2 LCDs 2 touchscreens sport trac, check it out

**Sporttracguy** · 02-01-2005, 11:55 PM

ok, here it is. i remotely relocated my head unit to my A pillar(you can see above the steeing wheel in one pic) to make room for a xenarc 7 in touchscreen connected to a carputer. I also have an 8 in kenwood touchscreen mounted in my custom fiberglass center console used for GPS and video/video games. I wasnt able to get these pictures until it was later in the day , ill get some better ones later and i know there are fingerprints on the screen but its a touchscreen afterall. I have done all this work myself, let me know what you think.

Sporttracguy

**NUIpIsqo** · 02-02-2005, 12:45 AM

very very nice.

**ChaCha** · 02-02-2005, 02:35 AM

Nicely done sport. Quite ingenious relocating the head unit to the pillar...I don't think I've ever seen that.

Congrats on a beautiful install.

**Sporttracguy** · 02-02-2005, 12:54 PM

here are some closer shots of that A pillar head unit. I still havent put the green molding around the faceplate yet though..

http://www.zjstech.net/~library/3675/faceplate-dark.jpg

http://www.zjstech.net/~library/3675...late-light.jpg

Sporttracguy

**Fender2Martin** · 02-03-2005, 09:05 AM

I realise that there are multiple how-to's on installing a remote face plate.. however they all seem to only show how to solder the wires and such, and essentially they say solder it and it works. I was wondering if you can go into detail on how you physically instaleld it into the A-pillar. Whats holding it there and so forth. Thanks!

**Sporttracguy** · 02-03-2005, 12:43 PM

Yeah, i can try and elaborate on the faceplate install a bit. Like you said solder it and it works is quite simplified. you need to be very careful you dont any wires crossed while doing the soldering, if you do it could cause some major damage. I used two Cat5 cables(keeps things cleaner and simple as far as keeping the seperate wires in check. Solder each wire to a terminal on the head unit, then you will probably need to run the cable to where you want it (leave lots of slack so you have some play and can pull it enough to work on it) Once the cable is exiting where you want it you can solder the corrisponding terminals on the faceplate(the colors really help and be sure to have good clear notes as to what color goes where)

I know this may seem cheesy but for my install i noticed that if something were to jerk the wire in any way i would lose a connection and have to re do it,, a really big mess so after soldering the connections i used (dont kill me for this) High temp hot glue on top of all of the soldered terminals to strengthen the overall weld. Believe it or not it works very nice. it doesnt conduct so you dont have to worry about crossing current.

The head unit itself just sits in my glove box and the faceplate is secured from the back side with again, Hot glue. and i still need to install the painted trim for the faceplate(just havent gotten around to it)

A side note: Hot glue is used in many auto applications, one that comes to mind is some of the older style headrest LCD brackets were professionaly installed with high temp hot glue and it works great.

Oh, one more thing. this will depend on your particular head unit but on mine to eject a CD you were required to flip down the faceplate to insert and remove the CD, when it would flip down it would disconnect its connection telling the head unit that there wasnt a faceplate there and it could eject the CD. Since the faceplate is always connected that was a problem, i had the same damn MP3 mix in there for 3 weeks before i could figure out how to eject the CD.

Here is what i did: i took two Cat 5 eithernet connectors and then i purchased a internet splicer(its basiclly a little plastic block with two internet terminals on it used to connect two cat 5 cables to make one big one) so i cut one of the 2 cat 5 cables(because i wasnt able to single out what single or combination of wires told the head unit that the faceplate wasnt there) and put the connectors on there. so when i want to eject a cd i just open the glove box and un plug the connection, this tells the head unit that the face plate isnt there and i can press the eject button. When ive changed my CD i just re plug it in and im good to go.

I hope that helps, if you need more help or want me to clear it up(its a bit scattered) just email me and ill do my best

Sporttracguy

**Sporttracguy** · 02-03-2005, 01:38 PM

here are some shots of my media player. Im using MediaCruiser at the moment. I tried to get frodoplayer but i just couldnt get it to work correctly and i tried mediacar but i wasnt happy with it. Anyaways here is what it looks like on the screen. The first is the opening screen with a shot of my truck and then the second screen is for music. i changed it to be green with flames at the bottom and since this pic i have changed all of the buttons from blue to green and when i touch the buttons they burst into flames, its quite cool

SPorttracguy

**Fender2Martin** · 02-03-2005, 04:57 PM

Thanks for the information.... one question... I am assuming that when you soldered it all together you used one strand of Cat5 cable (essentially just cut off the heads and soldered them). How do you re-attach the heads so that a splicer can be put into the system?

Reason I ask is... I plan on soldering it all together and then cutting my cable's a few inches from the terminals and re-attaching the heads and as you mentioned using splicers to run my distance (since i dont know exactly how much I will need.)

Again thanks for the walk through.... any close up pictures would be great, but the information you have already given is excelent so i dnot want to burden ya. Thanks again!

**Sporttracguy** · 02-03-2005, 07:06 PM

I had a Spool of cat 5 cable that didnt have any connectors on it from the beginning. I cut one about the lenght i needed,( a little longer so i had some play in it) and after i got the length i cut another exactly the same(i needed to use 2 cat5 cables because there was a total of 16 terminals if memory serves me correctly) You cant re use the heads if you have cut them off. if you go to like Radio shack or any computer store you can find the plastic heads and you need a special tool to re connect them to the cable. (probably run you $20-$30 or so)

here are some links to those things i used:
This is the coupler http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....5&type=product
here are the spair plugs:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....4&type=product
And here is that crimp tool:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....7&type=product

I dont have any super close up shots but ill see what i can find, im sure i have something deep inside my computer somewhere lol.

If you have any more questions just let me know and ill try and get back to you with the best info i have

good luck,
sporttracguy

**dodgetimes2** · 02-03-2005, 08:02 PM

You don't have to defend Hot Glue so much, believe it or not I've taken apart many consumer electronics and have found Hot Glue being used quite often (mostly to hold down wires). Sometimes you have to use it, that or Epoxy works great to, but also is much harder to remove if you f@ck it up.