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.

[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.ph...rder=0&thold=0
http://www.radisys.com/oem_products/...asheetsid=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.

>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?


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