Alpine screen interface

etsicc · 01-12-2008, 10:29 AM

We are almost done with complete intergration with a alpine 740bt monitor. I have CF running at 800x480 and it looks very good. We are almost done with our touchscreen interface. When we are done we should be able to get Car PCs on these alpines with full touchscreen control without having to hack the screen. Will post some pics ASAP. BTW she is also running xp embedded with no troubles. This has been a long time in the making. What do you guys think?

Sonicxtacy02 · 01-12-2008, 11:32 AM

we think that y'all need to post some pics!

etsicc · 01-12-2008, 12:13 PM

well I guess this gets the point accross. I don't have access to a decent camera right now. So I had to use my super high quality camera phone lol. I will get some better ones up soon.

daboss · 01-12-2008, 07:50 PM

sunlight readable?

turbocad6 · 01-12-2008, 08:50 PM

woh, that's cool. alpines screens are quality & make stuff like lilli's & xenarcs look cheap in comparison. alpine builds really nice screens in general, don't know anything about this one but off to google I go....

turbocad6 · 01-12-2008, 09:05 PM

800X480 with rgb, what did you use for the conversion? does it sync 100%?

etsicc · 01-13-2008, 02:20 PM

The screen is very readable in sunlight more than my lilli, but I don't think it qualifies as full sunlight readable. In the picture I still have the plastic cover on the screen thats why there is glare and also the type of camera used. We have a full screen we have a small line that rolls on the screen, it is not very noticable but I want it to be perfect. We had to build all of our own sync circuits but I think we got it dialed in perfectly.

RipplingHurst · 01-13-2008, 03:42 PM

Humm, frankly, hard to say it looks good. Try to upload a better picture then, w/o any cover, or maybe the windows desktop or maybe a nav. map. These last are the real test for any conversion, because of the small fonts involved.

Subscribed.

etsicc · 01-13-2008, 03:56 PM

Yeah I plan on uploading more, better pics as soon as I get it put back together. Had to rip it a part to get to the touchscreen interface. I personally think it looked very good in windows. I was surfing around on it and I could read everything. Though still wasnt as clear as I would like it. That was running 1024x768. I can only run 800x480 when running CF as shell.

RipplingHurst · 01-13-2008, 04:14 PM

Wow...looks promising. So you build yourself a VGA to RGBs converter? I try to buy one, from Converterstv, for my stock nav screen, so far, no success, in this thread.

How is the scan rate for the Alpine unit? Does it accept 60Hz horiz. refresh rate (as most computer monitors)? Most stock LCDs accept exactly 15.750 Hz and that is a big problem.

highplainsdrift · 01-13-2008, 09:02 PM

I may as well chime in as the other part of "we"

The only thing left to do is a little bit of buffering to make the screen display perfect. making the video control box took me a few steps deeper into the the realm of all the different formats we had available. some of them were a failure some gave us mediocre results at best. the easiest/basic ways were not the best and spending more money to make the parts ourselves seemed to be the best option since no off the shelf parts worked anyways

The touch screen has been the biggest headache. we could have went the easy route. why hack up a nice screen though

the system has solid with no issues once we worked past the screen integration. In the next few weeks we will be starting on making the case for the MB and get that in its home. I'm sure there is a few other things on the checklist we have to take care of before then but I am anxious to get this installed running the 5.1 and get a decent tune for some SQ in the testbed. the XPE is Tony's gig and the results have been jaw dropping on boot up and resource conservation.

Tony; just got the momentus. this should help boot times a little bit more

I'll give it to you tomorrow!

Spyder · 01-13-2008, 10:40 PM

Very nice looking... Tag.

Pockets · 01-14-2008, 10:31 PM

Now the big question - Are you going to be making a product for others to buy, so that we can also use this unit? I can't tell you how hard I was hoping that someone would make this - I just didn't think that it would happen. You're my hero!

impala454 · 01-15-2008, 11:41 AM

Does this Alpine have that "push button" feel when you press the screen? Not sure how else to describe it, other than I saw an Alpine touch-screen head unit at Best Buy once and played around with it, and was amazed at the push-button feel of the touchscreen. At the time I thought that would be awesome if someone built a standalone touch screen like that.

etsicc · 01-15-2008, 11:48 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Pockets

Now the big question - Are you going to be making a product for others to buy, so that we can also use this unit? I can't tell you how hard I was hoping that someone would make this - I just didn't think that it would happen. You're my hero!

We are going to be selling the unit after we have tested it. We posted up here because we want to see the reception of the idea. It will be sold as a stand alone plugin for your own screen or you can buy the whole setup.

Impala this screen does not have the tactile feedback that you are talking about. This adapter should work with those screens as well but we will need to test that theroy out.