I'm SO HAPPY right now! NV is such a dope!!!!!!!
Project *COMPLETE*
Cold one or five awaits!!!!
Thank you all you lovelies for being a great and supportive audience.
Love you all to bits! I promise to stay myself forever - Feisty (and relentless) Boykie!
As usual - open to any questions.

 

That dash image looks amazing. Congrats.

 

That is so much better than looking thru the windshield, I want one.

 

Amazing stuff! Congrats, Boykie! It's very cool to see the adaptive cruise, LKA, auto high beam, and NV all active at the same time.

I didn't think this would be possible - just too many points where something may not have worked or was incompatible. But you persisted and succeeded, and can now bask in the glory! Well done

So, how do you turn on NV? The factory-equipped cars had an NV button next to the Trip Reset button.

 

Yea, thanks man!
So to turn NV on/off I bought map light unit with SOS button (my euro LS haven't got any telematics, so no button originally), and then, using wiring diagram that actually shows how is this button is wired on the PCB, I removed extra zenner diodes and resistors (I guess SOS is like meant to be fault-proof so those parts make sure button can be 'sensed' by telematics ecu. I just traced the PCB and ditched those extra parts) and made the button just a toggle to ground (the way original NV button works). Then I just used original connector by adding a pin that connects directly to SOS button. As I had to make my own separate shielded cable that runs from nv-cam to ecu in my glovebox (nv cam sends analog ntsc signal, shielding was a must) I just accounted for extra wire to the pin+button. Little click-y cover over the button adds coolness to my world haha. I might print and attach some kind of decal to cover the ambulance icon.

Some initial observations:
- NV starts working somewhat before sundown. It won't turn on at daytime, but in twilight - it's enabled already.
- Operation of IR filters in headlights can be seen. Picture lights up when at speed and IR is beamed.
- Pedestrian detection. Same exp as with initial LKA install. For a couple of drives it learns. Then it's pretty impressive - targets are marked by yellow rectangles, outside of speedo blinks yellow too and there's new chime too. There is an icon in right bottom, when it's yellow PD is disabled. Green - it's enabled. So PD activates after about 10mph speed and disables at about 40-45mph. One time it mistook man-at-work road works sign as a pedestrian already, pretty cool.
- Display. Oh wow, new world. Using DISP button I can make many amazing layouts appear. Wasn't expecting that. I can even have NV picture AND tach+temp bands WHILE running on DRCC+LKA. Really unusual at first to not have radar, preceding car, lanes icons etc. But still, thank you Lexus (and Denso) for making it all extra cool. Screen transition when turning NV on is magical as well. Speedo 'makes space', fonts transform/morph.
- Picture. NIR is a niche thing, it's not exactly IR and it's not visible light. But picture is great, FOV is rather wide, number plates are readable. The darker is outside - better and crisper the picture. Oh and it's really flicker-sensitive. At first I turned it on while parked in my driveway and picture flickered. 'Crap' I thought - chinese shielded cable is meh?? - tried to wiggle wires etc. But it turned out to be a bad sodium lamp right outside. It's annoying to see the amount of bad lights on streets and highways. Speed traps and traffic cams with IR illuminators strobe and flash very brightly on screen. The pic is grayscale, but white is replaced with warm blue-ish color, I guess to blend in with overall dash color scheme.

That's about it for now. Cheers.

 

Excellent description makes this even more amazing.