[SpookyZalost]

so I'm working on this idea I Had for a further mod to my car's dashboard before I finish installing the CB and everything, the new radio has a composite input used for a rear backup camera but here's what I was actually thinking of using for it.



see I was thinking I could have a composite in to feed from a drone camera, a composite in for my portable computer in case I want to hack in the car but don't want to don the glasses.
then the backup camera (possibly mutliple angles/camera that can be switched between to check blind spots.

then 2 outputs, one to the dash screen/radio/media device and one to an external jack for plugging in a screen if needed (like glasses?)

edit: maybe an extra switch so I can turn the CB's audio/radio audio on/off

[SpookyZalost]

so update, I've done a bit of research and this is going to be trickier than I first assumed but not impossible.

first things first.
my radio has a wire that's currently disconnected as my car does not have a wire to detect when it's backing up, that's fine actually because one of my experiments is to apply voltage to this wire to see if it triggers the composite input, right now there's no way to select it manually but if all goes well I'll have a switch to trigger it on and off manually... that actually works out ideally because I love manual toggle switches! 

normally this wire would activate when you shift into reverse... but see my GPS already has wireless backup camera support so I might as well use this for something else.

now the real question is... do I setup my composite switch in the extra space inside the console between the seats or do I mount it to the inside of the roof like a space ship/rv/boat/sub lol.

[Guardian]

I like the spaceship idea!

[SpookyZalost]

ok so update, I've been going over more designs as I look into incorporating more stuff and one big thing stands out, there's space in the spot where the Din space is but I've been thinking, given there's a decent amount of mounting brackets why don't I just do some woodwork and make a brand new panel with the spaces for the stuff I want to add and transplant the climate control from the plastic shell to the wood one?
there's literally no reason I can't since it's one unit.

and that way I can mount the radio, the switches (which will include an audio switch btw, more on that later), the CB which will feed to the car's speakers via the audio switch, and possibly a transplanted cassette player?

just something I've been thinking about, plus if it's made of wood I can give it a nice finish.



the way I see it that bottom section is a pocket I can put in, the space is there it's just not utilized efficiently because of conforming to the car's interior and whatnot, it's already got a pocket, double din sized even that I don't use and 3 spots including the current pocket space that I can use to mount the frame to.

so that's 1 single din slot, 2 special slots sized for a cassette deck and a CB radio, a pocket, and a spot sized to hold the climate control module, also a row of switches somewhere to toggle the various audio outputs to the car's speakers, that's the easy part, the hard part is rigging everything to power without draining from the battery, to that end I'll likely be rigging up a power switch next to each module so I can toggle it off directly.

-------------------------------------------------------  Edit 05/07/18

so... a couple things I've learned, the easiest way to hook all this up would be through the front Aux in port on my radio.
still need to power it all, and I'm going to need a Line level converter for the cassette player which will covert it's output to RCA but once I do that and convert RCA to 3.5mm headphone then it should be relatively simple to install a 3.5mm audio switch between the CB + cassette and the aux in on the radio.

switch radio to aux mode, flip power switch on cassette and or CB and select the audio input you want to use, the tricky part is making sure not to blow fuses/overvolt things but if I rig up an on/off on the power feed then as long as I'm not turning everything on at once it should be fine... I'm really starting to get hopeful I can pull this off!

[SpookyZalost]

ok so been working on testing out the switch for audio between cassette and radio, I picked up a 2pdt switch over at microcenter and tested it by linking two audio cables to it and toggling between two inputs to one output, so far so good but there's some minor noise I'm looking into clearing up, probably something I can rig to clear up with a simple circuit, a bit of research is in order given most of the noise is coming from tying the ground lines together and switching the Voltage lines.



Below is an example of how a basic on/on switch works, the one I'm getting for my car will be a 4PDT which means 4 lanes with 2 on states, one for each of the car's speaker channels, all toggled by 1 switch between the cassette and the car radio.

that's option 1.




the one I'm thinking of using looks like this.



now I could solve the grounding issue by using two switches, one for grounds one for power but if I can rig it to one that would be better I guess.

Option two is the option mentioned in the previous post whereby I convert the cassettes audio out to L+R and feed that into the radio, I still think the switch option is more elegant, albeit a bit trickier to wire up.

on the other hand if I could find an 8pdt switch that isn't $150 that'd be great too lol.

anyway that's where I'm at with this now, testing and research mostly until I can get this right.

I'm letting stuff like this serve as my inspiration here.



have I mentioned I love the set designs in alien?

as for my need for a cassette deck in my car... blame guardians of the galaxy, that and having grown up with tapes and having fond memories of them.

[Guardian]

That would look pretty sweet in a car!

[Darth-Apple]

I actually know the feeling of trying to find the right switch. I wired up some underbody and grill lights on my Jetta a little while back (they looked phenomenal but unfortunately I ran over a tall speed bump and snapped the wire), and we got them wired into the circuit that controls the headlights and it worked seamlessly well. But... it took many long hours to find the right wiring and switches for it.

Do you have a collection of cassettes at all? I remember them quite well from my childhood and they are pretty nostalgic. Nowadays CDs are the new cassettes.

[SpookyZalost]

Actually yeah I do, some alan parsons project, some journey, Holy diver by dio, some def leppard, stuff like that... though now that I discovered I can still buy cassettes over at walmart I've been thinking about digging up the old tape recorder my grandfather has and converting over some of my nice vinyls.

[SpookyZalost]

ok so minor update, I'm currently waiting on a bid to go through on an ebay posting but provided I get it...


this is an after market radio shack cassette player, from back when my uncle used to work there, according to them this was their top of the line and looking it up confirms that, it originally sold for $99.95 and it was an under dash unit.

the one in this ad actually comes with a speaker selector switch for connecting two separate units to car speakers.

I'll probably do a video on how to install it provided I get it but that cassette functionality is likely coming soon, mostly because I've now learned that I can get switches instead of having to make one... they're normally used for RV's! 

now here's the weird part, my car has front and rear left/right speakers, so as far as I can tell except for some stuff from the 80's and early 90's... these switches simply do not exist.

another casualty of multi function stereo units for cars I suppose?

so this is a lucky find and gives me some hope for doing other setups later... even if it involves separate switches for front and rear speakers...

[SpookyZalost]

ok so I didn't win the cassette deck... but not all is lost, I managed to dig a cassette out of a car that was rotting away, works perfectly, had RCA output jacks so I connected them to the aux input on the front of my other radio, I'll post pictures later but having a cassette deck mounted above my radio with USB and SD card reading? it's kinda awesome

[SpookyZalost]

as promised the new cassette player in the dashboard.





now I just need to figure out how to trigger the composite input on the bottom screen and I can make use of a composite switch too lol.

[Darth-Apple]

Love it! Looks very retro, like the setup!

[SpookyZalost]

compulsive night shot