7 Inch Nexus 7 Tablet Mount Install
In this re-walkthough I will explain how I mounted my 7 inch Nexus tablet neatly into the dashboard of the FJ Cruiser
total cost
tablet. 189.99 open box from best buy
amp 149.99 on sale from futureshop
wires 40-50 for good quality gold plated ends.
futureshop harness 24.99
beer $15
guts to cut more holes in your car - priceless
Part 1 - Mounting the Tablet
I started by removing the stock headunit. Do this by taking off the faceplate (remove the two silver plastic trim pieces first by pulling from the bottom.
Once removed plastic on the top and bottom of the faceplace on the inside will need to be trimmed. I lined the trimmed pieces with electrical tape to not scratch the tablet and create a nice place to mount the tablet. See below.
what the final fit should look like.
bottom piece trimmed slightly. basically removed the top piece of plastic
trimmed the bottom piece of this part and also lined wth tape. dont cut if off totally as it keeps the faceplate snug.
bottom trim piece and covered with elec tape
In the last picture above, i removed the plastic cover on the housing on the side to accomodate the headphone jack and charting USB micro cable. otherwise they would't fit inside. I mounted the tablet with the buttons facing upward.
Next was wiring everything in.
Part 2 - Wiring shit.
Depending on what sound system you have in your FJ it might look a little different. this if for the JBL system.
from future shop i purchased a wiring adapter like below
the other end of this adapter were loose wires, which went i spliced to speaker cable and went directly into the amp in the back. the other end of these cables go to the speakers through the stock wiring.
the amp i put in the back because there was no other space for it in the dash, and these things get really warm and i didnt want to start a fire in my FJ.
I mounted it on the side. I guess if you have an accessory mounting place you could put it on there and it would look really cool. I simply did mine like this.
these red and random wires include the power/ground for the amp, and the speaker wires
I ran the speaker wires down the drivers side door place which can be removed by some gentle force.
Also, the amp needs a power cable, so I split the fuses in the mini fuse box and ran it to the back to power the amp. the ground needs to be really short so i found a bolt on the inside of the wheel well and wired it in there
i ran the wiring under the seat in the corner. and i drilled a small hole that's only visible when u put the seat down.
lastly is the sub. we dont wanna miss that one huh.
the sub has its own amp built in and recieve signal from the rear speakers. so u dont need to do anything except power the amp. usally there is the switch in the front but since its not connected to the head unit anymore, splice the pink wire from the switch and connect it to the yellow power wire of the stock speaker wires. so yellow stock speaker wire goes into future shop adapter. from future shop adapter u connect it to the pink wire. see wiring diagram above.
fuck that part took me forever to figure out. in the blueroom they talked of blue wire or something, but this is the answer. the sub swich then also works properly and fully.
so now that the speakers are connected to the amp (from amp going to futureshop adapter which is connected to stock speaker plug), we need to connect the table to the speakers. i did this by using a high quality gold plated 3mm headphone jack ($30). dont get the cheapy ones, you will hear fuzz and static. i play 320mbps and lossless tracks in mine and it sounds like gold.
from headphone jack i split the other end and connected it to an RCA cable that i then in turn spliced and turned into 4 RCA jacks. as shown in the wiring diagram. you need two white and two red connectors (4 channels) into the amp.
which amp to use? I got the cheapest 4 channel amp which puts out 800 watts and sounds brilliant! the minimum is 4 channels, and 800 is already much higher than the 400 stock amp. i was able to turn the gain down enough that it sounds pretty awesome.
how to charge the tablet?
i hardwired into the fusebox a 12 volt outlet and hid it behind the dash as shown below
make sure you get a usb charging thingy that puts out 2A amps!!!!!!!!!!!! a 1 or 1.5 amp charging port isnt enough and if you use your tablet a lot it may die, which is a bitch because you need to then open everything up/
I got a 3 way one so i could put some other little gadgets in such as mood lighting or stuff.
ok so now everything is pretty much wired up.
how do we control the tablet??? we just lost access to all of the buttons!!! i thought about this a lot and i figured out a perfect solution.
in the nexus 7 you can control daydreaming. so when the tablet isnt in use, it will be daydreaming. notice how i selected "when charging"? so when is it charging? well everytime the car is on! so when the car is on ignition or running, the tablet is charging and the screen turns on automatically. When it is not in use, it displays the time such as below:
beautiful. arent i a smart one?
how about turning the tablet off? software button!!!
here , a little widget turns the screen off. this is the only pain in the ass. so when i turn off the car, i press that software button and the tablet turns off also. so yes the only way to get the tablet to go back on is put the key in the ignition but the amp is off without the key in there anyways so it makes no difference to me. anyways i would probably just turn off the stereo anyways. just means my gf cant fuck with it when i am not in the car :D
How about controlling the volume???? An App called MX Player has a swipe motion to control the volume. i can post a video of this tomorrow. swipe up and down to control the volume. this app also has volume boosting to 200% which sounds fcking awesome!
MX Player also plays everything from MP3s to any type of video file. literally anything. i have a bunch of HD music videos which i play. bluray movies, anyone???? keep the gf quiet while on road trips so i can hear the exhaust. perfect.
nexus 7 has a software home button so nothing to worry about there too.
usually i teather the tablet to my phone with a wifi hotspot and get full google maps and youtube and email on it!!!!
ill try to find my old video and explain about fit and use and stuff. i also got a bluetooth ODB2 sensor to read stats from the engine on the screen :)
full photoalbum here
