Not much has happened with Walter in the past few days. I know I said I would replace the ABS sensor this weekend, but I ended up not doing that. Instead, I worked a lot. I worked on the radio I've been developing in my free time. I'm just trying to get it to the point where I can put it in the truck for one day to make sure everything is how I like it. I'm not going to worry about automatic power-up and shutdown for now. I want to get a general idea of everything before I finalize the locations of the components.
I'm curious about what people think about my front plate design. I have to tweak some things anyways, so now is the time to add/remove whatever. I designed it so that you should be able to do all basic functions without using the touchscreen at all.
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The internals are pretty straightforward. I have a Raspberry Pi, an amp, a USB to AUX adapter, an FM adapter, a Bluetooth dongle, and an Arduino to handle button inputs. It's going to get more complicated as I add the power delivery system and harness. As you can see, it is built into the stock case. I put quite a bit of work into making it fit into it, so I don't have to worry about mounting it. I would like to use a stock amplifier, but the radio I pulled was a single circuit board version. Maybe I'll run out to the pick'n'pull to find a dual circuit board unit.
I've made the decision to go with a headache rack rather than a full-on rollbar. I realized that I wanted to keep the functionality of my bed, and I want to keep my toolbox. It's also going to be so much easier to design and make.
I also bought some KC Daylighters. Okay, not real KC Daylighters, I just can't justify spending 500 dollars on a pair of 6" LEDs. What I can justify is spending 200 dollars on the cheaper KC Apollo halogens. I think I'm going to mount these to the grill guard. They show up Thursday, so I'm hoping to get them on by Friday. I'm going to have to get another pair when I finish the headache rack. I might go for the classic move of buying cheap lights and then just getting KC branded covers.
That's it for this post. I'll let you guys know how things go on Friday. Hopefully, I'll be ready to hit the trails by the end of this week! I already got my permit, so I'm all set in the eyes of the law, but I want some brakes so I don't go careening off a cliff like the bad guys in an 80s TV show.