I did a little 'fun' work on the car last night, installed a new stereo and put on a few decals. It had an am/fm cassette, but since installing the new controller, the radio had so much interference I couldn't use it while driving. I tried a Droidx to cassette adapter, but the radio ate the adapter... I pulled the radio out and destroyed it to retrieve my adapter (which works fine in my van, so I wanted to keep it). The new stereo came from Crutchfield, basically just a cheap-ish unit that allows bluetooth. I don't so much care about the phone, I never really have a need to talk on the phone while driving, but I wanted to be able to stream Pandora over bluetooth from the Droidx.
As it turns out, I now have no interference on FM, and only a little bit on AM. I took great care in getting good chassis grounds (instead of grounding through the factory harness), maybe that helped? Anyway, I'm super happy about having radio reception again!
In this pic you can see the bluetooth dongle (it's not integrated directly into the unit) on the left side of the photo. Once again I'm super happy with Crutchfield, and their installation kits. Pretty much plug and play, just had to solder the wires from the supplied car adapter to the radio pigtail. The plastic bezel and little pocket above the radio fit great, and the texture even matches the stock panels.
the following pic shows a more overall shot. I've temporarily removed the pack volt and amp gauges (they used to be where the Droid mount is) because I didn't like them there. I'll either re-install them on the A-pillar (that's where they are on my van, I'm used to it...) or go with a 'virtual' display over the Droid. I'm still investigating my options there, but in the meantime I can either use a laptop on the passenger seat connected to the Synkromotive, or just drive blind (which is what I've been doing for the last few days). There's plenty of safety systems in place to keep the pack safe, I don't really NEED the gauges. But I do like having them.
And here's the new decals. The 'high voltage' and symbols on the left side are basically there to cover up a decal from the original selling dealer. The 'electric' emblem looks pretty good, I think! Still pretty subtle.
Wow! Very impressive. I like the "Electric." Twin Cam Electric. Cool.
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