Retrofit new LCD into aftermarket screen-based head unit

**techy101** · 02-09-2010, 12:53 AM

Where might one find resources for practicing the smaller sizes? And there are 0402's in there

**2k1Toaster** · 02-09-2010, 01:02 AM

Originally Posted by techy101

Where might one find resources for practicing the smaller sizes? And there are 402's in there

Anything less than 0402 is generally all done by a pick-n-place machine with automatic reflow soldering. Nobody except the lowest Chinese slave labour or someone who really has nothing better to do would ever attempt to do it themselves. I dont know of any "kit" style objects that use such small SMD parts, so I dont know how you would practice it other than maybe desoldering motherboards or something?

**techy101** · 02-09-2010, 01:07 AM

ah, well thanks for the info! Like I said, I'm still far far from proficient, but it's a skill I've been hoping to learn for a while now. It'll be a while before I can collect the parts to try this out, if I even go ahead with it, and I've still gotta pick a car since only one of them would require this kinda work.

**SapporoGuy** · 02-09-2010, 07:17 AM

Interesting, I was thinking of a similar idea.

Take a 2Din broken Chinese unit and rip out the internals and try to fit a 7" screen in the original location.

I did however think that a bit of work was going to be needed for the larger screen but there normally is a bit of plastic that can be hacked away.

Nice catch on the ribbon cable!

Didn't think of that!

I was thinking that a 2Din salvage would be nice since you could just bend down the aluminum pieces on the sides to hold the mobo and such

**bes51659** · 02-09-2010, 08:23 AM

There are 480x800 6'5 inch screens around, you do not have to go lilliput or xenarch.

To extend cable you do not have to solder. You can by longer ones at digikey. If you do solder, this is a way to do it.

**techy101** · 02-09-2010, 01:50 PM

Quite a few of the aftermarket units I've been looking at show a 7" LCD in the specs. I'm not sure if that's just because they're too lazy to type the real size, or if they really do use a 7".

**bes51659** · 02-09-2010, 03:08 PM

There is always Hiinfo....
http://www.hiinfoglobal.com/html/encarpc/index.html

They use a nice Sharp 6.5" panel that I have put into my BMW head unit on picture. (The 6.5 units I have seen all use this Sharp panel)

More pictures of the internals of the Hiinfo unit (and my conversion) here http://web.comhem.se/bengt-olof.swing/BM2.htm

**RipplingHurst** · 02-09-2010, 11:53 PM

I think the idea #1 is much more interesting and feasible. I'd love to see a real sturdy mechanism with a regular touchscreen I could use with my car pc. It's much more versatile for those like me who do not have a double din space anyway.