Truck Update in Life in General

Okay, so I mentioned previously I’d update about the backup camera and the new screen on the truck infotainment.

Backup Camera

Well turns out that fuse kit didn’t have the fuse I needed. Even though it was a 300 piece kit it didn’t have these “micro2” fuses. I’ve never heard of them, so it makes sense. So I ran down to oreily’s and overpaid for the ONLY micro2 fuse kit they had, it was just one of each amperage and it was 7 dollars, holy price gouge.

Anyways, it blew a 10 amp fuse initially, so I figure I’ll start with the 5 amp fuse and see if the OEM factory camera works again. And sure enough, we got picture again. What a relief, I was really scared I borked up something else too, thank god for fuses.

Now that I had the 5 amp fuse in there, I wanted to test the eBay camera again, because it could have been that I shorted something out while putting in the plug. So to make extra sure I did it right, I disconnected the car battery and waited 30 minutes, then swapped out the camera. Connect the battery aaaaaand....

…blown fuse again.

Okay so apparently this eBay camera is junk. I’ve bought a couple of backup cameras off eBay for my Mazda and never had an issue so I’m gonna just say I got unlucky and got a bad unit. Still though, I went ahead and bought a slightly more expensive one to replace it. And the eBay seller didn’t ask for the old one back, just sent me money… so that was cool I guess.

The Screen

If you remember, the touch screen in the truck will occasionally just select random buttons on the display. Turns out it’s a common issue and you can fix it by only replacing the glass digitizer, which is a cheap fix, but a little tedious.

Honestly it was kind of uneventful. The head unit just came right out with a few clips and screws, the screen came right out of the head unit with a couple more screws and ribbon cable disconnects. The hardest part was slicing off the old glass digitizer with a knife and then removing all the adhesive gunk. Took about an hour and a half to get all that gunk off, but it was mindless work so I just put on a podcast and powered through.

The new digitizer plopped right on and stuck in place, reassembled it all, plugged it back into the truck and VOILA, touch screen still works! Finally.... an eBay part that arrives and just WORKS.

Only issue is that the glass has ZERO anti-reflective coating, so it does have a little more glare. I may buy a nice screen protector for it (most have anti-glare coatings on them) but that’s a future-David issue.

And that’s all. Much shorter entry this time!

Family Stuff

Jessica’s sister is currently in town right now for a late holiday visit (she can never get off work for actual Christmas so this is normal). So we’ve been popping over and spending most of the day with them, and it’s been nice despite being close to that one idiot. I just limit how much I speak to him these days.

I have a couple of house projects they want me to take care of while I’m there, including running a new outlet to her closet. They spent probably a million dollars on this renovation, including the biggest walk in closet I’ve ever seen (seriously it’s like the size of a small bedroom), and yet the contractor couldn’t be arsed to put a single electrical outlet in there for her.

But it should be an easy fix, the attic access is right there in the closet and there’s an outlet right inside the attic, so I’m just gonna tap into that, fish the conduit into one of the walls, and retrofit an outlet in. Without running into weird issues, should be a 1 hour job. I even found this fancy outlet at lowes that has a nightlight built into it, because the fastest way to the kitchen from their bedroom is through this closet so it’d be nice to have a light in there all the time.

Also everyone’s been teasing this huge winter storm that’s hitting us this morning and saying it won’t be safe to drive yada yada. But I woke up and it’s 36 degrees outside. Yes it’s snowing but it’s not sticking because it never even froze last night. I’m sure the roads won’t be ideal but totally driveable. People in Texas always freaking out about a little snow.