Good) latency, the relevant portion of which is shown in the image below:




And as a teaser, I'll now post this photo of 1 ms (Excellent) latency with the same STN1130 adapter chip that you have.



Below is the FORScan developer's write up on tightening up latency in Windows...

USB Adapter Performance Optimization

Your household IT Department may have to do some sleuthing to figure it out for the Android OS.

 

Thank you for the comments and your thoughts are where my thoughts were placed as well. I did notice the 16ms speed and thought it was satisfactory for my occasional use of FSL. There were several USB choices and when I was changing the settings to use a USB adapter, but since it worked on this one, I left it there. The ability to tune in or tighten up the latency may prove useful, but hopefully I never have to use FSL to troubleshoot an issue. If so, I think that 16ms will be sufficient enough to find the issue, especially when it is charted using the PID Charting Tool.

I had not even considered the USB adapter prior to being offered this one because I wrongly thought that Android OS would not work with the USB version. The previous owner assured me it should and I graciously accepted the offer. It works and I am very happy it does. Very clean install and everything works as I had hoped or better.

The truck is being sent back to it's place next to the tree line tomorrow. It has been spoiled being in the garage for a week and wants to be out in the cold once again until it is called upon to take us to a camping location close by or far away.

 

Looks awesome
i need to unsubscribe before i got spending $ ill likely spill water on anyways