This all started with Zorro's incredible MWI software.And I thought it would be great to have this in the car. But where can you mount such a thing to be confortable and accesible at all times> In the armrest ofcourse. Thing is the Escort doesn't have an armrest, so I decided to fabricate one myself.
But before building the actual armrest I had to find a nice looking button. After searching a lot of time for one, I couldn't fin one I liked so I decided to fabricate that myself also. (you wouldn't believe out of what...)
In the first pic you can see how it used to look like, when I first came up with the ideea.
In the second pic, a second state of the button.
So, in the third pic, you can see how the button looks like in its final state.
1. That's the cap from a D&G parfume bottle, wwhich looks really nice, and it's really resistent as it has some kind of plasitic underneath.
2. That was taken from an old rotative tweeter I found laying around. The upper half is glued to the actuall button, and the button one is glued to 3. the stative support.
3. I took that nice looking support from a leg table, took out it's existing bolt, and driled a hole.
In the fourth pic you can see how it looks on the not yet finished armrest.
You can see in the last pic some of the button's elements intheir almost initial state.
UPDATE:
You can see in the last pic, version 2 of the armrest.
Here are some more button fabrication pics.
Ok, so now I had a pretty nice looking button, but I had to make it functional as well.
So, inspired by TonyG, I put in there an encoder I had laying around from the Citroen head unit I hacked up to put some buttons in the dash. You can also see here the donor mouse tucked away inside the armrest.
Now it's functional and it works great with Zorro's MWI.
the nice thing is that it's all one pice now. Everything is glues together.
Now for the boring part: the actual armrest. The buttom part in the first pic, is a part of the cars center console, which will be bolted down to the car to support the armrest.
So I made the buttom part of the armrest first. I also wanted to include a small storage space in armrest for a mouse and some small stuff. So I made a wooden pocket. I then cut a piece of thin plywood to cover it.
A couple of other pics of the storage compartiment...
I covered eveything with paper tape, in order to poor down the foam.
You can also see in there I included a PS2 and an extra USB slot, just in case.
Sorry about the poor quality of some pictures. The phone was closer.
Everything will be covered in soft foam.
Basicly this is as far as I got until now. It's still a work in progress.
Just in case you were wondering, inhtere there will be a small display for the outside and inside temperature.
Ahh, thought that was the trash binOriginally Posted by Cris
Just in case you were wondering, inhtere there will be a small display for the outside and inside temperature.With as lazy as computers make us, it would make sense even though it was obviously a joke
Looks like it'll turn out great and the knob looks sweet. Very resourceful with the parts.
I thought it was going to be a tissue holder noxt to the idrive knob for when you are watching porn!
I thought it was going to be a tissue holder noxt to the idrive knob for when you are watching porn!
I've applied the foam. Should be ready to cover it by tommorow.
Looks great !!!
Ikea Case. Epia M10000.M1-ATX. 512 Mb. 2,5" 80 GB HDD. 7" Lilliput. BU-303 GPS. Sony Joystick.
Status --> Lilliput Installed (not indash yet..)
BraveCar 2.5
Fantastic! Can't wait till this thing is finished..! (Gonna steal SOOoO many of your ideas mate.
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