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Galaxy tab 2 "head unit" and alpine speaker upgrade DIY

14K views 75 replies 15 participants last post by  Moosecakes 
#1 · (Edited)
Alright guys! Here is my DIY for the tablet amp and speaker install :thumbsup: I'll try to be as detailed as I can, I did have to quit taking pics once i got to the rear because it was getting late and I still had a 2hr drive home.. So here we go, I'll list supplies and tools first then get to a step by step with pics!

_____________________________

Tools Needed
- T20 torx bit w/ ratchet or screwdriver
- Phillips screwdriver *various sizes*
- Flat head screwdriver
- Dremel or some sort of cutter
- Plastic trim removal tools
- 8mm, 10mm, 13mm ratchet wrenches or shallow sockets
- soldering iron
- flux & Rosin core solder
- wire strippers/cutters
- shrink wrap
- Razor blades
- PATIENCE!

Parts needed
- 6.5" Alpine SPS-610c front components
- 6.5" Alpine SPS-610 coax's rear deck
- multi channel amp of your choice, I am using a kicker 700w5.1ch amp
- 50' roll of speaker wire - I used RCA, you can use whatever you want.
- x' of 4g power cable - Stinger MPH or PRO are my recommendations, measure for your application based on where you want to mount the amp.
- 5' 16g wire (blue preferably) - remote wire extension.
- 2 4g ring terminals
- Galaxy tab 2 or Nexus 7 tablet
- Mediabridge 25' aux to rca cable
- Dual din bezel
- Adhesive


Okay so that should be everything you need for this install. :thumbsup:

______________________________________________________________________

Okay so let's get started here, set aside an entire day, it took me 11 hours and that's with my wifes and my dads help on parts lol.

So bring your car into the garage and get your tools and parts setup and get yourself a drink and prepare for one hellava adventure.:loco:

Step 1:

Disassembling the dash trim so you can get access to the 2 screws to remove the radio or in my case navigation.


Use your plastic trim removal tools! Be very careful and start from the passenger side near the door and work your way to the center piece as they share a pin right by the radio.


Once you have all the trim removed you need to remove the 2 brass colored screws and the 2 black screws that hold your center vent down. Once you have them removed and put in a safe spot pull your center vents out. This was hard, and I thought I was going to break it, but just pull very evenly and it will pop out. Don't yank because the center control has a cord attached to it.

Pic of the trim and vent removed.


Step 2:

Now we're going to remove the door panels so we have access to the speakers. Be careful again because there is a lot of wires and **** attached inside here.

so using the same trim tool slide it between the door frame and the panel and slowly pry out until you hear the clips release, go around the entire door and make sure you have them all released. Then take your t20 torx bit and remove the 3 screws in the armrest, use the trim tool and remove the "airbag" plug and remove the torx screw behind there. There is one more screw hidden in your door pull trim, use a razor blade or xacto knife and pop the black circular plug out to access the screw.




The white clip that attaches to your door handle just simply lifts up out of it's spot, disconnect the speaker from the door wiring and then carefully pry out and up to release the top edge from the little push clips that are part of the door frame.

Do this for both sides, but don't forget about the side mirror controls on the driver side, you will have to push from underneath the switch from the back of the door to release it from its hole. Then disconnect the wiring from it and set the switch aside.




here's the back of the door panel in all its glory. And you can now see our target's! the upper tweeter and lower midbass speaker.

Step 3:

Time to remove your door speakers! There are 3 phillips head screws that are holding the lower speaker in and 3 torx screws that hold the tweeter housing in. remove all of them, but when you get the speakers and tweeters out, place the screws back in there spots so you don't mix them up.

The foam backing just slides right off. :thumbsup:



Okay now we need to get the mounting ring separated from the HK speakers because if you use the speakers I used, or the Type R equivalents you can use factory mount rings! WOOO :clap:

There are 4 little metal tabs that are bent and epoxied around the ring we need. Using a flat head screwdriver pry them up then finish moving them with a pair of needle nose pliers.



Next slide your flat head screwdriver in between the ring and the speaker itself and carefully work your way around separating the ring from the speaker, there is a very tough epoxy that seals the ring to the speaker so take your time and dont break them!

So do that for both sides and get your speakers and tweeters dismounted from their housings. The tweeters are held in by 2 small phillips head screws, disconnect the wire plug and set your OEM speakers aside and set the housing and ring aside for use soon.

Step 4:

Next up we will be removing the door boot and the rocker trim inside the car. Using a smaller trim tool, unset the rubber boot from the door and pull it up exposing the wiring harness inside.

Now carefully lift up the sound deadening foam from the door, it's attached with some kind of rubbery glue and will reattach when you're all done. Take your 50' spool of wiring and feed it through the door following the path of the factory wrapped cloth harness, this is so you don't pinch it in the window on accident. :thumbsup: now feed it through the boot opening in the side and pull a length of wiring all the way back to the end of your trunk.




my wife wrangling the wiring for me while I was doing other parts. :thumbsup:


Okay now do you see the small piece of "rubber" sound deadening that is hanging down right by the bottom of the dash? You are going to trim this even with the dash and throw it away as it's in our way for this process. Also the black trim clip you see in the carpet, throw that away too since we are going to be using the hole that it was originally mounted to in order to pull our speaker wiring through!

Remember that little hole that the black plug went to that was uncovered once you cut that deadening off? Take a piece of wire and fold and end of it like a hook and shove it through this hole and through the door opening where you removed the wiring harness clip from, it's a straight shot basically.



Hook your wiring around the hook of wire and pull it through the door and the little hole, this will take some force since the wiring is thick with the wire in it, but it'll go and it wont hurt the cable. Pull the entire length through the hole and route it to the back of your car.

You will need to arrange the speaker cable so it passes through without getting pinched, I found that it ran easiest on the bottom of the opening in the door jam.



Next you'll see something like this..

We're going to be running that length of wire through this path under the carpet and up to the back of the car. Set your wad of speaker wire somewhere out of the way right now we're not to that part yet.

Step 5:

Now we are going to be taking our OEM mounting ring and our new component speakers and doing a little bit of constructive destruction.



Set your new speaker inside the OEM ring and lift the ring up so it sits up and align it as if you were going to slip it onto the speaker. Now take a pencil or something to mark with and mark on the edges of the 3 tabs a slot you will be cutting out of the new speaker ring.


sorry for the blurry pic, look close you'll see the silver marks we are going to trim off to allow this ring to set up just like factory!

Alright, using a dremel or something like that to trim away at the ring, get to trimming! you'll end up with this.




Now using some sort of adhesive epoxy we are going to apply a "thick" layer of it to the bottom of the OEM ring where the old glue was, we have to seal it to the speaker so it isn't bouncing around and all that good stuff.




Now attach your ring to your speaker and set it aside to dry for a while:thumbsup: probably time to take a quick smoke break and grab a drink or something because I bet you're fuking tired at this point lol.

Repeat this process for both front speakers obviously and then we'll move to mounting the new tweeters in the OEM bracket and get some of the wiring arranged.

Step 6:

So remember that tweeter housing we set aside, go grab it along with your new tweeter and the screw on backing it came with.

Drop your new tweeter in the housing, make sure it's facing the right way! I put mine in backwards at first lol.. and screw the back ring on and tighten it down, dont' worry it will stay seated! I wasn't sure at first but it works just fine.




alright so once you have both sides done go ahead and get them screwed back into the door panels. You didn't loose the OEM screws right! They are the bronze torx head ones in case you didn't put them back in their home.



dont worry about that little 1" thing it's useless now lol.

Now grab your crossovers and plug one side into the tweeters and take the rest of the unit and using gorilla glue duct tape, tape that sucker up in there nice and cleanly.

Next up we'll mount our newly assembled mids back to the door and then finish up the wiring.

Step 7:

Take your new component speakers and mount them just like the old OEM ones were. :thumbsup: Oh make sure you remove the little black ring that is left in the speaker opening it wont fit with that in there.:ben:



Now connect your crossover wires to the speaker, clip your line of speaker wire, and attach the proper sized female spade connectors so you can secure it to your speaker.

Now do this for both sides and use some gorilla glue duct tape tape all your speaker crossover wires to the inside of the panel nice and neat like and we're now ready to put the door panels back on!

Step 8:

Alright, now we have our wiring ran to the proper length, we've got our mids and tweeters mounted and wired up and we are ready to reassemble the door cards now!

Installation is the reverse of removal, take it slow and mount all of your wires back up, and your mirror switch, then carefully place the door cards back on and align the pins with the holes, once you get 1 or 2 of them going just work your way around making sure each clip is properly lined up and just give it a good smack with your hand and you'll hear everything reset. :thumbsup:

We don't need pics of this right? Good because I didn't take any lol.

Step 9:

Damn, well that was fun, at this point you'll probably want to take a quick break, very tedious work so far, and we're only 1/4 the way done lol.

Get some rest and now we're going to remove the rear seats and center console in order to get ready to run our wiring nice and tucked away.

Removing the rear bench is easy, release the seat backs and grip the front of the seats and lift sharply up and you will feel them release, then they just slide out!



YUCK! That's nasty as ****, grab your shop vac and give your car a good cleaning back there. Now this is an optional step, but I personally ripped that black rubber mat out of the car and threw it away, useless weight. CSL doesn't have it, that means we dont need it haha! It was probably 3-5lbs of mat that I threw out.



and vacuum again lol. More GARBAGE!!!


pile of crap I threw out, useless weight! DO NOT WANT!

Step 10:

Cool now we can route our wires under the back seat along the sides of the cars with all the other OEM wiring, then run it up into the trunk. :thumbsup:



repeat this for both sides of the car and now your fronts and wiring are complete!

Good time to vacuum out the trunk well too!

After you have those wires routed we are going to move on to the head unit part of the job.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
DIY: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and Alpine speaker/amp upgrade install!

Step 11:

So this part of the job is where it gets trick, and also helps immensely to have a dad who is one of the best fabricators anywhere lol. otherwise my backing plate would have not came out this intricate lmao.

To remove your radio please refer to one of the many guides for it. This part was tough, it took a while to finally get both to unclip properly and get it out.

So the heart of this project, my samsung galaxy tab 2 7" tablet. It has a 32gb mem card for all my music, I can stream pandora, and use the internet and navigation all via my mobile Verizon Jet Pack card :thumbsup: 4g streaming ftw!



look at that gaping ass hole!!!! The hell are we gonna do with that....?!

Well the tablet fills out nicely!, but not enough to just leave sitting up. So we're gonna have to do something about that.



Gonna have to make a filler plate for the tablet to rest on.. So I enlisted my dads help and had him make an aluminum filler plate that would caress my tablet so perfectly in the car :lol:



So this stage of the plate would have been just fine, and for most of you this is as intricate as you will be able to get. It will work just the same as what I'm about to do, only mine allowed for a little more fine tuning of the tablets placement.

So that basic plate turned into this after a few hammer blows, cuts and bends.



The two slots will allow the tablets charger, and the AUX to RCA cable to plug in and keep everything tucked neatly behind it. :thumbsup:

Thanks Dad!!

Test fitting the tablet!!
[/img]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3815/9189237088_56e78d1532_z.jpg[/img]

LIKEAAAA GLOVEEEEE - Jim Carry voice

Hell ya, that's good news right, but that's gonna vibrate and ****, so we cut a piece of thin foam to place between the tablet and the metal panel. That also helped to take up the gap from the bezel to the tablets face. Win win!


test fitting the bezel, you'll notice there is quite a gap still unfortunately, but this can be fix by filing down the inner edges of the top of the dual din bezel and allowing the tablet to come forward, I only have about 1/8" gap on the sides and you can't even notice it unless you look for it. So just play with your fitment until you are happy with it. That's what counts right?!

Step 12:

Now it's wiring time.. unfortunately I had some issues and used the wrong wire.. so I still have not corrected this, but what you can do, is use a cigarette lighter USB charger, run your tablets charger through the center console area and pull the USB plug through the ash tray area and plug it in that way. I will update this DIY once I nail down the hardwire setup. :thumbsup:

We also have to run that RCA to Aux adapter cable remember! So get to removing your center console area.



So to remove your center console there are a few screws and things we have to take out, I'm not going to go into great detail here, because I'm sure if you're doing this, you know how your center console comes out.

Okay so you got it out, and now you have to battle this extremely thick carpet and hide that wire!

Using your trusty wire rod, you're going to poke it through the center console area under the carpet and push towards the rear sets until the wire pops out, loop your AUX end of the cable through the hook, pull that sucker through the carpet and out that hole by your ebrake.



Now run that wire up and next to the center console on the passenger side, using your trim tool, lift up gently on the dash that's next to the carpet and tuck the AUX cable length under it so it's nice and hidden.

Take your wire rod again and fish it down your now open radio slot in the dash and push it out the bottom of the dash by the passenger side of the carpet so you can pull the AUX plug up and through into the radio slot area.

In this pic you can see the thick black cord which is our AUX wire fished up into there so it can be plugged into the tablet upon completion. PLEASE DISREGARD THE SOLDERED WIRE!!!! I got the wrong wire for the hardwire so please IGNORE IT!!!! I will fix later.



Here's whats in the back seat right now, you can see the red and white RCA end of the cable we just ran ready to go into the trunk area.



Alright now run that into the trunk the same way you routed the speaker wire, but run the RCA wire along the DRIVER side of the car to avoid being near the power cable and not getting interference.

Take a break, because that part was a back breaker.

Step 13:

Alright so pat yourself on the back because you're getting closer! Let's take a look at what we have done.

- Front door speakers and tweeters. Check
- run speaker wire for fronts. Check
- Removed OEM navigation head unit. Check
- Built a backing plate. Check
- Ran our Aux to RCA adapter cable. Check
- Ran our tablet charging wire to a cig USB charger. Check

Alright guys, now we're going to remove the rear deck speakers. Unfortunately, it was getting late and I was forced to stop taking pics part way through of this part of the install. (steps are in proper order of how you should do this install, my install was erratic as holy hell so this was actually my last step) I will be as detailed as possible in my writings.

Remember those ratchet wrenches I mentioned, well I hope you've got some because they make removing the rear deck speakers 100x easier than a socket and ratchet handle.

Use your 13mm wrench and remove the 2 little "eye hooks" that are on the rear deck. They have a little metal spacer so dont loose them!

Take your trim tools and pop the covers off and set them aside, we can now get to the speakers woo!!!



Now these speakers are held in by 3 8mm bolts. Pop those suckers out, lift your speakers and unclip the wire and set them aside. Take a min to organize your rear work space before moving on so you don't loose anything.

So now we have to do the same thing, lift the 4 metal tabs and separate the ring from the HK speakers and then trim your rear coax speakers to fit. I did notice that the rears must have a slightly bigger lip as my speakers would not sit down all the way. I'm going to trim the entire alpine speaker ring off and then set them in the OEM rings for a good seal. I didn't have the time to do this though unfortunately.

Once you have both speakers trimmed to fit we are ready to run speaker wire through the bottom of the cups and into the trunk :thumbsup:

Reassemble your rears in the same order and button everything back up and you're done! At this time you can now replace your rear seat bench and center console along with the side trim and everything you removed to hide the wires. We're done in the rear area of the car, the last part inside we will address is assembling the dash and what not. Anyway let's move on!

Step 14:

Alright everyone, so we're almost there, we have all new speakers and wiring installed and ran into the trunk, the tablets RCA cable is ready to go, your trim is all installed along the doors and rear area. Now is the last few steps. We're going to remove the factory navigation and HK amp components. Along with there now useless mounting cage.

So there are a few 10mm and 8mm bolts you will have to remove, I didn't take pics because it was getting late, but this is what it looks like with everything gone!



Throw your cage in the garbage and place everything you took out safely out of your work area. Clean up that nasty dusty mess! And yes I know my rear has been repaired... was not to happy upon discovering that since the PO said it was no accident car... whatever, it was repaired properly with OEM components and my dad inspected it all and said it was a very good repair job so if he passes it I'm okay with it.

Cool anyway, so now we have all that junk out of the trunk, haha.. let's get to adding your remote wire into the system to turn on your aftermarket amp!

So everything I read said to tap the white wire pin #10 grey plug on the HK amp harness and that will work. However for some reason mine did not.. The pic I have shows it soldered to that wire but mine like I said didn't work, I had to use the white w/ purple stripe wire going to my navigation's brain unit for my remote turn on wire. so if your HK wire works do this, or use my alternate power method mentioned.



Sweet well that's done, replace your paneling and run your remote wire along the back face of the trunk under the black trim and to your amp mounting location.

Step 15:

Alright so now we have everything in the trunk, Next you will add a power and ground for your amp. At this point I have no pics since it was getting late and I needed to get this done ASAP, so I'll be detailed for you all.

Take your lengths of stinger wire and on the end of each wire, we're going to crimp, flux and solder a ring terminal onto the wiring. You may want to have your local stereo shop crimp your ring terminals since they require A LOT of force to properly stay seated. Then flux and solder when you get them home. Shrink wrap! Always shrink wrap your connections! So now disconnect your negative battery terminal if you haven't already and add your newly made 4g power wire to the bolt on the top of your positive battery terminal and then connect the other end into your amp and clamp down, using a bolt on your factory battery tie down bar, attach your ground wire ring terminal to one of the bolts on it, then attach the other end into your amp and clamp down.

Take the remote wire we added and strip the end and put that into your amp's remote wire slot and clamp it down! You now have a powered up and ready to rock amp!

After that you will take all 4 sets of your speaker wire and add pronged wire connector ends on them and then put them into your amp to their proper locations. Make sure you remember what wire is + and what is -!! lol.

plug in your RCA cables into the amps input slots. :thumbsup:

Your speakers are now wired up to your new amp and the amp is powered. Go ahead and finish buttoning up your work in the trunk because you're done back here! :thumbsup:

Step 16:

Back up to the front and the main stage, your dash and newly mounted tablet. So at this point we are basically just going to put the trim back in and clean up!

Up front we're going to plug in your tablet charger into the tablet, and the aux input in and then clean up!

Take your dual din bezel and bolt it back in with those 2 bronze screws you took out, this will sandwhich your tablet between the bezel and the foam on the backing plate we made earlier.

Replace your front trim and then we are done! HOLY HELL RIGHT?! FINALLY!

Reconnect your battery, double check all of your connections, and your parts and go ahead and turn it on! If you did everything correctly you will be greeted by an amazingly loud, crisp, clean musical paradise.

Now's time to adjust your amp settings and what not to your desired level. Adding a sub is as simple as either bridging a mono block amp and plugging your sub into that, or in my case my amp has a separate built in 450w sub amp :) so that was easy!

So there you have it, my Galaxy tab 2, speaker and amp upgrade DIY!

If anyone has any questions please let me know I'd be glad to help.


Hope you enjoyed!

UPDATE!!!!

Here is a couple of quick pics with the tablet mocked up with all the trim, and a pic of how my amp is setup!







excuse my finger, I had to hold it in place since the bezel is not bolted down and my trim is not set in all the way, but you get the idea of the look.
As far as the amp area goes, I'm going to work on cleaning that up in 2 weeks when I'm down in eugene again and have access to my dads shop and tools. I will take non blurry fingerless pics once I get it all fixed up nice!

Any questions feel free to ask!
 
#3 ·
Got everything else, power and ground cable, and bezel, going to have to modify it just a little bit to get things to sit nicely, the galaxy is a smidgen wider than the nexus tablet, .22" so I will have to file down the inner lip of the bezel.

Also got 4 white LED's and my 680 ohm resistors for other mods. I'll post pics of everything once my phones charged and I can take pics haha. :thumbsup:
 
#5 · (Edited)
Thanks man!

Here is some pics of the Bezel, 3' of stinger Pro 4g wire, some 680k ohm resistors for the SMG temp fix, 4 LED's for lighted interior door handle pockets, and MAYBE outside ones.. I haven't decided yet..

Here is pics of everything! Will be installing soon I hope!

Bezel is from Amazon, the finish is OEM quality, and the entire piece looks amazing for $85 shipped

bezel, tab, wiring, resistors and LED's. The Bezel will take a bit of modifying for a good fit, the DIY i'm going off of used a nexus 7, my tab is about .22" wider


I'm looking forward to the install, like I said a bit of modding the bezel will be necessary. I'm hoping I wont need to cut a relief pocket in my door, but the diy im using that used these speakers on type R versions said it was necessary for a better sound.. But I guess we will see, I may pull out my rear HK subs and deck speakers later tonight when I pull some of the car apart tonight when there isn't much in and out traffic at our parking area at our apt.

I'll snag a pic of the amp when I dig it out from wherever the hell we put it in our house lol.

Edit. fukkkkkkkkk I accidentally got the wrong resistors...
 
#9 ·
Thanks man! I am just trying to figure out wtf I am supposed to ground... I understand everything else but grounding what? there's nothing to ground... unless I need to cut the factory ground wire and ground that to the chassis since i'm attaching my tablet charging cable to the head unit power wire. Is that what I'm supposed to ground?
 
#10 ·
- you have to have a positive and a ground for the power to the tablet.. otherwise you won't be charging the tablet.. you can use the switched power (acc key position) and the ground at the old headunits connector.

You won't be using the factory amp--- it runs a high level signal from the old hu-- (I didn't know if you knew this or not) all new home runs from speakers to new amp. You could (if you have a very small amp-I have one that was on the rear of an old stereo-used rca's then output went to speakers) still use the factory amp... since it takes a high level signal.. but you will get better clarity if you run different amps with a crossover network.
 
#11 ·
Well the power is coming from the power wire from old headunit connector, so do I just snip the ground wire from that same harness, add a ring terminal and ground it to the chassis?

I'm going to be using a kicker 700w5.1ch amp my wife had laying around to power my speakers. so all speakers will be directly wired to the amp, rca to aux cable to connect headunit to amp, tap factory HK remote wire and run to kicker amp. :thumbsup:
 
#12 ·
Your tablet only needs a positive source and a negative source... it won't matter if you ground out the factory ground wire to the chassis. If you want to use the factory ground as the negative source to your tablet that is fine, but you don't have to do anything with it..

Think of it this way-- if you don't need power (say every night you take the tablet inside and charge it at night) you don't need any power to it in the car-- only the headphone jack will be used and you don't have to mess with the factory radio wires.
 
#13 ·
Okay perfect I will just tap my tablets charging cable and the USB cable directly to the factory navigation's power wire and call it a day, I don't care if the tablet charges while the car is off, I definitely don't want that hahah.

Basically I just want to have aux/driving power to the tablet and the USB port, and no power while it's off. :thumbsup:

Thanks for explaining that, that actually made sense haha, grounding accessories that aren't factory always confuses the crap out of me.
 
#15 ·
Thanks man! It looks like 2 members over on m3f beat me to it, but did a slightly different install method without an aftermarket amp or speakers, which I will be using both. I can't wait to get it all done... not sure exactly where I will mount the amp as it's kinda long and I prefer to not have it visible.. it's not gonna fit behind the side carpeting.. I might be able to mount it under the trunk floor piece.. but I want a full OEM feel to the car when done.

Suggestions on amp location mounting? needs to be within 3' of the battery since that's how long my stinger cable is haha.
 
#17 ·
Yea I know haha, I really should have just ordered 4' of both black and red just to be safe, but I think I will be able to get away with what I have, the stuff is cheap but I'd just prefer to be able to knock it all out :thumbsup:

I'm shooting for tomorrow!!
 
#18 ·
in for the pics once its done!
 
#19 ·
Couldn't get it done today, had too many errands to run and not enough time to feel comfortable getting that deep into the car. Sorry guys!!! I'm trying my best! I promise to have a ton of pics and a very detailed write up install. :thumbsup:
 
#21 ·
Sounds about like what my dad says too haha, also a motto of mine, I like taking time and not rushing, doing it right the first time is better than half assing it 3 times lol..

Next weekend I will be setting time aside for it though, don't give a **** whats going on, I'm making this install happen, I can't take the radio anymore lol.
 
#24 ·
As saturday draws closer, my SD card fills up haha, I have about 10gb's of music on it right now, and I'm remembering old bands I used to love and getting discographys and just throwing one after another on. I had like 60gb's of music on my old laptop, and yea I actually did listen to it all. :thumbsup:
 
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