WIP: Galaxy Note 2 Car Dock Part 4 (Video)

At the end of part 3, I was planning on upgrading the wireless charger to a QI-standard one. The chargers will take weeks to arrive as I ordered when the shops were on holiday for Lunar New Year. I was also working on an automatic retract and extending system for the dock which has been for the most part completed.

The platform retracts allowing me to create a space to place my phone when the car turns on and extends for easy removal of the phone when the car turns off.



The video has a smaller phone on the dock to show what it does. I used my Galaxy Note 2 to film the video as it was getting dark and the smaller phone does not have flash. When the Note 2 is on the dock and it extends out, it does not fall like the smaller phone as the Note 2 is attached to the platform with magnets.

I showed a video of the system working when connected to the car camera and a USB port in the previous part, but now it was time to install it into the car. I made more permanent cable connections with plugs to allow me to remove the cables when needed by splicing spare servo extension cables I had lying around.

My car's camera is located on the top center portion of the windshield, so I had to route wires from there down to the car's main console area. This is the same method I used to route the power cable to power the camera and the video and power cables for the rearview mirror display.

I tucked the wires under the roof panel all the way to the side airbag panel. I then tucked the wires under the airbag panel by sliding them in the space between the side and roof panel.

I then removed the rubber on the side to get the wires down to the steering wheel area.

I got the wires all the way below the steering wheel and just tucked them in small crevices under the steering wheel to get to the center console area. There is a small panel on the side of the center console that connects to the steering wheel area, so I used a pry tool to remove the panel.

I fed the wires through that hole which brings them to the shifter area. I removed the shifter panel by first unscrewing the shift knob and then prying the panel with the pry tool.

With the camera power cable in the shifter area, I wanted to bring the USB cable to that area from the armrest compartment so I can bring both up to the dock area at the same time. I removed the panel form the armrest and the handbrake area and used stiff wire the route the USB cable through. See a more detailed description for routing the wires in my tablet install page.

Now that both cables are in the shifter area, I using the stiff wire to create a path from the top dock area down to the shifter area, attached the 2 cables and pulled them up.

Now that the cables were in the dock area, I just had to connect them all to the circuit board and install the dock. A video of how the servo works to extend and retract the dock is shown below.

Currently, the platform extends back perfectly fine, but when the servo moves to make the platform retract, it does not retract unless I push it in. I am deciding if I want to leave it this way, in case I do not want to dock my phone, or to add a spring or another mechanism so that the platform fully retracts on its own.