2007 Nissan Sentra Raspberry Pi Rear Entertainment System

After the successful installation of the raspberry pi 3 based rear entertainment system in my Odyssey I decided to expand the idea and test the flexibility of the hardware mix I'd put together as part 2 of my mobile entertainment trilogy.

Here are the specs and planned features for the install:

  • Mirrored audio and video via two aftermarket LCD headrests where audio and video are handled at each monitor independent of the car's stereo system. Additionally the aftermarket headrests support IR headphones as a future option.
  • An intelligent power supply that can survive the hazards of the automotive electrical system. Namely one that can resist load dump conditions and keep supplying power to the pi during temporary power cuts / brownouts (I.E., cranking car). Additionally it needs to be able to start the Pi when the key is switched to ACC/ON and shutdown the Pi gracefully when the car is shut off.
  • An easy to use front end that can be remote controlled via a RF remote OR Android / IOS devices via wifi. The idea being that small children can't operate a standard remote, therefore the parents will have the option to control movies from the front of the vehicle.
  • Local storage support
  • Resuming options for automatically restarting video from the last time the car was shut off.

Wiring Diagram:

Only meant to paint the broad strokes of the installation so understand that it is not completely comprehensive. For example the chassis grounds and the AV grounds aren't shown for the sake of simplicity.

Note: The Raspberry Pi's composite Video Out is handled with a 3.5mm to AV RCA cable and only the video is used. The audio output from the SYBA sound card uses a seperate 3.5mm to audio RCA. Both are combined to form a complete signal set which is spit out to each of the headrest monitors. The reason the Raspbery Pi's built-in audio isn't used is because the SYBA output is much cleaner and isn't PWM based, therefore it can be amplified in Kodi to make up for the losses in the barely active headrest monitors.

Required Software:

  • Download August 2017 (at time of writing this tutorial) OSMC Raspberry Pi 3 B Image here
  • Download Win32DiskImager
  • Putty or another appropriate SSH terminal for your specific OS

Optional Software:

Raspberry Pi Software Installation and Kodi Configuration:

  • Write the OSMC image to the micro SD card using Win32DiskImager
  • After writing the image, open the SD card and edit config.txt adding the following two lines if they're not already there: 
    sdtv_mode=0
    sdtv_aspect=3
    This ensures that the composite video output is NTSC with a 16x9 apect ratio (Which is what the Odyssey's LCD format is)
  • Setup tethering wifi network in OSMC menu if using Yatse. This allows the Raspberry Pi to host a wifi network so your phone can connect to the Pi and subsequently remote control it over wifi.
  • Select RF OSMC remote from the OSMC menu if using suggested remote (it should work after selection).
  • If using Yatse, setup kodi for remote access using their most excellent setup guide.
  • If using Yatse, install on phone and connect to raspberry pi's wifi network. At this point, remote functions should work
  • SSH into raspberry pi using putty or similar (default user/pass = osmc/osmc). Assuming you have setup your wifi tether / host on the raspberry pi, you should have a new network you can join wirelessly via your computer and then SSH through this network.
  • Install lifepo4wered­cli using its manual starting on page 3
  • Configure LiFePO4wered/Pi3 (also documented in its manual above)                                              
    sudo lifepo4wered­cli set AUTO_BOOT 4 - AUTO_BOOT configures the LiFePO4wered/Pi3 to boot up whenever it is plugged up to USB and allows the raspberry pi to be shutdown with the touch button
    sudo lifepo4wered­cli set AUTO_SHDN_TIME 1 - AUTO_SHDN_TIME configures the LiFePO4wered/Pi3 to shutdown after 1 minute when power is removed (1 minute is ideal to cover cases where power is removed for short periods (I.E., cranking car) but a shutdown isn't desired)
    sudo lifepo4wered­cli set CFG_WRITE 70 - CFG_WRITE saves LiFePO4wered/Pi3 configuration to non-volitile memory
  • If this kodi box is going to be used by small children I would recommend locking down the menu so that videos / movies is the only usable selection, and lock configuration with a pin code.
  • Under Settings\Player\Videos an option that's useful with children is to check Play next video automatically.
  • Run the video calibration wizard under Settings\System\Video output\Video calibration. Just make sure that your settings level = Expert, otherwise you won't see the option.
  • Format the hard drive and load it with media

Hardware Assembly and Installation:

Using the diagram above, the assembly is pretty straight forward. For the details of the LiFePO4wered/Pi3 installation and its related enclosure, see their respective manuals. The wiring is a simple or as complicated as you make it usually rooted in how neat you want your installation. Some important notes specific to the Sentra:

  • Add-a-fuse may seem like a sloppy solution here, but it works well in this particular instance. The Sentra's J/B fuseblock in the kickpanel has multiple strong constant and switched supplies coming to it as well as multiple unallocated output slots for fuses. On the output legs of each unoccupied of the fuse holders there is no wiring, so using an add-a-fuse effectively pulls from the larger supply to the entire fuse block All it takes is a meter to determine what's constant and switched 12V and you can plug the add-a-fuse into whatever works best.
  • The Drok DC to DC convertor is adjustable. Its very much a double edged sword because you can't just plug it up and go. You absolutely have to adjust it with output feedback (multimeter) to make sure it's outputting 5VDC while your car is running before you get it anywhere near the Pi. Then and only then can you use it to supply power to the LiFePO4wered/Pi3.