We release the car on the Internet! Modernization of the radio Prology mdn-2740t and analogues
- Tutorial
Good afternoon, dear community!
I want to share the achievements on the modernization of the Prology mdn-2740t radio tape recorder.
The most important improvement is to release the device on the Internet for at least obtaining information about traffic jams and weather.
Most of the information is suitable for Prology 2650T / 2630T / 1750T / 1340T / 1360T / ORION analogs AVM-57257BTG, Foryou DN-6320, because they are built on the basis of a single ForYou NV3110 hardware platform ( Link to of.site ).
General principles will generally apply to any radio or navigator based on Windows CE.
There is no way to write to a thematic blog, so I am writing in a sandbox.
More details under the cut.
The basis of the device is 3 blocks:
1) Navigation unit or GPS module. Simplified, it is a PDA in industrial implementation in the form of a module soldered to the motherboard. We will modify it!
The unit runs on Windows CE 5.0 or 6.0. My copy works on WinCE 5.0 (Samsung processor, ARM920T-S3C2440A), so everything that will be written below concerns this particular OS.
2) motherboard. "Center" can be called a microcontroller NEC UPD78F0547. The microcontroller is responsible for switching between sources (Navi, DVD, USB, AUX, etc.), the location of the touch buttons and some other operations. At the moment, the motherboard is of interest only in terms of "iron" modifications, which I may write about in the next article. It is not possible to edit the firmware, at least I did not find any software for this (the hex editor does not count).
3) DVD or Servo board. A very interesting part of the device, which is responsible for playing content from usb, SD, DVD, CD.
Based on the SunPlus SPHE8202D microcontroller. By flashing it, you can change the background and icons of the main menu, as well as the control menu of each playback source.
If the community likes the article, I’ll write in the next article about the modernization of the multimedia part.
So, we pass to the most interesting - modernization!
1) Add USB to the GPS module.
This is done quite simply - you just need to find the legs of the gps module responsible for usb: D + and D-, and solder to them the 2 central contacts of the cord with the usb connector "mother". Power + 5v and ground GND can be found there.
There are so-called Service Manuals on the network for any fairly common radio tape recorder - in these manuals, as a rule, all the legs are signed. And if they are not signed, as in our case, we act by the exception method!
Below is an example for Prology mdn-2740t:
The diagram shows where the GND contacts are located, + 5v. D +, D- are on 20 and 21 legs respectively.
Determined by the absence of inscriptions and matches on other legs.
The photo below shows how it looks in life.
Contacts D + and D- can be safely changed places. In case of an error, it just won’t work, but it won’t burn. So, that from 2 times it will turn out for sure!
Now we have a full-fledged “USB tail”, which immediately I want to stick something.
Let's try to insert a flash drive! If LEDs are present on it, they should blink for a while. This will be an indirect sign that the iron part is working for us.
Go to step 2!
2) Now we need to get into the familiar Windows aka explorer environment, see the Start menu and the “computer” icon.
By default, navigators start the MobileNavigator.exe file instead of explorer.exe from the registry startup entry.
The MobileNavigator.exe file is nothing but the renamed Navitel.exe, i.e. at the start of the navigation part, we get to Navitel and nowhere else.
Let's fix it!
The easiest way is to replace the MobileNavigator.exe file on a complete SD card with, for example, the executable file total commander for WinCE and the next time we boot, we get into the usual two-pane window.
Now we can "climb" on the internal memory of the device, but by and large it will not give us anything now :).
In order for the device to see the flash drive - you need to update the navigation part with the firmware created by the forum w3bsit3-dns.com e7763 , for which many thanks to him!
I will not touch here on the issues of creating firmware for WindowsCE, because I myself am not yet competent in this matter.
I can only say that drivers for devices such as usb-flash, usb-3g-modem, usb-wifi, usb-uart have been added to the firmware, the ability to save the registry to the NandFlash internal memory, as well as some useful software, have been added.
After updating and loading the device, we see the familiar windows screen with the Start button.
If we insert the flash drive into the freshly soldered usb port and go to the “computer” icon, we will see our flash drive under the name HardDisk!
Now, making sure that USB is working correctly, we proceed to the organization of access to the Internet.
I think the most convenient option is to use a usb 3g modem. In my city, I easily found and bought a used ZTE MF-626 for 400r. I think in other cities there will also be no problems with the search.
Now the important point: the modem needs to be updated with the correct firmware, it took me 1.5 weeks of unhurried dances with tambourines to guess that it was in it :).
Next, you need to inform Windows CE about which modem we want to connect to it.
The setting is universal for all modems, the main thing is to find out its VID.
After setting up the modem, we establish a connection - the result should be a window with the message “connected”.
Now we can start Navitel and see a green icon indicating the status of traffic jams! And you can also open a browser (by default there is IE) and go to some page.
Internet works!
So, now we have a full-fledged computer with USB-host and Internet access. But Windows CE in the car looks a little dull, albeit unusual :). Add a few "beauties"!
There are many options for "alternative" menus for PNA (navigators, which include our radio). I opted for MioPocket 4.0- a fairly “fresh” implementation, in addition, it is not just a menu, but also a large set of programs and games (yes, you can also play tanks under the Dandy emulator!).
It looks, in my opinion, very beautiful:
Installing MioPocket is very simple - just copy the contents of the archive to the SD card and run (on the device) MioAutoRun.exe. Also included is a very good ReadMe in English.
That's all for now! Many thanks to the w3bsit3-dns.com and gps-forum.ru communities, special thanks to e7763 and Vitt ! Part of the text and photographs were borrowed from these forums in agreement with the authors.
Topics for future articles:
1) Finalization of the radio to get full stereo sound in Windows CE (for the ability to listen to music).
2) Change the DVD firmware (Servo) -part. Device recovery with unsuccessful SunPlus and Nec firmware.
I want to share the achievements on the modernization of the Prology mdn-2740t radio tape recorder.
The most important improvement is to release the device on the Internet for at least obtaining information about traffic jams and weather.
Most of the information is suitable for Prology 2650T / 2630T / 1750T / 1340T / 1360T / ORION analogs AVM-57257BTG, Foryou DN-6320, because they are built on the basis of a single ForYou NV3110 hardware platform ( Link to of.site ).
General principles will generally apply to any radio or navigator based on Windows CE.
There is no way to write to a thematic blog, so I am writing in a sandbox.
More details under the cut.
The basis of the device is 3 blocks:
1) Navigation unit or GPS module. Simplified, it is a PDA in industrial implementation in the form of a module soldered to the motherboard. We will modify it!
The unit runs on Windows CE 5.0 or 6.0. My copy works on WinCE 5.0 (Samsung processor, ARM920T-S3C2440A), so everything that will be written below concerns this particular OS.
2) motherboard. "Center" can be called a microcontroller NEC UPD78F0547. The microcontroller is responsible for switching between sources (Navi, DVD, USB, AUX, etc.), the location of the touch buttons and some other operations. At the moment, the motherboard is of interest only in terms of "iron" modifications, which I may write about in the next article. It is not possible to edit the firmware, at least I did not find any software for this (the hex editor does not count).
3) DVD or Servo board. A very interesting part of the device, which is responsible for playing content from usb, SD, DVD, CD.
Based on the SunPlus SPHE8202D microcontroller. By flashing it, you can change the background and icons of the main menu, as well as the control menu of each playback source.
If the community likes the article, I’ll write in the next article about the modernization of the multimedia part.
So, we pass to the most interesting - modernization!
1) Add USB to the GPS module.
This is done quite simply - you just need to find the legs of the gps module responsible for usb: D + and D-, and solder to them the 2 central contacts of the cord with the usb connector "mother". Power + 5v and ground GND can be found there.
There are so-called Service Manuals on the network for any fairly common radio tape recorder - in these manuals, as a rule, all the legs are signed. And if they are not signed, as in our case, we act by the exception method!
Below is an example for Prology mdn-2740t:
The diagram shows where the GND contacts are located, + 5v. D +, D- are on 20 and 21 legs respectively.
Determined by the absence of inscriptions and matches on other legs.
The photo below shows how it looks in life.
Contacts D + and D- can be safely changed places. In case of an error, it just won’t work, but it won’t burn. So, that from 2 times it will turn out for sure!
View a photo of a board with a soldered USB
Now we have a full-fledged “USB tail”, which immediately I want to stick something.
Let's try to insert a flash drive! If LEDs are present on it, they should blink for a while. This will be an indirect sign that the iron part is working for us.
Go to step 2!
2) Now we need to get into the familiar Windows aka explorer environment, see the Start menu and the “computer” icon.
By default, navigators start the MobileNavigator.exe file instead of explorer.exe from the registry startup entry.
The MobileNavigator.exe file is nothing but the renamed Navitel.exe, i.e. at the start of the navigation part, we get to Navitel and nowhere else.
Let's fix it!
The easiest way is to replace the MobileNavigator.exe file on a complete SD card with, for example, the executable file total commander for WinCE and the next time we boot, we get into the usual two-pane window.
Now we can "climb" on the internal memory of the device, but by and large it will not give us anything now :).
In order for the device to see the flash drive - you need to update the navigation part with the firmware created by the forum w3bsit3-dns.com e7763 , for which many thanks to him!
Instructions for updating the firmware of the navigation part
1. Copy the NK.BIN file to the SD card in the root directory.
2. Insert the SD card into the device.
3. Turn on the device and enter the navigation interface. The update will start automatically. After the update, the device will reboot.
4. Take out the SD card with the firmware file, delete NK.BIN, copy the Windows folder from the archive to it, paste it into the device and copy the Windows folder to the NandFlash section.
2. Insert the SD card into the device.
3. Turn on the device and enter the navigation interface. The update will start automatically. After the update, the device will reboot.
4. Take out the SD card with the firmware file, delete NK.BIN, copy the Windows folder from the archive to it, paste it into the device and copy the Windows folder to the NandFlash section.
I will not touch here on the issues of creating firmware for WindowsCE, because I myself am not yet competent in this matter.
I can only say that drivers for devices such as usb-flash, usb-3g-modem, usb-wifi, usb-uart have been added to the firmware, the ability to save the registry to the NandFlash internal memory, as well as some useful software, have been added.
After updating and loading the device, we see the familiar windows screen with the Start button.
If we insert the flash drive into the freshly soldered usb port and go to the “computer” icon, we will see our flash drive under the name HardDisk!
Now, making sure that USB is working correctly, we proceed to the organization of access to the Internet.
I think the most convenient option is to use a usb 3g modem. In my city, I easily found and bought a used ZTE MF-626 for 400r. I think in other cities there will also be no problems with the search.
Now the important point: the modem needs to be updated with the correct firmware, it took me 1.5 weeks of unhurried dances with tambourines to guess that it was in it :).
Instructions for updating the firmware of the ZTE MF-626 modem
Next, you need to inform Windows CE about which modem we want to connect to it.
It is done like this
1) You need to connect the modem to the computer, go to the device manager and find it there. Right-click to select properties, and on the tab that opens, select the information tab. On this information tab that opens, we find the VID of the modem. For my case, it's 12D1. Using the calculator, we convert the hexadecimal value to decimal and get 4817.
As long as the modem is on the PC, you can immediately configure the access point (APN) so that you do not enter it manually in WinCE.
To do this, run any terminal program, connect to the modem's service port and register APN with the command AT + CGDCONT = 1, “IP”, “internet.mts.ru” (in this example for MTS).
We disconnect the modem from the computer.
2) We take the modem.reg file , open it, look for lines of the form in it:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Drivers \ CDC \ LoadClients \ XXXX_0_0 \ 0] and replace the value XXXX with your VID value. A total of 5 such lines should be fixed, and also here in this line
we change the X [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Drivers \ USB \ LoadClients \ XXXX \ Default \ Default \ CDC_Class] to your value and save the file.
3) Copy modem.reg, Auto.reg files to the SD card .
4) Insert the card into the radio, go to the main Windows folder, find Regedit.exe there and run it. We look for a key of the form [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Drivers \ USB \ LoadClients \ 4817_4097_0 \ Default \ Default \ RS232_USB] and delete it.
6) Run the modem.reg file (answer the pop-up question with “yes”). To ensure automatic Internet connection for programs, we run the Auto.reg file (we answer yes to the pop-up question).
7) Connect the modem to USB and reboot the radio (reset button). After loading into the device manager, we control the modem connection (COM6-COM8 ports should appear).
8) We configure the Internet connection:
One
Two
Three
If you registered an access point in 1 point, then the APN line should be empty!
As long as the modem is on the PC, you can immediately configure the access point (APN) so that you do not enter it manually in WinCE.
To do this, run any terminal program, connect to the modem's service port and register APN with the command AT + CGDCONT = 1, “IP”, “internet.mts.ru” (in this example for MTS).
We disconnect the modem from the computer.
2) We take the modem.reg file , open it, look for lines of the form in it:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Drivers \ CDC \ LoadClients \ XXXX_0_0 \ 0] and replace the value XXXX with your VID value. A total of 5 such lines should be fixed, and also here in this line
we change the X [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Drivers \ USB \ LoadClients \ XXXX \ Default \ Default \ CDC_Class] to your value and save the file.
3) Copy modem.reg, Auto.reg files to the SD card .
4) Insert the card into the radio, go to the main Windows folder, find Regedit.exe there and run it. We look for a key of the form [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Drivers \ USB \ LoadClients \ 4817_4097_0 \ Default \ Default \ RS232_USB] and delete it.
6) Run the modem.reg file (answer the pop-up question with “yes”). To ensure automatic Internet connection for programs, we run the Auto.reg file (we answer yes to the pop-up question).
7) Connect the modem to USB and reboot the radio (reset button). After loading into the device manager, we control the modem connection (COM6-COM8 ports should appear).
8) We configure the Internet connection:
One
Two
Three
If you registered an access point in 1 point, then the APN line should be empty!
The setting is universal for all modems, the main thing is to find out its VID.
After setting up the modem, we establish a connection - the result should be a window with the message “connected”.
Now we can start Navitel and see a green icon indicating the status of traffic jams! And you can also open a browser (by default there is IE) and go to some page.
Internet works!
So, now we have a full-fledged computer with USB-host and Internet access. But Windows CE in the car looks a little dull, albeit unusual :). Add a few "beauties"!
There are many options for "alternative" menus for PNA (navigators, which include our radio). I opted for MioPocket 4.0- a fairly “fresh” implementation, in addition, it is not just a menu, but also a large set of programs and games (yes, you can also play tanks under the Dandy emulator!).
It looks, in my opinion, very beautiful:
Installing MioPocket is very simple - just copy the contents of the archive to the SD card and run (on the device) MioAutoRun.exe. Also included is a very good ReadMe in English.
That's all for now! Many thanks to the w3bsit3-dns.com and gps-forum.ru communities, special thanks to e7763 and Vitt ! Part of the text and photographs were borrowed from these forums in agreement with the authors.
Topics for future articles:
1) Finalization of the radio to get full stereo sound in Windows CE (for the ability to listen to music).
2) Change the DVD firmware (Servo) -part. Device recovery with unsuccessful SunPlus and Nec firmware.