Hi, I've had this van for a while now and I _love_ it. I've wanted to put a PC in it for a while, as it's a large van it seems perfect for the job. The dash was already in a bit of a state when I got it, it had been exported from America to Japan and then imported here to the UK. In the process a lot of badly implemented after-market parts had been attached, such as a nasty wood dash kit, which i immediately took off. The original radio had been replaced with a 2DIN radio with a screen, which was broken when I got it. so for a while I simply had a new radio wedged in the badly cut gap. As I'm on a very tight budget for this, I've so far mostly used parts I already have for this setup. for the in-dash screen I'm using a 8" screen I already had, and am yet to buy a touchscreen insert for it, and a laptop, which I am going to eventually replace with a permanent vanPC. I want to make the setup look very OEM, which is hard in a 17 year old American van. I'm currently trying to finish fiberglassing the mount for the screen in the dash, and migrate the cd/radio from the dash to the glove box, so it can still be used if needs be, and as an easy way to have sound through the vans speakers (aux in). Eventually i want to place a mini-itx setup inside the glove box as well (the glove box doesn't get used much as there's enough room to put things elsewhere in the van and it is only used for Holidays and things over the summer at the moment). I'm going to use Ubuntu Netbook Remix (
http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/unr) as the interface, as it's a clean cluster interface that works with touchscreen as well as not straying far from a standard desktop and any application can work with the touchscreen UI that way. Anyway, some pictures (there are alot concidering not a huge amount has been done yet, some may be removed):
The van itself (needs a good clean).
Everything layed out ready for a'cutting.
Alot of cutting...
Fiberglassing.
I have moved the IR receiver to a spare placeholder where the switches are above the screen. I'm also going to put USB ports and a microphone here.
Quick test to see how the screen fits.
Test fit in the van to see how it looks, i still need to do another layer on the fiberglass as it's my first time and a few bits aren't quite symmetrical, but I think it looks quite good in place.
Any thoughts, idea's or tips?
Linear Mode
