Thread: 3000GT with 10.4" Lilliput monitor

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.

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 bootup 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 removes 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.

Nice, I'm jealous I want a 10.4 Where did you get your Dynatron plastic?

Originally Posted by sporty_drew

Nice, I'm jealous I want a 10.4 Where did you get your Dynatron plastic?

I had the 8" model and believe me, the 10.4 model is MUCH better. The touch screen is very sensitive and accurate. The screen is bright and extremely clear from both the drivers and passengers seat. And of course, it is very nice having the larger screen picture.

I got the Dynatron from Fisher Auto Parts but I saw it several times on Ebay too.

I cannot find the correct model on lilliput's homepage, can you please add an modell number?
Where did you buy it?

greetz

how's viewing at that angle? does it fade at all?

Originally Posted by Phreak Show

I cannot find the correct model on lilliput's homepage, can you please add an modell number?
Where did you buy it?

greetz

I just checked on Ebay and found one here exactly like the one I have..

Originally Posted by Injector

how's viewing at that angle? does it fade at all?

The viewing angles are great from the drivers seat and passenger seat and the touchscreen is very, very good (sensitive). The picture is great in late afternoon and absolutely perfect at night. The mornings are ok but mid afternoon is just about impossible to see because of the glare. I am using the DigitalFX frontend and am usually listening to mp3's during the day so I don't even turn on the monitor because I know where the screen buttons are and use the touchscreen with the monitor off.

The only bad things about my setup is because it was so big that I barely got it to fit and it "lays down" more than I want. Sometimes street lights reflect off of it which can surprise you and the other thing I don't like is that it doesn't look oem enough for me. I'm almost thinking about going to the 8" model just because of that but as far as monitor quality and picture quality, I love this model...I just want my car to look stock, like it was made for it and it doesn't have that appearance with such a big screen at that angle and the imperfections of my mod around some of the edges.

nice work