Lilliput 10" monitor in dash..

[BamBam]

After a mad rush to get everything together before the 3SI Gathering in Michigan, I got my monitor dash install done. Here is a quick pic of the install.



When I get back, I'll do a write up.

Until then, I just had to post a couple pics of one of the cars here...

[BamBam]

Ok, we got back form the 3SI Gathering in MI (well worth the drive BTW) so here's the write up for the lilli install...

First thing, take apart the Lilli 10.4" monitor for the bezel and store the other parts until needed.


Next, I hacked up an old console I bought off of Ebay. Notice how much plastic I had to grind off to get the bezel to fit
and the area where I want to install a Jeep cup holder (where the ashtray and lighter were):


I created a fiberglass form of the area I wanted to fill:



I figured I try to make a plastic ring by spreading Dynatron plastic around the fiberglass form:


After 20 minutes, I took the ring off and taped it into the console to let it set and harden overnight.



What a frustrating effort that was. It ended up being a waste of time and a 1/2 tube of Dynatron (and that stuff is $25 a package).
The ring was just too flimsy to use as a base for the monitor bezel.

Thankfully, Our neighbor stopped over with her pug puppy which made my day! LOL! Cute little squirt!

[BamBam]

Ok, back to my basic problem. What am I going to make the base out of to secure the monitor bezel and the Jeep
cup holder? After digging around upstairs, I came across a couple of boxes of abs regrind plastic I had.



I then made a sludge out of the regrind and acetone. I put the fiberglass mold back into the console and then
packed it with the abs regrind sludge:


You could feel the plastic slowly hardening and getting very hot. Because the sludge was so thick, it took a good
4 1/2 days before it hardened as solid as a rock. Next, I popped out the abs plastic mold. You can see how it
ate away at the fiberglass mold:


Next, I cut holes in the plastic mold using a dremmel where the bezel and cup holder will be and then used the
Dynatron to epoxy it into place. This plastic to plastic was a very strong bond:


Finally, the last layer of Dynatron.


And painted with bed liner spray.


Now it was time to install the monitor into the bezel. Using another old console I had, I cut off the plastic posts
with the screws and made some 'wings' so it could be taken apart in the future if need be.


And now installing the touchscreen and secure it with industrial strength Velcro.

[BamBam]

After that was done, it was time to hook up the console monitor to the carpc on the test bench and cross my fingers
that everything still worked.


Great! Everything worked like a charm but I ran into my first glitch. I was using a motherboard from a
Shuttle SS51G with a 2.8G P4 processor and 1G of ram. What a piece of junk. Talk about slow and a power hog.
My old mini-itx board used to boot up in my other carpc setup in under 25 seconds using an nLite'd version
of XP that I created. This hog takes well over a minute and unfortunately, the 150W Opus power supply I am using
cannot power the motherboard, the Lilliput and the usb devices so I had to cob up a separate power link using
an old Morex 60W power supply I had laying around. You can see that on the cutting board between the keyboard
and the cup holder. I was very pressed for time getting ready for the 3SI Gathering in Michigan so I had to
use this cob job to get the job done. Using a thick plastic cutting board, I mounted the Morex, usb hub and
slim dvd drive under the passenger seat (I epoxied a plastic 'cover' over the Morex).


It fit perfect! I put the passenger seat back in and checked all the connections.... CRACK!
Damn, I never saw the metal 'wing' under the passenger seat so when I moved it back, it literally
ripped my slim dvd drive to shreads! With only 3 hours to go before we were leaving, I just took it out,
threw it in the garbage and forged on.
Luckily, everything worked although it can be a pain using 2 separate power sources because I couldn't trigger the
Morex from the Opus. Simply using the Opus 12V lead to trigger the Morex to turn on would cause the Opus to shutdown
completely so I had to use 2 separate toggle switches.

Here's how it looked installed and up and running.


And a few screen shots running RoadRunner and the fantastic DigitalFX front end







And lastly, a shot from the back. My amplifier and carpc are mounted under the extended hatch area, under the grates.



This setup worked fantastic going out to and returning from the National 3SI Gathering in Stevensville, Michigan (12 hrs each way)
and gps saved our butts several times when we hit a few traffic jams but now that I am back, there are a few things I am going to fix
like getting rid of that crappy Shuttle motherboard and getting another mini-itx board so I can power everything with just the Opus.
I also need to make a better venting solution so I can get rid of the grates which negates the entire purpose of extending the
hatch area because we needed the luggage room. I also need to hook up and program my Shuttle Express and a few other odds and ends.

Overall, I am about 70% happy with the project but made a few mistakes that need to be fixed maybe this winter when I put the car
in storage. I forgot to take into consideration, the vinyl clips that go between the console and the dash. They don't line up
correctly and it bugs the hell out of me. I should of put the entire console back into the car before I let the Dynatron dry overnight.
Hacking the console up so much made it weak in a couple places which basically made the form slightly out of whack so the
abs form and the Dynatron were also slightly out of whack. Other than that, it was a good learning experience for me.

[aussie_will]

That's awesome mate. I've been looking at ways to add a screen to my dash, might give something like this a go.

[BamBam]

Originally Posted by Devils Mentor

Hmmm....

What Car PC are you going to go with or are you making your own???

DM

My very first install can be seen here:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...3000gt-sl.html

I used this motherboard
http://www.idotpc.com/TheStore/pc/vi...ct=170#details

with a Celeron 2.## processor and it worked unbelievably well and was very stable. Unfortunately, it got wet and blew (my fault) so I used a Shuttle MB I had. I am definately going to buy that mini itx board again.

Using nLite (http://www.nliteos.com/), I was able to create an XP ISO around 270M and it booted well under 25 seconds. I loved the setup and will be going back except this time, I have a 500GB Seagate drive too