Car kit issue...yuck

Following up on my earlier post, my car kit has an issue; the speaker in the Garmin sounds like crap and is too low (I think the car kit has the amplification, but the speaker is distorting the sounds). So, tomorrow it is back to Fry's to look for an external CB (marine) speaker that I can mount under my center console. I also wired the car kit using only the front left speaker, so maybe if I wire all speakers together, I can get decent amplification with a decent speaker (there is probably a flaw in this theory, something to do with impedance I'd guess).

Printers have a lot to be desired

About 3 years ago, I bought a Canon i470D printer to print photos as it was cheap and I could get cheap ink. It did a good job over its life, but yesterday it decided (yes, I know this is the passive voice, but I didn't decide anything for it) that it wasn't going to print black despite my hour of futzing with it, cleaning the print head, changing ink, etc. I said forget it and dumped the printer in the trash (OK, I took out all the circuitry first so that I could comply with the mandatory law requiring us to recycle stuff containing mercury). I checked the Fry's ad (yes, I don't like shopping there, but they always have cheap printers). They had an Epson R320 refurbished for $40 after rebate. As I figure these printers are cheap and will break anyway, how bad could a refurbished one be? So far, knock on wood, the printer prints well and the fact that it uses 6 separate ink cartridges is good so that I don't have to replace all of them.

My car is a storage shed

For those that know me well, know that I'm a bit compulsive when it comes to keeping things neat. I've kept my car this way for a long time and kept it uncluttered, but (in my old age), I've relaxed a bit when it comes to being neat. Now my car is more a general purpose storage area. I have several bottles of water rolling around (who knows when you'll need water and I've actually used some), a large first aid kit (that's primarily so when I cut myself I can put a bandage on), a hat, and other miscellaneous things. While I attempt to keep things arranged, it really doesn't bother me anymore.

Handsfree car kit installed!

Way back in January, I mentioned that I bought a Parrot CK3100 handsfree carkit for my cell phone. Unfortunately I had to return the kit because my phone kept rebooting the car kit. After hearing about the impending legislation requiring handsfree cell phone talking (car kit or headset), I decided to take another look. I read on forums that the kit now worked with the Samsung A900, so I decided to give it another shot. I went to Fry's (a store I hate, but I knew that they had the kit and I could return it if it didn't work), searched the shelves and found 1 left, but it had been returned (the upside is that it was $10 off). Having seen a brand new one before, I checked the contents and everything looked intact. I also knew that installing the car kit would be a pain, so most people would get intimidated when they saw the directions which gave me hopes that it was never used.

So, I go the kit home, hooked it up to a 12V supply and saw that my phone kept rebooting it. I checked the firmware and saw it was old. I updated the firmware and things seem to work fine, so I decided to install it the next day (today). I thought and thought and thought about how I was going to install the kit knowing that my car had some funky premium stereo and it wasn't just a matter of connecting a phone hours. In the middle of the night, the solution came to me. I'd use the speaker hooked to my Garmin iQue 3600 car kit and let the handsfree car kit be the amplifier. This would make the install much easier. Another thing that made things easier was I decided that I'd use wire taps into the existing wires and forget about trying to do things without touching what was there.

The install took a good 5 or 6 hours and I only cut myself once. After I was figured everything out and was going to put it back together, I tested it and it didn't work with the stereo on. Either the wiring diagram for the stereo was wrong or the wire I tapped into didn't provide continuous 12V power in the accessory position. So I just tapped into the auxiliary power connector and everything was happy.

The kit works quite well with my phone and I'm reasonably impressed. Now we'll just have to see what happens on the road. It is real cool to be able to turn on the car and have it pair with my phone. I was using a Bluetooth headset, but I'd have to turn it on everytime I got in the car and put in on my ear.

Mounting the LCD was another feat of engineering, but it turns out well. I also made it such that I could disconnect the speaker if I wanted to take my GPS unit with me. I could have drilled some holes in the dash, but what I did is good enough.