mark.canada

Hey guys,

I've recently picked up a maxima and for someone in my demographic/income bracket, I've gotta say I love just about everything about it. Moved from a manual sunfire to an almost loaded maxima and it's night and day.

But yeah that screen... it screams 1990's tech pretty loudly, and I'm sort of into the slightly more current stuff, preferably with some bluetooth, a hint of navigation, and maybe a couple extra features here and there.

So now that I'm going the extra mile and spending almost 400 on a stereo system that has Android built into it, I was wondering if instead of just switching it to the bottom and hoping nobody ever looks at it again, maybe I can look into getting rid of the eyesore for good.

Problem is, without taking the thing apart and potentially using oscilliscopes and other fancy electronic equipment I don't have money for and wouldn't know how to read, I don't know how data is transmitted from the "microcontroller/computer" part of the car to the screen itself.

Does anyone have any insight into this? My best guesses so far is that there is SOME basic data processing that is done INSIDE the screen unit itself, because they'd also need to have the same data going to that or the optional nav unit and interpreted in their own ways on either device. This is the more hopeful option from the way I see it, albeit more of a science project and bragging rights than anything.

I can't be THAT crazy - I'm hoping there might be a couple electrical engineers out there or people who might know a little more about signal processing than me who'd be up for a little bit of a challenge.

If you're out there... hope to hear from you soon!

KatIsFast

I've seen posts on other forums where people have switched out the old school orange display for colored ones (non nav) so I'm sure what you're looking to do is possible, just not very cost effective perhaps. Also if you replace that screen with something non oem you'll lose functions like fuel economy, DTE, and maintenance displays.

You can always put the new head unit up there and move that screen down lower to keep the functionality.