QPV with non-standard infotainment system?

[CatmanV2]

Ta Drew, will chat when we finally meet up and if we are both sober?

50% guaranteed!

C

 

[WLJayne]

No - the touchscreen is just a membrane overlay on the original Maserati screen. There's no need for a similar menu but displayed on the aftermarket unit - the Maserati screens are displayed as original menus on the original screen.

Here's how it's put together - a aftermarket touchscreen monitor has the touchscreen membrane peeled away, and stuck onto the Maserati screen. The dismembered monitor still exists - it sits inside the dashboard on top of the Infotainment, under the vents, stuck to the Infotainment unit. It's needed to power up the touchscreen overlay. The feedback from that membrane goes to the Kenwood unit. The video output from the Kenwood goes to the Maserati TV module, and there are some other bits and pieces - amplifiers and other electronic nonsense.

So - select 'TV' and the Kenwood unit is displayed and plays on the screen and through the speakers. All its functions (radio/MP3/DVD/Sat Nav although I don't have a Sat Nav plugged into it) become available through the touchscreen.
Select Radio and the Maserati radio is displayed and works as per a standard car.
Select CD and the CD player/changer are displayed and works as per a standard car (except it doesn't now, as I've installed a Loudlink)
Select Nav and the Maserati 'if you don't already know where you are going you are stuffed' excuse for a Sat Nav appears.
Select Trip/Info/Setup (have I missed any) and the standard screens appear to configure the car, look at the laughable fuel consumption etc.

Happy to show you John - it was probably state of the art when it was installed, but it's pretty clunky now compared to an Android solution. If I was to install one now, I'd want a heck of a lot more for the £4k or so it cost the chap who paid for it. A £60 Android tablet will do most of it...

I know this is a total necro post - but this is exactly what I've been looking for! I've been investigating a way to install an android tablet in the fascia for all the lovely things that android does, and this explains the relationship between the inputs perfectly. This is something I'm just investigating, not that I'd be able to do anything with the info as I am currently massersless. However I know that the stock infotainment will bug the **** out of me when I'm driving one.

So basically what you're saying is that all the original Mas functions are just fed into the screen as analogue signals. Which means that to get an android tablet in there, you'd just need to get that analogue signal to display on the screen. After much googling, this USB composite video input device seems to be the missing link! With this and an app like Easycap, presumably you would just view the Mas screens when you want, and then use the touch screen for normal android functions. Presumably sounds would be handled via bluetooth and loudlink.

This may require some custom plastic parts to fit the tablet, but that's not a problem for me because designing and rapid prototyping plastic parts is my job, and I could whip up an adapter bracket to fit the tablet where the old screen goes, or even an entire replacement fascia panel that fitted the tablet but retained all the buttons and bezels in a jiffy - so long as I had one to reverse engineer from. Anyway this is all just idle problem solving daydreaming, but I'd love to give it a go one day. Seems like it would be a perfect solution.

Thoughts ?