CarPlay solution for Tesla by Michal Gapinski using Raspberry Pi with Android

[ElectricAnt54]

I guess you used the same SD card for the new 1 Pi build, so you're rewriting the card to go back? For anyone thinking about going from two Pi to one I'd recommend getting a second SD card and keeping the old one in tact. That's what I did and I've thought about going back.

I seem to recall a similar issue on my first build of the two Pi. Don't recall exactly but seems like it was some kind of IP or DNS setting I skipped or missed. May want to look through the old thread, starting at post 284 where I may have faced the same issue

CarPlay & Android Auto Hack - Walkthrough

Got the Pi 4 the other day then soon realized I needed a few other items like SD cards etc. All the other gear came today. Also activated the LTE adapter, so I'm ready to give this a shot.

teslamotorsclub.com

After my troubles this afternoon where I had to reboot, it only worked for a while. I rebooted and messed with it for my next two stops. Then after being away for about an hour and a half I rebooted and it was working for the drive home.

Was thinking it would be nice if there was some kind of terminal we could SSH into on the Android Pi and see what's happening. When I'm getting RWOD I can often connect to the Pi WiFi and even get out to the Internet through it and ping 9.9.0.1 too.

Wonder if the issues are related to pie cpu getting too hot?

 

[timeshifter]

Wonder if the issues are related to pie cpu getting too hot?

Ironic you should mention that right now. I had been wondering that too and had ordered the cooling tower thing. Was just opening it up. But I'm not sure I can use it as I don't think my Geekworm ribbon cable is long enough. If you look at the developer's Twitter pics of it, he's got the Geekworm board mounted on the underside of the Pi. Don't think the cable I have will reach and was just looking in the box and don't see a longer one.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V35SXMC

https://twitter.com/x/status/1576260453394784258

 

[timeshifter]

Thought about getting an HDMI splitter and hooking up a monitor when this happens.

https://www.amazon.com/HD-102-Powered-Splitter-Certified-Support/dp/B005HXFARS

 

[timeshifter]

I put the two Pi system back in my car tonight.

Here's where I am with the one Pi system. It worked mostly OK this week. During the day today it started acting up and no amount of rebooting or timing of the reboots made any sense. Had a similar issue a few nights ago. May have been fixed by reseating cables on Geekworm board that night.

I did install the new cooler. The old one wasn't doing anything as the pad had fallen out. After installing the new cooler I could not get it to display anything other than the red wheel of death.

I COULD SEE IT ON A TV. I connected a small TV to the output of the mini-HDMI port and it worked. It showed my CarPlay screen. So I know the display image is being generated. Problem somewhere with the board or connection or software.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

Ironic you should mention that right now. I had been wondering that too and had ordered the cooling tower thing. Was just opening it up. But I'm not sure I can use it as I don't think my Geekworm ribbon cable is long enough. If you look at the developer's Twitter pics of it, he's got the Geekworm board mounted on the underside of the Pi. Don't think the cable I have will reach and was just looking in the box and don't see a longer one.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V35SXMC

https://twitter.com/x/status/1576260453394784258

View attachment 860977

It seems the 709 hdmi to csi2 comes with a 5 inch 15 pin ffc cable. The 630 (which it seems we need due to supporting video & audio) comes with a much shorter cable. These cables have 1mm pitch. Perhaps Mike used a cable from 709 or bought something on Amazon. I searched ”15 pin ffc” and see a variety of sizes available. If I google search, it seems Walmart has the size which shipped with 630 .

I bought this kit of ffc cables,
Pastall Raspberry Pi Camera Cable, 6pack 15 Pin (15cm×2pcs/30cm×2pcs/50cm×2pcs) FFC Ribbon Flexible Flat Cable for Raspberry Pi Module Camera Amazon.com

 

[earthwormjim]

Most problems people encounter here, especially wifi/internet connections are related to thermal throttling, failing to overclock the Pi, and inadequate power. You must use either high quality USB cables, or short USB cables, and a good 12V power adapter that can supply at least 2.5A (ideally 3A) at 5V. Remember, the Pi supplies power to USB accessories, like the Carplay/Android Auto adapters, so you need to account for those too with the supply powering the Pi.

I did encounter the failed to get an IP address error, but that went away after I rebooted the Pi a few times, and has never reappeared since.

You must install an adequate cooler, especially if your Pi is running when your car is idling out in the sun, without the HVAC blasting on full. So far, the only cooler that has been adequate has been this tower cooler. I used proper thermal grease, rather than the crappy gap pads it comes with. There's plenty of downward pressure to use grease.

Amazon.com

I tried lower profile coolers, but they were never enough.

Stock speeds on the Pi are really not able to handle this application either. Editing the text file on the boot partition of the SD card, to overclock the Pi as indicated in the instructions makes a world of a different.

The single board is much more reliable in my experience than the dual board, provided you have adequate cooling and overclock. At this point, all of the lagginess that is left is due most on the Tesla side, and it's rather anemic media processors and bad browser. There is zero lagginess when I use a desktop browser or my iPhone's browser.

Lastly, it helps to periodically clear the Tesla browser's history out.

Here's my setup, everything fits in the center arm rest, beneath the tray insert. It's a little messy since I want easy access to pull it out for updates. Once the capture card is gone, I'm going to wire up a dedicated 12V supply, and put the Pi somewhere else, in a better case, and a place where it won't risk getting dripped on by drinks sloshing around...

I'm using a Netgear Nighthawk as my hotspot, but a hotspot is not vital. Just your car will not have internet access when connected to the Pi's WiFi without a hotspot.


List of Parts:

1. Raspberry Pi 4 8gb Model B.
2. Ice Tower Cooler and case
3. CPC200-AutoKit for wireless carplay
4. Geekworm Hdmi-to-CSI-2 Module
5. Netgear M1 Hotspot
6. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=41989
7. Random SD card, 32GB V30 class.

 

[earthwormjim]

I put the two Pi system back in my car tonight.

Here's where I am with the one Pi system. It worked mostly OK this week. During the day today it started acting up and no amount of rebooting or timing of the reboots made any sense. Had a similar issue a few nights ago. May have been fixed by reseating cables on Geekworm board that night.

I did install the new cooler. The old one wasn't doing anything as the pad had fallen out. After installing the new cooler I could not get it to display anything other than the red wheel of death.

I COULD SEE IT ON A TV. I connected a small TV to the output of the mini-HDMI port and it worked. It showed my CarPlay screen. So I know the display image is being generated. Problem somewhere with the board or connection or software.

You either broke the flex cable, or it's not properly seated. The clearance between it and the tower cooler is pretty terrible. They are very easy to kink and break the copper in the cable too.
Just buy a new flex cable , they're a standard part, if reseating it doesn't work.

Your issues with the single board prior to installing the cooler, are almost certainly thermal related, and or not overclocking the Pi. Overclocking makes a HUGE difference.

Even the tower cooler is going to struggle if you leave the Pi running in the car with the car idling and still supplying 12V or power to the USB ports. Even with cabin overheat turned on, the interior can easily get over 100F. A Pi throttles above 65C, and can easily hit 65C with normal room temperatures, nevermind a 20-30 degree hotter environment.

By the way, I would throw both fans that come with the tower cooler on, front and back, and install the black one in the primary fan location. It's stronger than the RGB ones. I also put some tape around the fan, to cover up the air gap between the fan and the cooler.

Once Mike has time, I'm sure he will optimize bootup, so it's practical to just turn off the Pi every time you leave the car, or maybe offer some sort of sleep option to reduce heat dissipation.

 

[timeshifter]

Great information @earthwormjim !

I noticed that you have the capture board on a plexiglass or acrylic piece underneath everything. A couple of questions:
1) Where did you get that - did it come with the cooler you linked?
2) How long is the ribbon cable for your capture board?
3) Related to 2 above, did you order the "green" variant of the capture board that you linked to?

I was under the impression that the "black" one is the only one that works. But Michal said no audio is passed, so it doesn't matter. Anyway, that variant comes with a longer ribbon cable.

 

[earthwormjim]

Great information @earthwormjim !

I noticed that you have the capture board on a plexiglass or acrylic piece underneath everything. A couple of questions:
1) Where did you get that - did it come with the cooler you linked?
2) How long is the ribbon cable for your capture board?
3) Related to 2 above, did you order the "green" variant of the capture board that you linked to?

I was under the impression that the "black" one is the only one that works. But Michal said no audio is passed, so it doesn't matter. Anyway, that variant comes with a longer ribbon cable.

1. Yes it came with the cooler combo case I linked. The smaller plexi piece came in the box for the cooler. The other plexi pieces came in a standalone box, which can be sold separately as just a case, or in the combo cooler and case I linked.
2. About 6 inches.
3. I ordered the green variant.

If your capture card was working previously, I would just order a new cable. It's a standard part.

By the way the screws I have pictured, did not come with the cooler or case. They were just random hardware I had laying around. The hardware the cooler comes with uses way smaller diameter screws, which I didn't like. I used 6-32 hardware, and just reamed out the holes in the case, cooler, and Pi PCB a tiny bit to fit.

 

[timeshifter]

Most problems people encounter here, especially wifi/internet connections are related to thermal throttling, failing to overclock the Pi, and inadequate power.

So I've experienced both problems on my single Pi. WiFi shutting off or not delivering an IP address, and not getting a display once connected.

So my first problem is caused by poor cooling, makes sense especially considering the almost non-existent cooler until I got the tower yesterday.

Display problems related to the Geekworm board and / or cable makes sense too. Except it works OK on the dual Pi system. So maybe the ribbon cable is under more tension or bent more or not seated well on the single Pi system.

 

[earthwormjim]

So I've experienced both problems on my single Pi. WiFi shutting off or not delivering an IP address, and not getting a display once connected.

So my first problem is caused by poor cooling, makes sense especially considering the almost non-existent cooler until I got the tower yesterday.

Display problems related to the Geekworm board and / or cable makes sense too. Except it works OK on the dual Pi system. So maybe the ribbon cable is under more tension or bent more or not seated well on the single Pi system.

Your cable might have a crack in one of the traces, and the way it gets bent when using the tower opens the crack.

Have you tried flipping the cable around? Swap the Pi side with the Geekworm side.

I actually had display corruption issues last night. Random green lines and sometimes garbled images. Flipping the cable around seemed to have fixed it. I think my cable is compromised, it has some nasty looking kinks in it.

We are most likely exceeding the ambient temperature rating for the Pi by leaving it in a hot car, even when it's off. There could be all kinds of issues, that get a spotlight put on them with the massively increased load requirements from the single board stack. The single board stack draws a lot more current too, could be revealing USB cable problems or USB power supply problems.

If you're happy with the 2 board stack though, might as well leave it for a while, at least until hardware acceleration gets turned on for the single board. The last 2 board stack worked really well for me too.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

Like others mentioned, I had to uninstall autokit & install the latest before my carlinkit (wireless & wired mode) would work.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

How to permit Raspberry Pi (with Tesla android installed) connect to internet? I do not yet have a mobile sim to put in the USB modem. Is there another way I can have the setup access the internet? Although I have latest autokit app, I know it will go through one more self update when running the app if there is internet connectivity. This is what happened on my kindle today when I was doing a test run of the carlinkit hardware. Thanks for any tips.

 

[Greybeard707]

How to permit Raspberry Pi (with Tesla android installed) connect to internet? I do not yet have a mobile sim to put in the USB modem. Is there another way I can have the setup access the internet? Although I have latest autokit app, I know it will go through one more self update when running the app if there is internet connectivity. This is what happened on my kindle today when I was doing a test run of the carlinkit hardware. Thanks for any tips.

Use your phone as a hotspot

 

[timeshifter]

How to permit Raspberry Pi (with Tesla android installed) connect to internet? I do not yet have a mobile sim to put in the USB modem. Is there another way I can have the setup access the internet? Although I have latest autokit app, I know it will go through one more self update when running the app if there is internet connectivity. This is what happened on my kindle today when I was doing a test run of the carlinkit hardware. Thanks for any tips.

Might be as simple as connecting with an Ethernet cable, of course you can only travel 328 feet

The two Pi build required a specific modem. But it looks like @earthwormjim is using a hotspot by connecting via Ethernet on his single Pi build. If that’s true then you could probably just plug in via Ethernet on your home network.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

Use your phone as a hotspot

I’m using a single pie setup. Oddly I couldn’t find the networking sub menu in the anderoid os to allow me to select my phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot / network name

 

[ElectricAnt54]

I’m using a single pie setup. Oddly I couldn’t find the networking sub menu in the anderoid os to allow me to select my phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot / network name

I found it within anderoid os settings using search term “internet” . It brought up a wifi sub menu where I could turn on Wi-Fi and select my home network or phone. When I ran autokit 2022.x, it self updated. Success.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

Some nice tips if you are. It hearing Siri / assistant speech or other types of navigation speech.

No browser audio on single board stack · Issue #92 · tesla-android/issue-tracker

I have been using Tesla Android since the start. However, when switching to the single board stack it seems that the browser audio is no longer working The car won’t play my GPS prompts (although m...

github.com

 

[Greybeard707]

I’m using a single pie setup. Oddly I couldn’t find the networking sub menu in the anderoid os to allow me to select my phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot / network name

I connected to the hotspot via Bluetooth. First, enable hotspot. Then pair your phone to the pi. Once done, there should be a setting on the pi to enable Bluetooth hotspot

 

[Fat Bao]

Can somebody please explain or show a screenshot of how the get bluetooth tether or wifi to connect to your phone hotspot. I can enable bluetooth tethering on the pi and my phone but no connectivity. Wifi under the search "internet" just keeps spinning without detecting any wifi network.