I’ve been working hard to finish off the Abarth 595 Tablet Headunit, heres the latest iteration. I have a post that i’m working on for the entire sound system install. A complete write up of everything im doing to the car,.
At the moment i have a test subwoofer enclosure built in the boot, Click here to open the post in a new tab so you can read it later.
The progress
Lately, I’ve been focused on automating functionality using apps like Tasker and finalizing the design of integrating the tablet into the dash. I’m dealing with making it rigid and possibly rerouting the vents or capping them off completely.
The latest stage of development
This involved finalizing all the custom automation required to do various things, such as turning the screen on or off when the ignition key is turned. One of the things I absolutely love about this Abarth 595 Tablet Headunit is that I don’t lose audio or functionality when starting the car.
GUI for the Abarth 595 Tablet Headunit
I’ve created a unique-looking and fully featured dashboard by developing a HUD for the tablet using a combination of custom code, icons, and layout techniques. The Abarth 595 Tablet Headunit runs Torque Pro with a Bluetooth OBDII scanner, allowing me to monitor important parameters. It even has a sleep mode functionality to save power.
OBDII and Torque Pro
I’ve found certain parameters (PID’s) to be incredibly useful in my setup. Monitoring the air temperature, coolant and oil temperature, and intake temperature is crucial for understanding if I’m sucking up hot air and if the engine is overheating.
The guages help me interpret how the active throttle responds to my inputs and how the ECU adapts to pedal input. Timing advance, air/fuel ratio, and catalytic converter temperature give insights into the car’s adaptation to mixture and ECU mapping.
- Air Temperature, Coolant & Oil Temperature, Intake Temperature becuase comparing what the temperature outside is compared to the intake temperature is key in working out if all your sucking up is hot air, and having your oil & coolant temperature will let you know if your overheating the engine.
- Throttle position and intake pressure will let you know how the active throttle is responding to your inputs. there is also the option of having Absolute Throttle Postion which you can compare to Actual Throttle Position to see how much the ECU is adapting pedal input.
There’s a decent theme by default that sort of works with the Abarth 595 Tablet Headunit colour scheme. Im working on learning how to make a complete custom theme for torque. I hope in the near future i can share it with fellow Ian the developer of Torque Pro so that he can upload it to the app for all to use. The plan is to make a theme that closely matches the style of the Abarths OEM digital display.
So far everything works great, the dashboard media player is really easy to use and all the torque dials work all the time now, i did have issues between engine restarts where they would get stuck. All the functionality I wanted to implement is working as it should too, The amps turn on at the right delayed time and best of all the tablet never loses more than 30% charge in roughly a week in the state that I have set it to on power down. I’ts varied on testing quite a bit depending on temperature, but it gives me the hope that ill never get to the car at any point and find myself with a dead tablet.
Whats next
The next stage is to finish the mounting bracket and fascia to cover the gaps. Im still trying to decide if i can somehow reroute the air ducts or just bite the bullet and cap them off,
Click below to see what music i’m currently enjoying on this setup.
