AirDroid (aka Mrs Shiny)

So it's Spring again and I got F_(! ALL done on this project over the winter. Assuming I'd have lots of time while hunkered down through the long Maine winters was really an asinine thing to do. My wife was happy to fill those hours I'd happily spend hermitical. Given the choice I still choose her, guess that means there's still hope for my sanity.

I did pick up a 15" touch display with VESA mount for the project and an SATA to USB3 interface to use with the scavenged Super-Drive but the mounting plate to replace the Airstream logo in the front of the camper is still a work in progress. For now it's all just mounted on some acrylic on my bench while I work out a few annoying details. For one, I can see the DVD drive but I can't get Android to automatically mount it. It does not like my fstab entries and some times fails to recognize when a new disk is entered or an existing disk is ejected. |oP The biggest head ache I'm facing is that Android will not recognize either of the USB tuners I've purchased (NTSC / FM). This is kinda critical as I've promised my wife that it will "replace" the spark-o-matic FM / Tape cassette stereo currently installed directly below that vintage Airstream logo. I know, I'm an idiot for promising features not already prototyped and basically functional in a project.

The tank level sensors are coming along mostly. A couple esp32 BTLE controllers broadcast the tank level information that was previously only available through an analogue lamp circuit on the stove hood. Unfortunately, it turns out that was not broken after all, it's the sensors in the tanks that are not working. DOOH! Again, I really ought to know better. The bad news is that I have to drop those tanks to access the sensor connections on top of them. I'm hopeful it's just corroded wire connections and not the sensor inside the tank but with a 30 year old camper, Nothing can be taken for granted.

Oddly, it's the cameras that are giving me the biggest problem. I made a couple mounts out of HDPE that attach to the running lights on either side of the camper. The idea was to get two views of what's beside me and stitch the streams together before streaming it out to my cell phone on the dash. This would eliminate that blind spot you get while maneuvering in tight quarters. It mostly works great on the bench but completely fell apart when I did a test fit to the camper it self. I suspect the spaghetti wiring inherent in a test installation but I can't rule out the thought that aluminum makes a decent Faraday Cage. All in all it's not looking good for a May deployment of this project.