Tablet PC Experiences

[cwdodson88]

Hello all,

I'm looking at getting my MS1Extra all figured out on a 1968 Volvo 122 Wagon and I've run into an issue with my laptop... The battery doesn't hold any charge at all so I'd need to run an inverter to use it in the car. Looking around for a battery and finding that a new or known good battery will cost me almost as much as a Kindle Fire HD7... I've heard that running MSDroid for tuning is just as nice and easy as TS, but people are saying that tuning on a touch screen tablet is horrible. Just looking for some opinions, good or bad. If I do get a tablet, I'll probably get a keyboard also... So does anyone use tablets to fully tune their cars?

[Trev16v]

The forthcoming version of MSDroid has had a massive amount of work done to rewrite the tuning interface from scratch, with improvements done to try to make tuning via phone / tablet as pleasant as possible. What I'd say is, give it a go and, once V2 is released, see what you think of the tuning interface and give us any feedback on parts you don't like (or do like) so we can attempt to improve it.

[cwdodson88]

Getting my Kindle Fire HD7 on Monday, so I'll keep you posting on the outcome, hoping to start tuning on Tuesday am!

[ol boy]

How close is V2 to release or beta testing?

[cwdodson88]

SO, I got my Kindle Fire HD7 working with my MS1 . I can dig it! Seems to work great so far, but there have been a few minor hiccups (mostly user). But I don't think I'll be going back to my laptop for tuning.

The only issues I have found so far is when I try to view my VE table or Spark table as a map, I cant drag points around to smooth the map, and rarely MSDroid "stops working" when trying to view data logs. Then I try again after closing and re-opening and all is well.

[electronic]

are you connecting your kindle fire with a cable or wifi/blue tooth?

[cwdodson88]

I'm using the 7$ bluetooth method, but it wasnt the 7$ bluetooth. Page 4 or 5 has a Bolutek BT to serial (only has serial db9 on one end), but you have to rewire the pin config. I took a female db9, and a male db9 and ran pin 2-3 and pin 3-2 and pin 5-5 between the 2, making a x-over cable, and plugged one end into the BT and the other into my MS, worked great in "slave" mode. The battery lasts about 3 hours, and uses a mini-usb cable to charge. I charge it 1x/week when running datalogs back and fourth to work. I'm looking at adding a wire to power it off of MS, and that hopefully will charge the battery too so it wont turn off when the car turns off.

[cwdodson88]

Oh, and for the kindle you have to go through a process of getting it open to taking apk's and you have to go through the grapevine to get it, you cant just go to the play store and download it. But its pretty easy and just a google search away. I like the 7" screen, any bigger and it gets hard to fit anywhere. I'm making a slip bracket to have it slide into so it can be in the center console or the dash.