Thread: Production Double-Din VGA Touchscreen in the making!

Originally Posted by Mrbmw99

ik632,

Honestly, that doesn't match the design at all. I'm trying to picture a way that the 4 or 8 way rocker could match our bezel, while still having the encoder on the outside.. I can't think of anything. I was thinking about using a rather simple, yet very clean looking black knob. I've even seen some with a small chrome ring around them that look great.
- Brett

Yeah, I did that on purpose. You said you were good with design help at this point so I didn't want to step on any toes. My intention was to show you some other options other than a basic rotary encoder and not design a knob for your application.

I like the square type styling of your current design and I agree with your simple style knob design. If you used one of the single shaft units you could use your black/chrome knob and just tilt the knob for the directional control.

There are several units available off the shelf that would work for a single shaft setup and would match your styling. That way you could keep cost down by not having to tool up to make a custom knob. Great work so far, I'll be on the list for one of these regardless of what knob you use.

do you happen to know the rough dimensions of the unit..I would love to get this unit, however e46 bmws are a pain in the *** to fit a double din. Please let me know whenever you get a chance

thanks
Jason

Originally Posted by ik632

Yeah, I did that on purpose. You said you were good with design help at this point so I didn't want to step on any toes. My intention was to show you some other options other than a basic rotary encoder and not design a knob for your application.

I like the square type styling of your current design and I agree with your simple style knob design. If you used one of the single shaft units you could use your black/chrome knob and just tilt the knob for the directional control.

There are several units available off the shelf that would work for a single shaft setup and would match your styling. That way you could keep cost down by not having to tool up to make a custom knob. Great work so far, I'll be on the list for one of these regardless of what knob you use.

ik632,

No worries! I appriciate the input and help. I might order one of those 4-way units just to see what I think of it..

Originally Posted by Jir1984

do you happen to know the rough dimensions of the unit..I would love to get this unit, however e46 bmws are a pain in the *** to fit a double din. Please let me know whenever you get a chance

thanks
Jason

Jason,

The monitor will be native double-din, meaning it is 7" wide by 4" tall. There is no rock-solid depth yet, however I think it will be about 6.5" deep (measured from the front bezel, and not including the additonal depth needed to plug the RCA plugs for the preouts into the unit). What is the max depth that can fit in the e36?

- Brett

Another "newbie" question. Will I be able to hook up the two screens I have in the back seats of my car for the kids to watch dvd and or tv from this unit? They use normal yellow,red and white rca plugs as the video/audio in.

Originally Posted by nicho3

Another "newbie" question. Will I be able to hook up the two screens I have in the back seats of my car for the kids to watch dvd and or tv from this unit? They use normal yellow,red and white rca plugs as the video/audio in.

nicho3,

That depends on the software/hardware you go with. If your motherboard supports an additional composite video output, then you can use that. This product will just be a VGA touchscreen monitor (as far as this scenario is concerned). We will offer the VIA Nano-ITX motherboard inside as an option, and I do believe it has an additional video output, but you might want to check into that.

- Brett W

There are USB2VGA adapters available.
Problem: they don't work too well on large (desktop)resolutions - but they are perfect for little monitors with little resolutions 800x480 (which we have in our cars)
Problem: they don't support 800x480 (and also no simple hack possible)
Solution: the Linux Drivers for them support it and are open source
Problem: someone with Windows Driver knowledge needs to hack them.
Solution: I have someone who is able to hack the driver for 800€
(as we ALL need this to control more than 1 monitor we might share the costs?)

May be mp3car.com can sell us usb2vga adapters with hacked driver ?
(I already asked car-tft.com without reply)

Originally Posted by JC-S60

Do they support full-screen moving images at 800x600 (DVD playback) without too much CPU-usage?

Then it sounds really good!

800x600 ?
You don't want to tell me that you, as developer, run your 7" TFT with 800x600 ?
800x600 is fully supported by these usb2vga things and DVD works beautiful...

As CPU I am talking of a Core2Duo not a VIA - sorry I don't see any sense in the VIA any more... my Commell LV677 with Core2Duo consumes around 3-4 Ampere so no real disadvantage compared to a VIA...
I think a VIA is too slow for a second and third backseat monitor...