I decided to build in a modern Satnav and also a Parrot.

I started by buying a used veneer set (on the basis that there was a chance of ruining it!) , without noticing that the central (Satnav) unit was non-standard (no buttons!) I had intended mounting the new satnav as a replacement for the old, and using the buttons to control satnav and clock - I have done this before, and it can just be fitted in, with the clock and oil pressure gauge to the left and the right of the rows of buttons - I have a picture of this which I did on a previous car However, the non-standard unit I bought, which was made of resin, actually suited me better.

It was not especially difficult to do, as was the building-in of the Parrot - I didn't want it just stuck on the front of the dash, so it was a matter of some careful cutting and gluing. The veneer is ok on the pix, but just needs a little cleaning up.












The Satnav is the latest (as of June 2017) Tomtom 6100. This can be updated by wifi, so there is no need for any external USB connection to it, which makes things very simple. The four buttons under the Satnav are, from left to right, clock advance, mute Satnav, On/off Satnav, and toggle between switched (ignition) supply and permanent battery supply. That last switch means that if I need to do a large and time-consuming download, I do not need the ignition on. If I am using the battery, the light (normally used for oil pressure warning) in the oil gauge flashes - the final picture actually is capturing a flash. Finally, the gauges come from the 3-gauge cluster, for which I use the original minor instrument board (part of the cluster).

My main concern was that the Tomtom, which is not integrated with anything, would be too quiet, since the speaker is behind the dash. Not at all - it is surprisingly loud and good quality. If I need to mute the satnav quickly I can do so merely by pressing the relevant button, which just breaks the loudspeaker connection.

I hope you find this interesting - all it needs is a little nerve to do! Let me know if you want any construction pictures posted.

 

Photos and details would be appreciated.

 

This set of posts will explain how to install a modern Tomtom 5100 as a replacement for the original Jaguar equipment. If you are moved to try this, please wait until the instructions are completed, in later posts, so that you fully understand what you are doing!

This first part explains how to open a Tomtom 5100 and connect external wires. We'll be opening the case, and extending wires out run an external on/off switch, and to operate a simple mute/unmute. The electronics will not be incorporated within the car radio system, but the speaker is loud enough not to need that feature - but others may wish to post methods of embedding the electronics.

You will need:
A small cross-head screwdriver
Tablet/phone opening tools - these are cheap to buy.
Some heat shrink
A few feet of fine wire
A fine soldering iron, some solder
I also recommend a hot melt gun and a glue stick or two
A digital voltmeter to measure resistance (as they all do) Can be a cheap one. This is worthwhile now and important when you install the unit in the car.
A tomtom 5100
Nerves of steel.....if it doesn't work, you do this at your own risk!

The photos in this post show a Tomtom with a wrecked case - but if you follow the instructions here you do not need to wreck the case, as I did. Also, since my own one was a non-standard centre dash unit, I actually used a slightly larger Tomtom 6100 (and did not wreck its case!)

This post focuses on the satnav, and shows how to deal with the wiring. I'll add later posts to this thread, showing how to connect to your original Satnav case, so you can use the buttons - and you can stop at that point, if you wish, or can continue to add gauges.

I'll also explain how to fix in and wire up the gauges, and how to build in the Parrot.

Apologies, though: a lot of words, not many pix. Get back to me if you need any clarifications.

First, open the unit - don't cut away, as I did in the photos shown. Do this by buying a set of tablet tools, designed to open tablets and smartphones. These are merely fine spatulas of plastic or metal; use them to slide into the join around the edge and they will pop apart. You have now invalidated the guarantee......
GENTLY open the two halves. They will be connected by a flat ribbon cable - orange in the picture. This pushes into a connector; although you can hardly see it, the connector has a flap which can flip upwards, allowing the connector to be pulled out. Do this. On the 5100 there is also a short section of wire - red in this case; the wire is free at the far end - it does look as if it has been broken, but I think it must merely be an antenna.




If you now unscrew the five or six screws holding the board down you can move the board out of the way. This gives access to the speaker leads and to the on-off switch.

The on-off switch is a small unit on the circuit board behind the button. It works by momentary contact of the two connectors on the same side. The picture below shows the switch and the underside of the button (remember that, unlike me with this unit, you will not have cut out the button to reveal the switch itself)



Very good idea: Buy a meter if you haven't got one, set it to ohms, and check that when you push in the switch button the two connectors short out and you get zero resistance. Judicious use of the meter will tell you if you are doing anything wrong (post any questions on how to use a meter, if you can't find out!) Now pre-tin two lengths of about 18 inches each (which will be much too long) of reasonably fine wire and, carefully, solder one wire to each of the connectors at the switch. If you mess it up, there are two connectors opposite.....use those. Now try it out: reconnect the orange ribbon connector an plug into the USB supply. Bare the opposite ends of the new pieces of wire and touch them together; you should be able to switch the satnav on and off. If not, check your connections at the switch. Also, check the positioning and seating of that ribbon connector. It may look ok, but the contacts are very close together, so even the slightest misalignment will prevent it working, so it is worthwhile disconnecting and reconnecting.

The final stage is to open up once more, and locate one of the wires to the speaker. It is very fine. Unsolder one wire and solder it onto another wire about 18 inches long - protect the connection properly - a small section of heatshrink is best. Connect a second wire to the now unconnected speaker terminal. You now have the means to mute the speaker. If you connect the other ends of those wires the speaker will work, if you disconnect them, it will be mute.

Finally, screw the circuit back again, reconnect the ribbon cable and test. Does it turn on and off? Can you mute/unmute? Before closing the case, put two or three inches of heatshrink around each pair of wires just before they exit the case. It is also a very good idea to glue the two new cables you have made just inside the case, to give some extra strength if they are pulled. A hot-melt glue gun is excellent for this. Finally, using the soldering iron, melt a small hole at each side, where the cases join, and trap the wires in each hole. Click the case closed, and test once more.

You're nearly there!

The next stage, which I will discuss later, is how to put it into a standard satnav unit so that it will fit into your car, and how to deal with the switches and charging. I'll get an old unit and take some pictures - so you might have to wait a while for the next part.

 

I'm excited to follow this install! I was frustrated that the components of WhiteXK's install are no longer available and see this as a promising replacement, with both Sat Nav and gauges.

Granville

 

Diddion - are you able to follow-up on installing the 6" TomTom unit - either using a scrap nav unit or in its original case? It looks like a great solution and I like how the screen size fills the OEM opening. Thanks!

 

Ok. I'll bow to public pressure! Wait a day or two longer, please.

 

BTW what's the story with your "non-standard" nav panel with no button openings?? Was it custom made by the PO? I've never seen a Jaguar trim piece like that for the X300.

 

This was not custom made for me. What happened was that I decided to buy a set of veneers, because I intended to work on the centre panel, to add the satnav and two dials, plus further work on the panel in front of the driver, to build in the parrot. I saw this one on ebay uk and bought it - I did not even notice the centre panel.

When it arrived the centre panel had a single satnav cutout, and it had been cast (very nicely, I may add) in resin. I was initially somewhat miffed, but in the end it played into my hands rather nicely, because it had the room to place the dials and buttons exactly where I wanted, as you can see. The only real drawback was that it did not have any tags for pushing into the slots behind, so in order to mount it I have used hot melt glue on the vertical sides, which seems to work so far (but I don't know whether it will hold in the longer term). I have found it possible to remove the unit by taking out the housing for the speedo and sliding a knife behind the side of that centre dash unit which is next to the speedo. This cuts through the glue, and I was able to lever it away. This will be a bit of a faff if I have to replace bulbs in the future, but at least it can be done.

I did previously (in my previous XKR), though, mount a satnav with two dials within a standard housing with buttons; it is just possible to do this, either side of the columns of buttons. I am assuming that anyone carrying this out will be using a standard centre dash housing.

Hope this helps

 

This part will show the installation of the satnav within the existing housing. first of all, of course, remove from the car the existing housing: the oem satnav with buttons, all attached to a plastic case which sits immediately behind the veneer.

To remove the satnav merely unscrew the four screws, one at each corner




You can work out where the others are!

And this is what you have: the space for the satnav, and the perspex which supplies light to the buttons in front.



Now the easy, and rewarding bit.

Simply put the Satnav into the housing. It will fit almost perfectly, but you will need to shave some of the case at the top and bottom. Yours will look a little like this next picture, but with three important differences:

1 You won't have that horrible cutout, because you have opened the unit without damaging the case much, unlike me!

2 You will have two pairs of fine wires leaving the sides of the satnav, one of which is the on/off switch, the other is for the mute/unmute.

3 You won't be installing yours upside down, like my picture!

Time to take a pause and recheck. Does the on/off switch work (connect the two wires together). Does the speaker work, and will it mute (connect/disconnect the speaker wires). Assuming all remains well:
Once in place, check at the front to ensure it is nicely vertically and horizontally centred (ok: centered!) and remove more of the case if need be. Once you are completely happy, get out the hot-melt glue gun and fix it in place, holding it firmly onto the oem plastic frame.



The buttons themselves, and the lamps, are on separate circuit boards still attached to the oem satnav unit: Each of them is attached to the rest of the unit by a small twist of metal, two to each small circuit board. Just straighten them, and the button boards lift right off.








At this point i suggest that you ensure the switches are electrically isolated from each other. Cutting into the board where marked with two lines should do it. Where marked with one line you may prefer to be careful, since you will, I think, be in danger of breaking into one of the feeds to the blue lamps. I'll say more about this after the picture.




Now I may be completely wrong, here, but my assumption is that the two lamps are LEDs, and they work on less than 12V. On the reverse of the board are two tiny electronic components, which I suspect are resistors. If these assumptions are correct, then if you put 12V onto the lamps, they will blow, but if you put 12V to one side of the lamp and to the other side of the resistor, it should be ok.

Cutting the board to separate the switches may prevent you from being able to wire up the lamps, if you cut the wrong place! I know that someone on the forum has done this: made the lighting work on their oem unit, used in a similar way to mine. Please post here exactly how you did this!

So you now have three separate buttons - do check that they are electrically isolated from each other with a meter. Each button has two small soldered connections, arrowed in the above picture. You will be connecting each pair of wires, one to each side of the button. The soldering requires care. You must pre-tin the exposed end of the wire, and melt it onto the connector. As long as it holds, you'll be fine. However, once you have soldered the wires you must be careful not to pull them, because it is easy to break the connection to the buttons.

You have up to about six pairs of wires, each pair connected to one button. you're going to use three of them.

Place each button board into the frame, as shown below (with one side in place), and get that hot glue gun out again. Note that, of course, there are no circuit elements to worry about from the heat (other than, perhaps, the lamps). Now another check: With your meter set to ohms (resistance) each pair of wires should read open circuit. When its button is pressed in, the pair should show a short circuit: zero resistance. As long as you have three that work, you'll be ok - just abandon the others.




Now you will connect the on-off switch (not the speaker switch - get it right!) to whichever button you have chosen for that task. Slide on a suitable length of heat shrink, and connect each of the wires from the satnav to the chosen switch. Check again.

The final part is the connection of the power supply and the mute/unmute. This requires a little more work, because, of course, the buttons only provide a temporary contact. We shall be using two items to achieve this: a 'latching flip-flop' and a small relay. The latching flip flop uses a momentary input - such as one of our buttons - to turn an output 'on' or 'off', and it memorises that output until the next press of the button.

For the power supply, the output is subsequently fed into a relay, which can be used to select between ignition-switched voltage and battery (permanent) supply; as a mentioned in the first post, whilst this is not essential, it will mean you will be able to update the satnav wirelessly with the ignition off. The power supply is to be connected to the usb plug.

For the mute/unmute, the same system is used, though in this case the relay merely connects/disconnects the speaker leads.

There may be easier ways of doing this! If you can offer an easier solution, such as a single unit which will do both jobs, please post your ideas!

The final part of the satnav installation will be the wiring. I'll finish with an explanation of the installation of the dials - with apologies for presenting this in chunks, rather than all in one post.