Indash Retractable Keyboard - in progress

**shotgunefx** · 04-20-2005, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

Ingenious! Sometimes using found parts is much more satisfying than paying for a bunch of engineered stuff.

BTW, I still got my Legos, too.

I'm suprised it's coming out as well as it is. Nice monitor install btw. I'm going to co-opt your idea and combine it with my own

Instead of having the lcd hiding my gauge cluster, I'm going to shrink the cluster and mount it to the lcd (wrapped up in a nice bezel). So I'll have stock gauges but with the press of a button, the screen will raise, hiding the gauges and presenting the LCD.

With the sail servo, does it have to stay on? I would think so or wouldn't you have motor slip?

Lego's are pretty cool, unfortunately the only building toys I had when I was a kid were lincoln logs. I think my parents didn't want to deal with another 2000 things lying on the floor.

**shotgunefx** · 04-22-2005, 09:23 PM

An update.

I have it pretty much done and it works

I need to refine a few things. I've got a thin fiberglass base for it to mount to (drying now), to avoid torqueing the assembly. I need to make two new sliders and a new center acutator. These are too thin. I've tapped them to mount the keyboard and it works, but it's only a thread or two. I'm going to pick up some bar stock and make thick ones tomorrow with lots of room for tapping.

I need to cut the drive shaft down and smooth the very tip with epoxy. The threads hitting the support make too much noise. Other then the, looking pretty damn good. I'm thinking of slowing it down. It takes a little less then a second for it to hit full extension. I wonder how much it could move with a better motor. This one is fast, but doesn't have a lot of torque.

So everything should be done tomorrow or Sunday, I'll be posting pics and vids.

**davesaudio2** · 04-22-2005, 09:54 PM

If you could get some rubber between the motor and the screw you could reduce
the noise. the cnc guys isolate their motors from the drive screw with rubber hose as a coupler. some rubber around the mount would help too.

**shotgunefx** · 04-22-2005, 10:04 PM

Originally Posted by davesaudio2

If you could get some rubber between the motor and the screw you could reduce
the noise. the cnc guys isolate their motors from the drive screw with rubber hose as a coupler. some rubber around the mount would help too.

I've read that. You would think it would slip though? I may give it a try, but the majority of noise is coming from wheree the thread hits the far side. (Were the screw is hanging out in the pic). I don't mind a little bit of racket, it only travels for a second and it wouldn't sound right without a little whirring

**MMagnumLV** · 04-25-2005, 03:18 PM

How is this coming along?

**antimatter** · 04-25-2005, 03:38 PM

Cool project. I can't wait to see vids of this thing in action

**shotgunefx** · 04-25-2005, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by antimatter

Cool project. I can't wait to see vids of this thing in action

I'll try and get a vid tonight.

It works, but it's not without it's problems.
1. Probably could use a little more torque. When it hits the end of travel (which when the limit switches are in it won't) it can get stuck.
2. LOUD! Need to smooth out the end of the rod so the threads don't clack off the support.

All the other problems were due to the way I approached this. I made it with almost all things that were on hand. I'm going to make a newer version this weekend using more standard and easier to find parts so it can be replicated easier.

The other problem is the larger lego support which were epoxied, well it didn't quite cure 100%. I mean it's hard as stone, but it still smells like cat pee

The expoy I used is great but can smell for a few days, these joints still smell.

So I used two slightly shorter supports which is fine except having a hard time fitting the switches in the narrow space.

The coupling that sits on the threaded rod was a PITA. I tried cutting bar stock and making my own heavier ones but broke my taps threaded them. I used a hollow spacer, filled with expoy and threaded that. It works but I think it's partially responsible for the noise. If I had used a more common bolt size, I could have just picked up a threaded rod coupling locally and had plenty of room for the top tapping.

Attaching the motor to the drive shaft was tough too. I ended up using tension pins of various sizes as a makeshift bushing to get it to fit the drive shaft. These were really hard to fit inside each other. They work great but the assembly is a little bit longer than i liked and I wounded myself once or twice trying to work the pins.

**shotgunefx** · 04-26-2005, 12:19 AM

Here's a Quicktime movie of it (1.5mb) retracting. I can't find my camcorder charger so I had to do it with my digital camera.

keyboard retracting

**xdjxklusivex** · 04-26-2005, 12:27 AM

THATS ****IN PIMP! but that would suck if some1 bent over to pick something up and u opened the keyboard and it smacked there head haha

**shotgunefx** · 04-26-2005, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by xdjxklusivex

THATS ****IN PIMP! but that would suck if some1 bent over to pick something up and u opened the keyboard and it smacked there head haha

Thanks.

It's too low to and positioned such, that you'd have a hard time bonking anything. Also, do to the low torque, it stalls pretty easily with your hand.

Here's the layout in-car.

With the next version, I'm going to try and get it to tilt at the end of travel 10-15 degrees. Then it will be perfect from the driver's seat.