Thread: Motorized Screen Dash Mount

There are some posts about making an in dash mount motorized, but most of them are vapor-hard-ware.

I have that mount, and if you look inside, you can see that there is already a rack and pinion gearing in there. I was thinking some kind of stepper motor in there, to turn the pinion, but never figured out a way to get the screen to tilt up once out.

I was also thinking that maybe you could attach a screw drive to the bottom of the back of the monitor, and have it push the monitor out. Once all the way out, the trigonometry of the thing would flip it up. Then just retract the screw arm and the screen would hide the monitor. This would need almost twice the clearance in the back though.

Space is pretty tight inside the mount too. I don't really know where you would be able to pack anything else in there.

Why a stepper motor? Any specific reasoning? I was unaware that there were already gears inside of the dash mount, so that should actually make things easier. I was planning on putting a button on the front of the dash mount, which would be connected to a microcontroller, running a C program. Essentially waiting until a switch was pressed after the screen was fully extended, then activating a second servo which would flip the monitor up. But, as you said, finding a way to flip the screen would be a problem.

Edit: The switch would be inside of the mount housing and would be pressed by the mount bracket upon full extension.

I was just thinking a stepper motor because of the controllability. All the servos I've seen would be much too big to fit in there. The stepper could be fairly small, and very controllable. And would be controlled by a microcontroller. I just don't think you are going to be able to fit a servo in there. Even some of those micro servos used for hobby RC landing gear. Also, at that size, you may run into the issue of torque ability.

Again, I never really looked around to see if it was easily possible.

Originally Posted by BiohazrD

Why a stepper motor? Any specific reasoning? I was unaware that there were already gears inside of the dash mount, so that should actually make things easier. I was planning on putting a button on the front of the dash mount, which would be connected to a microcontroller, running a C program. Essentially waiting until a switch was pressed after the screen was fully extended, then activating a second servo which would flip the monitor up. But, as you said, finding a way to flip the screen would be a problem.

Edit: The switch would be inside of the mount housing and would be pressed by the mount bracket upon full extension.

Please Acomplish this and post all plans for us all to enjoy