Idea on building a slide-out & motorized case for lcds 7+"

CA 3000GT · 01-21-2003, 09:11 PM

Ok... I got something I think will work for slide out (which is all I really need), and a motorized one as well. Comments?

********* Slide out dash *********
Parts:
1) Old car radio
2) Telescoping cabinet slide rail with a little resistance to sliding(its the flat metal telescoping rails that drawers slide forward and back on.)
- This rail should be made such that the mounting rail, and the sliding rail cannot be detached.
3) Hindge 1” wide, which requires some resistance to bend (lcd will sit on this.)
4) Small hindge, requires small resistance to bend.

Assembly:
1) Remove the front, and all the insides from the old car radio, this will be the enclosure for the unit.
2) Bolt slide rail base to top of enclosure.
3) Bolt hindge to front end of slide rail arm
4) Bolt center back of the lcd on to the hindge.
5) Hindge the old faceplate back on the front.

Flip up the front of the old radio, slide the lcd out, adjust the angle, slide it back, flip the old radio face down, its completely hidden.
If you don’t mind pulling the thing in, and out, you can keep an 7+” lcd in your dash, in a single din slot, and put your head unit in the other one. The lcd is concealed when retracted, and always within arms reach.
Since there are no components to either side of the lcd it can span the entire with of the radio case.

*********Motorized *********
My ideas on this are more blurry... but the VW golf has a powered window where the window motor pulls a wire, which moves a piece of metal up and down on a track, raising and lowering the window.... The stock powered window assembly is to long, but if one could cut it in half, it could be used in place of the slide rail above. Hit a switch, it deploys, flip the switch the other way and it retracts. Perhaps a second cabled power window unit could be used to tilt the screen.

I mean, it seems like this could be assembled with a hacksaw, and a few old parts...... I cant fab custom gears myself... but if I could use preexisting motors and assebilies built for operation on car voltage, built to do the sort of raising and lowering I need to do.. .then I think I have a chance at this project...

what do you guys think? Like, any reason it wouldnt work?

Stavros · 01-21-2003, 10:08 PM

I'd love to do something than that, too bad my VW Golf only have one bay for my headunit

Charliey · 01-21-2003, 10:22 PM

Im thinking of a design for a slide-out mounting system for my 5" screen.

Currently im trying to figure out how to make my own tracks/rails from either a block of plexiglass or out of hardwood.

My screen already has hinges on it, so ill be desinging it to work with that.

Ive got exams on thursday and friday, but after that ive got a week off, so ill make some pictures and maybe try out out then.

thenominous · 01-22-2003, 04:08 AM

For motorisation the comercial screens dont use hinges.
They have a gear wheel fixed static in the screen which when turned moves the screen. That's why they are infinately adjustable as well.

The golf idea seems reasonable, but then Ive never seen it implemented. Reasons?

The commercial ones (that I have seen) follow your idea on the sliding rails, however they have two rails embedded within each other. If you think about the height of your screen and the length of the rails required to move it fully out of the DIN slot, you'll find that you dont have enough room in the DIN slot to store everything

With that said, the TM-701 (whatever) over comes that problem but mounting the hinge in the middle of the screen rather than the bottom.

I think that the golf idea would require a lot of DIN space just as this one does. I'd think more about pushing the screen out than pulling it.

Instead of the hinge idea and seeing as we cant build the gear sets, you might want to think about a couple of RC servos (or stepper motors might be better). These can get VERY small, and with the right controller would allow infinate adjustment of the screen in the out position.

Dave