Newbie's First Post - Lots of Questions!

Louis M · 08-20-2002, 04:41 PM

Hey everyone, this is my first time at this site, and I have been looking around, and I must say: Good Job! I'm looking to make a MP3Car, but I have no idea what to do. Here's the deal:
1) How would I make a LCD into a touchscreen, or am I completely off? I was reading some posts and they said that making a touch screen would be much cheaper.
2) I would have one LCD in between seats and one on each headrest for a bunch of things: playing PS2 games, listening to music, and watching DVD's.
3) I would have one LCD in front of the driver, which would replace the whole dash and have a program that displays speed, RPM's, amount of gas left, etc. Where could I get a program like this and how much would it cost?
4) Do I just connect a computer? If so, what kind would I need to do only what I want in section two.
5) Would it be better to view navigation, time, temperature, and GPS (what is the cost of GPS?) on the monitor in section two, or section three?
The way I see it, I'm looking at having to purchase four 5" monitors ($300 each), one 7" monitor ($500), a computer which would be barebones what I specify ($???), and assorted programs($???). Is this correct? Thanks for all your help!

ShinkunoNamida · 08-20-2002, 04:56 PM

1) How would I make a LCD into a touchscreen, or am I completely off? I was reading some posts and they said that making a touch screen would be much cheaper.

Cheaper than what? Also a touch screen is usually an overlay that you put on top of your LCD. generally touch screens emulate mouse movements.

3) I would have one LCD in front of the driver, which would replace the whole dash and have a program that displays speed, RPM's, amount of gas left, etc. Where could I get a program like this and how much would it cost?

Definitely not a good idea. If something goes wrong with your computer you have no gauges. You could do something in addition to, but I would NEVER replace the gauges that are supposed to be there. But what you are looking for is an ODBII adapter (odb 2)

4) Do I just connect a computer? If so, what kind would I need to do only what I want in section two.

You are going to need a signal amplifier to output to all of the seperate displays. Don't worry though, these are pretty easy to find. If you're computer has tvout it's simple enough to connect, if not you whill need a scan converter which converts your vga signal to ntsc.

5) Would it be better to view navigation, time, temperature, and GPS (what is
the cost of GPS?) on the monitor in section two, or section three?

a GPS costs anywhere from $100-$500 If you want to have your displays showing different information you are going to need 2 video sources. Which would either be 2 computers or your computer and another source. I doubt you will find it necessary for your back seat to have GPS data instead of a movie or video game.

Skippman · 08-20-2002, 07:49 PM

You're looking at a very expensive project if you do it this way. I estemate your cost at $3000 for just the computer and screens.

$ 350 x 4 7" NTSC Screens
$ 600 x 1 7" VGA Touchscreen
$ 150 x 1 NTSC Video Switching Network
------------------------------------------------------
$2150 Not including taxes and shipping.

I commend your efforts though. If you're seriously wanting digital gauges I recommend you get them from Dakota Digital. Last thing you want is you gauges crashing.

Welcome to the forum. Read up. Use the search function and learn. Tell us what you find out as well. We're a little web family here. Just a warning though, many members here get angry if you don't search.

If you have questions, ask! We're a bunch of do-it-yourselfer's around here. Lost of people in various industrys who can answer/ have answered just about any question you can think of.

Louis M · 08-20-2002, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ShinkunoNamida
Cheaper than what? Also a touch screen is usually an overlay that you put on top of your LCD. generally touch screens emulate mouse movements.

Where could you get an "overlay?"

MP3DUB · 08-20-2002, 10:20 PM

Sorry! I couldn't resist

. With the sucess that ive had with my pc doing odd things, a windows powered dash gague arary frightens me. Like everyone else said, what you want to do will be very expensive. elotouch.com does touchscreen overlays, and im sure if you search around, you'll find opinions on them as well as other companies (I dont do touch). You would also need a lot of video cards to have seperate desktops for each monitor, or a few multihead cards and vga to composite video scan converters.