Thread: 1990 Celica GT - New Install

HereFishyFishy

nice job on the zenarc install. I have a 93 celica and the same screen...you've given me some ideas for mounting the screen. Do you have any issues with the viewing angle of the screen? Did you modify the radio bezel (I don't what it's called..the black plastic piece the goes around the radio from the shifter to the bottom of the vents).

Nah...the viewing angle is great at night & most times during the day. The only time I have a problem is when the sun is right on it or when there's a bad glare...then you have to lean over and down a bit to be able to read stuff, you can still see where the icons (bigger stuff) are from a driving position though. And when watching video's it's better to be centered or reclined so you don't get that bleed out stuff because of the angle.

The Bezel is still how it was stock...I didn't want to modify anything until I got a new one from the junkyard to play around with. Those clips basically just hug the back of the bezel above the clips that hold the bezel in...you'll see what I'm talking about if you look at the pics up there! The screen is almost the perfect height for this! I just had to chop some of my clips down partially so they wouldn't hit the bezel's clips when I folded them over.

I wish you luck on your installation. It was a lot easier then I thought to mount the screen, but I'm also not going to keep it like that forever I don't think. I want to go for a flush install, but that's coming much later as school is about to start up again. A word of advice: I have an 800w RMS AMP & the 150w opus installed in my car & it ran great for a few weeks, but yesterday I did a lot of idling while playing around & when I started my car up last night to show the system to my friend's dad the PC wouldn't come on. The Opus volt. reg. kicked in because my battery was down under 12v so it looks like an alternator upgrade might be needed. Or maybe I need a new battery since mine is a little old.

Phil

how do you use such a small touchscreen? No probs touching such small controls to get mp3s etc playing??

Not really...at first it was hard to use because I wasn't sure where everything was (tiny stuff), but now that I'm accustomed with it it's not that much of a problem. Little things like minimizing or closing windows can be tough at times. I use Media Engine right now & the controls are plenty big enough to touch with your finger. I also use 4am music console & that works good for full albums I have in mp3 since I touch the album cover & get to select from the songs. It too is easy to use with your fingers. Anything really tiny I use a small plastic touch pen & lately I've just thrown winamp on random with all of my songs loaded and sit the USB keyboard in my lap...it has volume controls at the top & 'z' & 'b' for previous & next selections respectively. This way I can change songs w/o using the touchscreen at all.

Originally Posted by HereFishyFishy

Nah...the viewing angle is great at night & most times during the day. The only time I have a problem is when the sun is right on it or when there's a bad glare...then you have to lean over and down a bit to be able to read stuff, you can still see where the icons (bigger stuff) are from a driving position though. And when watching video's it's better to be centered or reclined so you don't get that bleed out stuff because of the angle.

The Bezel is still how it was stock...I didn't want to modify anything until I got a new one from the junkyard to play around with. Those clips basically just hug the back of the bezel above the clips that hold the bezel in...you'll see what I'm talking about if you look at the pics up there! The screen is almost the perfect height for this! I just had to chop some of my clips down partially so they wouldn't hit the bezel's clips when I folded them over.

I wish you luck on your installation. It was a lot easier then I thought to mount the screen, but I'm also not going to keep it like that forever I don't think. I want to go for a flush install, but that's coming much later as school is about to start up again. A word of advice: I have an 800w RMS AMP & the 150w opus installed in my car & it ran great for a few weeks, but yesterday I did a lot of idling while playing around & when I started my car up last night to show the system to my friend's dad the PC wouldn't come on. The Opus volt. reg. kicked in because my battery was down under 12v so it looks like an alternator upgrade might be needed. Or maybe I need a new battery since mine is a little old.

Phil

Well, I finally got my install completed (for the most part). I installed the computer in the glovebox for my first install attemp. It didn't work half bad until a stray wire shorted my 120gb hard drive....doh! I decided to take the more conventional approach and installed the computer in the trunk (in a casetronix 2699r case). This works much better...I can remove the computer from the car in 60 seconds and use it inside without modification. I'm using a standard 5.25" DVD rom drive in a USB 2.0 external enclosure. I removed the AC power supply from the enclosure and made a custom dc-dc supply, 8V to 20VDC input and constant 12V (1.5A max) &5V (2A max) output. I made a similar power supply for the computer, I connected four Texas Instruments PT5071's in parallel with a schottkey diode on each of the outputs, this gives me a constant 12VDC output with an input voltage anywhere between 8V and 20VDC. I'm using the PW60 that came with the casetronics 2699r case to generate the atx voltage rails. I installed a couple push buttons for power and reset switches. The screen still needs to be mounted better...I'm using the cheapo stand that that came with the 700ts. I need to take some pics.

nice setup...