Is this possible or am I dreaming? LCD monitor mounting.

I will definitely mount the screen in the same place. I am happy with the basic design but it needs to look a lot less bulky (in my opinion). I got out of bed at 6am this morning and took to it with my rotary cutting tool (Dremel) and my belt sander (took me about 2hrs). I have decided I will keep playing with proto 1 because I am learning heaps as I go. I am going to cap it at another 10hrs on proto 1 and if I'm still not happy with it I am going to start again.

It looks pretty crap at the moment because I have done a heap of cutting, sanding and bogging but I can post a few new pics toight.

In relation to the fibre glass I just looked up hobbie shops in the yellow pages and stumbled across the ad for the fibreglass place. I think I am luck that I found this old guy as he has been very helpful (been back to see him 5 times for advice). All up so far I have spent about $150 on foam, fibreglass, resin, sandpaper and a few extras but I have enough supplies to make 3 prototypes. The cost of the fibreglass is minor compared with the man hours that go into prototype development.

If I get it right and it all looks good I will see if there is enough interest from members of this forum and some of the overseas ones (the Pontiac GTO in the US and Vauxhall in Europe are the same as our Monaro) to get a mould made. This should not be expensive and I don't want anything for it. If it looks good and people like it I will be happy. If there was a mould made I wouldn't think it would cost more than a couple of hundred dollars to get one made and shipped anywhere in the country (as long as I didn't have to organise it or be involved).

 

For those that are interested here are a few pics of the 7" touch screen I will be using.





After doing a lot of slimming down on prototype 1 it is starting to look more stylish now. I did a heap of bogging last night and once I give it a bit of a sand I will post some more pics.

 

For those that are interested heres some more pics that are up to date. I spent about 3 hours on proto 1 today and I am pretty happy with it now. I just have to put a thin layer of fibreglass over what you see in the photos and then start the fine sanding process to get it perfect and ready to paint (the fine sanding will take forever I think but it will be worth it . . . the finish is everything)











Will be knocking off work at lunch time tomorrow so I can get home and put the final layer of glass on. The 2 hours later I can start sanding and I guess thats how I will spend my Friday night!

 

I couldn't help myself . . . I took this photo this morning to get an idea of what it will look like when the LCD touch screen is installed.

 

Yep. I have been driving around all day with it mounted in place on the dash (with the cut out picture stuck in) and there is no probs seeing the whole screen. Even better it is impossible for the screen to be in full sunlight due it being recessed and the angle of the roof of the car . . . . pretty cool design . . . but really just fluke!

 

Charcoal is the plan at the moment.

The position with the screen as low as the existing double DIN stereo (or lower in your case) doesn't excite me at all. The fact the you have to look down and take your eyes off the road to do anything is dangerous. I also have a VX (series 2 S) and I have a 6.5inch double DIN DVD/SATNAV mounted it the original stereo position and I hate it. The only thing that makes it useable is the fact that it has a remote control that you can hold in you hand so you don't have to look down and take your eyes off the road to use the controls.

When you see the driving position of the screen I am building you will fall in love with it for its practicality (is that a real word?). Easy to reach and look at without compromising your driving safety.

I sprayed a coat of undercoat on it tonight just to see what all the lines look like (it is a bit deceiving when everything is a shade of white). What I did realise is that there is a lot of fine sanding a filing to do to make it look chrisp and sharp.

 

Hi All,

There have been many hours of work since my last post and the "pod" is almost ready for painting (I will post some more pics tomorrow).

I am seriously considering getting it painted by a panel beater as I want it to look perfect. I have applied some undercoat with a spray can which has convinced me that this method will not get me the perfect result I require.

I have also come up with a very inventive way of mounting my screen. I realised that there was not going to be enough room to get a screw driver in the back so had to come up with another option. It looks a bit ugly on the inside but front the outside you couldn't tell the difference (will also post some pics of this tomorrow).

I hope to be able to fully mount the screen and bench test it tomorrow . . . yippee!

 

Being obsessive/compulsive really helps keeping a project moving. I took half a day off work today (I own a real estate agency) and spent 6hrs working on this project. I have finally got to the stage tonight where I could mount the LCD screen and give it a test run and believe it or not it worked first time . . . . yippee.

Still more work on the pod to get it perfect but this time next week I will be driving around with the final product mounted in my car!

Here is a photo log of the results of todays work. The LCD screen is covering in glad wrap (for protection) in case you are wondering what is on the screen.

 

I'm taking a few days off the fabrication at the moment and have moved onto getting the carputer running properly.

I am using an old Compaq Laptop with a 1.5ghz Athalon processor. Did a clean install of WinXP today and then pulled it apart and have soldered some wires to the power on switch which enable me to turn the laptop on without having to lift the lid on push the power button. I am going to connect these wires to a switch which I will mount next to the T/C switch on the centre console.

On the weekend I will pull the passenger seat out and mount the laptop upside down (for air flow) underneath. I think I will just use valcro bolted to the floor.

Once the laptop is mounted there will be no need to access it again.

I also have to remove the IR remote receiver off the button circuit board and use some thin wire to mount it in a suitable position. I am seriously thinking about mounting it inside the centre console air vents (which are directly below the screen). The IR receiver is so small no-one will ever see it.

Next week I will move on to finishing the fabrication.

 

Not sure if anyone is still interested in this project but here are a few more pics of the latest advancements.

For the first time this evening I was able to go for a test drive and road test everything and believe it or not it all worked! The pod is still just undercoated as I didn't want to pay a panel beater to paint it unless I knew it would all work.

It's gettin pretty late so I will just post the pics tonight and give you a bit of a write up tomorrow on the hurdles that I have faced and the improvements I have already discovered for prototype 2.

Here's the pics:









If anyone reading this post is a holden tech I would appreciate it if you could help my little problem with my SRS airbag alarm posted here http://forums.justcommodores.com.au/vz-holden-commodore-2004-2006/63119-help-srs-airbag-fault.html