Starting dash mods... am I nuts?!

[coachreed]

OK, I have talked in the past about my plans to integrate a touchscreen monitor into my dash for a number of uses... well, I am starting things this morning.

I just pulled my dash apart to see what I have to work with and heres what the plan is... I'll post pictures later today I hope. I have removed the factory headunit and 6 disc changer. They will not return. I am relocating my climate controls to the lower part of the dash where the changer used to reside. After looking at this, its only going to require extending four wires. That is my first order of work. I will post pics today...

I was going to install a large format touchscreen monitor in a vertical position taking up the upper 2/3's of the dash, but that doesn't look like its gonna work without EXTENSIVE rework of the dash. What I have found though is that if I relocate the center vents down to where the ashtray and lighter are, I can easily fit a 10.4" monitor in a horizontal format and still have space for my Eclipse 55090 AM/FM/CD/DVD player at the top.

The center dash vents should be easily relocated. There is a small vent duct extension attached to the front of the dash. The plan is to leave that off, cut a small section of the plastic from the bottom of the duct where this extension meets the ducts and fabricate a new duct extension from either ABS or Sintra that will reroute them down to the lower area of the dash... just above my relocated ac/heat controls. I will work on that tomorrow... don't have to work until 4pm, so I will go use the shop and materials to do that. I will post pictures of that once done... probably monday or tuesday....

As I stated above, my Eclipse headunit is going into the upper location where the stocker is. This leaves a large are for my monitor to be mounted... pictures to follow.

Anyway, I should be back in a couple hours with the ac/heat controls modified and mounted... I'll see y'all in a bit!

TTYL!

[Inaba]

I can't wait to see it! Post pics fast!!

[AnalogVX]

I wish I had the imagination and skills needed to come up with and perform such an extensive mod.
Good Luck!

[Whaleboy]

Here's mine. 7 inch widescreen VGA display, runs at 840x480 (note: higher res then any standard NTSC display). Has resistive touch screen.

CPU is located under drivers side seat (EPIA 800), with shutdown controller for STR3 standby upon ignition on/off (boot time 7 seconds). Runs Windows XP.

GPS still hasn't been installed yet. Cell phone modem has been tested though and works wonderfully, bought movie tickets with it just 3 weeks ago. (Nokia 7160+serial port)

As I may be getting another VX soon I've held off the rest of the work for it. But that piece is completely removable so I can move it to my other VX.

http://www.3drealms.com/bio/images/dash1.jpg

http://www.3drealms.com/bio/images/dash2.jpg

[Tone]

Very well done!

[coachreed]

Whaleboy-
VERY nice. Did you do the work yourself? What brand of monitor is that? What did it set you back? I now have to find a monitor since the one I had planned to use wasn't going to work out. I will hopefully have it within the week... who knows... maybe sooner.

How does your monitor work out for you being down that low? I wanted mine to be up higher so that it was more visible and usable while driving... don't need to be looking that far down while zipping down the highway or something stupid like that.

Anyway, great job!

[Whaleboy]

hey, thanks tone!! ;)

Yes, did the work myself in my spare time... took me over 3 months to finally get it finished i think (hour here, hour there).

Was my first time ever working with Fiberglass&Bondo... Fabricated the piece from a polystyrene piece that I carved then layed t-shirt material over it, resined.. then fiberglass reinforced the back.. bondo, sanded, polyfill, sanded some more... then sanded even more.. topped off with a superhard anti-chip trim coat. (regret painting it black, oh well).

Display is a Xenarc monitor, bought it for $499 at the time (VGA lcd tft's are much more expensive then the NTSC displays). More information at www.xenarc.com think you might be able to get them for around $400 now.. Not sure, will try and check that out for ya if you're interested.

Display came direct from China dist. at the time, they're all over the place locally now...

I don't have any problems looking down - but then again I have the display easily configured with huge buttons you can't miss on the screen. Having the display further down is better for me because the display can be quite the distraction while trying to drive.

I had an lcd at the top of my dash in my Rodeo before the VX, and it was a HUGE distraction and I ended up disabling it.

With how I have it now, it's removable (the original trim piece that goes around the front of the 6-disc/ashtray is fused inside it). So not only did I NOT effect my trade-in value, I can easily transport it to another VX. Its a good thing I preplanned this, because I'm about to buy another one!

lemme know if you have any other questions! :)

that goes for anyone that might have fiberglass questions! ;)

[Heraclid]

Man, very well done install! Nice and clean-looking, looks great, doesn't look gaudy or out of place. Bravo! Wanna do mine? :-)

[IsuZOOM]

Any pics yet?

[valenki]

Hey to everyone. I am now in the process of building my own system as well. I have the brain and gps all set but havent got to the monitor yet. Trying to find one that would fit my needs. I like your style and idea. except I would like to put mine in steadof the head unit and the vent and put the brain in the glove compartment.

I do how ever have some questions:

What software are you using for touchscreen if any??? or to controll the functions : navigation/DVD??? what are you using for controlls?

can you possibly modify the system somehow to add a monitor for the back??

can the existing monitor be well seen in light? from all points in the car? dont you think the transmission shift is kinda in the way?

kindly thanks for your answers . I will try to get in touch with you for advice if you dont mind. Thanks!

[coachreed]

No pictures yet, but I am moving in the right direction... I had some parts routed on our 5 axis router today and will be cutting away this weekend. It would have been much further along, but I have been sent out of town quite a bit over the last 2-3 months for work. Anyway, hopefully pictures to come... soon.


Originally posted by valenki
...I would like to put mine in steadof the head unit and the vent and put the brain in the glove compartment.

This is the route I have decided to go. My monitor will basically take the space of the headunit and center vents. I don't plan to reinstall them anywhere else in the center. I had done some driving around in the nasty KC heat without center vents and have decided its not a problem for me.

The brains as you put it, is a complete mini-pc system (mini ITX form factor PC). Mine will be mounted behind the monitor where the factory headunit lives now. My monitor panel will be easily removed, only being held into place by four screws... remove, unlplug and set aside... now you can work on your PC.


Originally posted by valenki
What software are you using for touchscreen if any??? or to controll the functions : navigation/DVD??? what are you using for controlls?

I will be using a 7" widescreen monitor I already had from a previous A/V system in another car. I have purchased a resistive touch panel kit to use in conjunction with my monitor for touch interface. It comes with the USB interface board and driver software. It will be recognized by the computer the same as the touchpad on most laptops.

I was thinking of robbing my wireless keyboard and trackball mouse from my old gateway destination system... or just buy another set for use here. They are small and light, black, and are PLL RF units... the keyboard has the touch pad too, and the mouse is trackball, so you don't need a table.

Also, there is a onscreen keyboard that would work in conjuction with the touchscreen for smaller needs.


Originally posted by valenki
can you possibly modify the system somehow to add a monitor for the back??

It would be very easy to add another monitor to this system, but it would display the same as the front monitor... which isn't a problem in my opinion. I will be adding two Alpine 6.5" widescreen monitor in the rear as well... and MAYBE a 12" monitor also... but thats a whole other story.


Originally posted by valenki
can the existing monitor be well seen in light? from all points in the car? dont you think the transmission shift is kinda in the way?

My monitor SHOULD be plenty visible during day... I only assume this because it was visible in the dash of my Trans Am during the day... with the top down. SO it should be ok. Of course, my monitor is going to be mounted up high in the dash, so shifters won't get in the way for me.

I am also adding a small switching card to my system that we use in some of our systems at work. It will take four A/V sources (audio r/l, digital optical audio, and video) and switch them to one system. I will use my switcher to choose between my eclipse 55090 DVD Player, my computer, my sons Playstation2, and his prewire for his XBox. I will run the switcher output into an Alpine PXA-H700 sound processor and on to my Arc Audio Amps, yada yada yada... the sound processor will decode digital audio from any of the sources to give true surround sound (DTS, Dolby Pro Logic II, 5.1... whatever)... it will also act as my master volume for the complete system.

Anyway, I will get off my but soon as I am changing jobs on Monday (going to Ultimate Electronics) and so I won't be traveling anymore. I will be free to play during the evenings and weekends... WAHOO!

TTYL!

[WyrreJ]

You might be interested in these two motherboards, one is mini-itx and the other micro-atx both are significantly faster than a VIA based board. Probably also significantly more expensive too.

http://www.epiacenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=50&mode=&order=0&thold=0
http://www.radisys.com/oem_products/ds-page.cfm?productdatasheetsid=1158

[Whaleboy]

Hi valenki, sorry I didn't respond sooner. I saw where you had sent me the email asking the questions - so here's the answers. First the ones you posted here on the forum. :)


>What software are you using for touchscreen if any??? or to controll the functions : navigation/DVD??? what are you using for controlls?

The software I'm using is proprietary to my touchscreen, I can't remember the name at the moment. Something obscure. It causes the touchscreen to emulate a mouse basically. Besides this, if you mean as far an interfacing with software, I have a custom frontend interface I had one of the programmer's here make for me.

>can you possibly modify the system somehow to add a monitor for the back??

Yup. Right now the LCD I'm using is a VGA monitor. The card I'm using is a Radeon with video out. I could either splice into the VGA signal and send one to the front of the vehicle and one to the rear, or send the vga to the front and send the composite to the rear.

Remember, using a VGA display enables me to actually be able to read the text coming from the PC at a normal size. If you use a low resolution NTSC display like what you'd get from Alpine, Sony, Kenwood, etc.. Your display is gonna be real fuzzy and you're gonna have to blow up your font sizes just to read anything, this means GPS.

>can the existing monitor be well seen in light? from all points in the car? dont you think the transmission shift is kinda in the way?

When the car is in drive, the display is easily seen as the shifter is pushed away from the display so it's not an issue to driver/front passenger. However, because it is in the front of the shifter to some extent the rear seat passengers can't see it as well without leaning forward, but that's not why I tucked it down there. If I want to give the passangers something to watch, I'll add an LCD in the rear.

Besides, rear passengers aren't gonna be able to make out a small 7" from that distance anyways.

The xenarcs are around 220 nits bright. Without tinted windows, it can be a little difficult to see in direct sunlight. I don't have much trouble myself personally.

However, you can get a brightness increase on the backlights from Xenarc for i think about $150 (for a total of 400 nits).. This is my next planned upgrade as the newer Xenarc's have better features now since I purchased the module last year.

Relocating any dash controls/vents may seriously effect your resell value so keep that in mind. I was gonna do the same thing myself and had all the stuff drawn out and written down for relocation, but decided against it at the last minute. Though it is somewhat easy to do.

As for the answers in your email...

>1. I need to meke a frame like yourse for my monitor, but I would like to fit
mine insted of the head unit and the middlevents. Can you advise me on some
material?

chopped fiberglass, bondo, polyfill. some spare paintbrushes. polystyrene to mold the fiberglass to. old t-shirt. lots of sandpaper. :D

>2. I am using a baby atx computer with dvd and gps antenna and soft. It is
extremely cool. 700 MHZ processor w/ win 98. Should I use a different op system?
Also, the power supply is 110 volt. Is there a power supply I can buy to use
this in the car with 12V ?? do you know?

It sounds decent. What type of GPS antenna are you using? Win98 should be fine for your needs.

Yes, you'll want to get a DC/DC powersupply. DO NOT USE AN INVERTER. It will introduce alot of noise into your setup due to the sinewave output inverters produce. You'll hear this when trying to listen to your music or your dvd's from your machine.

I bought mine from PC Power&cooling, but it appears they don't carry that part anymore. So this is the one I recommend.

http://www.opussolutions.com/150watt.html

it also has a built in shutdown controller - good for you. I had to build a custom circuit to do it!

>3. Xenarc is good but kinda expensive? why did you choose it?

Because it's a VGA display, not an NTSC (kenwood, sony, etc). NTSC displays are far, far lower resolution then VGA displays. Your computer monitor is VGA, your TV is NTSC. Trust me, once you try to get a PC's image on a small NTSC LCD monitor, you're gonna get very frustrated. Been there, done that.

>4. What are you using for controlls? I will try to use a mini wireless
keyboard with trackball.

My Touchscreen and a wrist mounted keyboard. Though I ripped off the wrist mount so it's just this super-mini keyboard. I paid way to much for it so I don't recommend you get it, can't even remember the name of the place I bought it from. :(

>5. Are you using any special software? if yes then which?

Nothing too special, my frontend... hmm, everything else is ho hum.. Copilot 2003... some ODBII stuff I've been fooling with. Some Wifi software..

lemme know if you have anymore questions dude.. :)

[Virus-VX]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
>What software are you using for touchscreen if any??? or to controll the functions : navigation/DVD??? what are you using for controlls?
The software I'm using is proprietary to my touchscreen, I can't remember the name at the moment.

Touchscreen software wrote by EELY (registered trademark of Chung-Hua EELY Enterprise Group)

[valenki]

I did check out the xenarc but I think it's kinda expensive and too small. I recently bought a LMV 10.4 fromd datalux on e-bay, now trying to finds a way to mount it. It turned out to be alot bigger then the dashboard were I planned to place it earlier.



I really like the monitor. My cpu will go in the glove compartment area. The monitor ??? Not sure, perhaps take out the stock head unit and uses some kind of brackets to suspend the monitor, what do you guys think?
http://www.vehicross.info/gallery/data/500/359mvc-002f-med.jpg

Right now I am using Power DVD and winamp for media and Streetfinder Delux with GPS soft for Navigation. I am also considering working on the media engine for the VX.....that would be cool, wouldn't it??

Too bad I already bought an inverter... maybe it will work, maybe not, I will try. Thanks for all your info. Let me know if you have any ideas for my monitor or anything else.... Val

[Virus-VX]

Originally posted by valenki
.... Right now I am using Power DVD and winamp for media and Streetfinder Delux with GPS soft for Navigation.

I used to use Power DVD but switched to WinDWD 4.0
It seems to me that the Power DVD soft has too many glitches if installed on Win.XP platform (or maybe it was just my bad experience :rolleyes: )

[WyrreJ]

You might want to look into TheaterTek's DVD player software. It is designed to be as close to a real DVD player as you can get on a PC - no windows, it plays fullscreen - settings are done as video overlay, it is very remote control friendly so no mousing required. Only major down sides are that it is relatively expensive, it is copy-prevented up the wazoo and activation can be a bitch, and it currently doesn't do the 5.1 decode, it relies on you having an outboard decoder. Rumor is that the next version (pending for many months now) will do 5.1/6.1/7.1 decode.

http://www.theatertek.com/

[MZ-N10]

Im not sure if you posted what touchscreen you have...Im really interested in the idea of adding a computer into the car.....anyways if you posted already what touchscreen it is can you repost because Ive been lookin at this post for atleast 15 mins trying to find the name.....thx
________
condos Pattaya (http://pattayaluxurycondos.com)

[Virus-VX]

Xenarc 700TSV

http://www.xenarc.com/product/700ts.html

[Daver]

So far, I still like the VX-4's dash. They did a great job.

http://armstd.best.vwh.net/pics/VX/P8260138-640.jpg

That's an Alpine monitor in there. Dunno anything else about it though.

-Daver

[Francesco Rizzo]

ok, been thinking about doing this for like a year now and it's now nearly complete. I've always been building pc’s, fifth now, as well as throwing all kinds of speakers, amps, and media junk in my rides. After installing a soundstorm dvd250 with 5.1 dolby, I didn't understand why we couldn't just put a pc in the truck with a remotely mounted dvd drive/ monitor in the dash. I've been looking at the epia route but have too many left-over parts from other computers that would be at home in my VX, and are like twice as fast as the epia. I've spent some 500 bucks in the last few months on annoying e-bay bidding for collecting everything I need. I intend to use my deck, which has always been located where the stock 6 disk was located, with a monitor in the top din. Only thing is I now have a touch screen which will be installed there and the car pc will ride between the recaro's. Anyway, I used my 400 watt inverter to run a dreamCast beautifully, but I powered up the computer and I get voltage drop warnings from my inverter as well as a terrible ground loop type noise in the background. The sound is terrible, which defeats the purpose of the computer being in the car in the first place. I am going to try a bigger gauged wire with grounds in the computer, inverter, and anything else connecter, but if anyone has any suggestion, I'd be grateful
thanks
Frank

ps, 400 watt invert powers a AMD2100xp+ amd in a pcchips ez-watcher that only has a 250 watt powersupply.. the inverter is 400 with a 900 watt peak surge. It's booted up by the time put it into drive.

[Maugan_VX]

One of the advantages of the Epia and other miniITX systems is that they only need 75W PSU.

I'm definitely going to go the Epia route, especially since it contains everything you need already.

[Francesco Rizzo]

yeah, fixed the hissing and poor sound quality caused by ground.. or lack of a ground to the chasis of the computer. I will be attempting to construct a center console, HELL YEAH CUP HOLDER! :clap: ... actually.. stupid computer.. no cup hold but still.. I'll put up pics eventually, had to send my monitor in for rma replacement.


by the way, I know many people go with epia, but the processing power/price for those pc's are too much considering any intel or amd of the same speed will burn them. Look into the cost of those 75 watt power supplies, you'll find some as much as 200 watts for the just a bit more $$; check ebay but not sure if they're still listed.

[coachreed]

Dang... I completely forgot about this thread... and y'all seem to be moving right along with it. Of course, my motor swap had taken first priority but the carputer is partially assembled on the bench as we speak. I have compiled pretty much the whole system at this point...


Via Epia M10000 Nehimiah mainboard
Slimline slot load DVD ROM CD/RW drive
120 Gig HDD
3.5" FDD
10.4" Datalux LMV10R
XMPCR satalite radio
Cheese-box (to play my reverse camera to my VGA monitor)
Parallel relay board to interface with windows and such
Audigy 2SZ Platinum PCI sound card (6.1, THX certified, DVD Audio, and much much more)
Alpine MRV-F540 (four channel amp... front and rear main)
Alpine MRV-T320 (two channel amp... front and rear center channels)
Two (2) Alpine MRD-M501 (sub amps)
Two (2) pair Alpine SPR 174a (6.5" coax... front mains, front center and rear center)
SPR-136a (5.25 coax rear main)
Two (2) Alpine SWR1241D (Type R 12" subs)
Two Alpine TME-760 (6.5" LCD monitors for rear passengers)


I'm probably forgetting something... but who knows... anyway, since I have pretty much gutted the interior of the VX during my motor swap... rewiring pretty much EVERYTHING onboard... and getting rid of airbags... I think its safe to say I am free to mod my dash as EXTENSIVELY as I wish... without any further regrets! LMAO!

If those of you who are interested in this type of project and you haven't already done so, go check out http://www.mp3car.com ... there is TONS of info there along with pictures of what people have alreedy done. There are some really kewl interfaces for the carputers as well... MediaEngine, frodoplayer, and MediaCar to name a few. These systems are really awsome! Check them out if you haven't already... TTYL!

Coach... I mean Randy (I often forget who I really am) ;)
http://www.vehicross.info/gallery/data/500/406banner.jpg (http://www.geocities.com/ironmanvx2000)
Undergoing LS1 Conversion as we speak!
Click Image to Visit My Website!

[Maugan_VX]

^ good info.

I'm going to be buying most of my components from mp3playerstore.com including the touch screen.

Although, I don't know why you'd need anymore than a 1ghz processor in a carputer... we're not playing doom 3 here people :P

My plans so far, fabbing up a small aluminum case to mount SOMEWHERE. Either under the seat, or under the dash somewhere. Small HD, 20gig at the most, I don't have more than 4 gigs of music anyways, and most of its burned on CD that my Premier 5500MP can read as it is. My carputer isn't meant for music really.

DVD for passenger
GPS->usb antenna
http://www.autotap.com :D
Backup Camera

[Francesco Rizzo]

just installed my 8500dv ati all in wonder card and will be connecting a 30 led nightvision cam for backup when it comes in. Has anyone played with these cam's yet? It claims auto-switch between color day and night ir. I got it off of ebay for like 30 bucks, which is much cheaper than what most other people offer for low lux cameras.. worried about quility now. I thought I'd get better quility with a capture card than a usb2 cam. So far I will be able to use my computer for everything I can think of: usb radio, mp3 playback, back up cam, tv if I put in an antenna, navigation when my gps comes in.

as for the gps, where should they be mounted.. I guess there wouldn't be a problem mounting it into the interrior although I have seen some applications for laptops that use suction cups for temp mounting outside the window.

las thing, direct link to the VX's computer through a usb to OBDII, please tell me someone has that.;eeky;

[Maugan_VX]

Follow my link for the autotap if you want to plugin to the vx computer.

http://www.autotap.com/images/ATforWindowsScreen1.jpg

GPS antenna should be mounted outside the vehicle, or on the dash where it can "see" the sky. (thats where mine is going to go)