Honda Civic 2005

samiam05 · 09-05-2006, 07:54 PM

I have been using my Ipaq with a Bluetooth GPS receiver in my car for a long time now and I think it is time for an upgrade, at first I was skeptical of fitting a touch screen LCD into my civic stereo bezel but what the heck I am going to give it a try

. I had past experience with fiberglass so here is what I have done so far using readily available items
1. All purpose Polyester and fiberglass from Home Depot
2. Regular automotive grade paint as pigment
3. Blaster of Paris to fill the unneeded openings
4. Mink oil for release wax LOL
5. Baby powder mixed with polyester for the mold and bezel coat

The idea is to add a screen with a slim front slot load and move the AC control to the lower bezel where is the Aux 12v output currently located
Below pictures outline the progress so far where I created a mold form the original bezel and produced a fiberglass bezel with only the AC opening next I will cut opening for the screen and DVD player

samiam05 · 09-06-2006, 09:43 AM

Ok so with some trimming and sanding and it looks like it’s a perfect fit (picture below) now I am ready to order my TS screen and I am looking for some advise, I have enough space for whatever size I want 7”, 8” heck maybe 10” I was thinking of recessing the screen to avoid reflection and glare but here is the $250 question what is the best screen out there and what is the second best just in case it is too expensive, I looked through the forum and I am getting mixed opinions. Any help is appreciated

samiam05 · 09-06-2006, 10:23 PM

Guys where is the love? Any answers for my questions

Das · 09-07-2006, 01:31 AM

Maybe I am not understanding what you have done here. You have fiberglassed the hole where your screen should go? And left gaping craters as well.

I think you might need to explain it a little better.

A for effort

samiam05 · 09-07-2006, 07:21 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Das

Maybe I am not understanding what you have done here. You have fiberglassed the hole where your screen should go? And left gaping craters as well.

I think you might need to explain it a little better.

A for effort

I didn’t want to cut through the original bezel so here is what I did so far
1. I made a mold of the original bezel after covering the double din opening with blaster of Paris to take the shape of the bezel
2. I made a replica of the bezel from the mold but without all the AC control or stereo opening this way I have enough space for a screen and front slot loader DVD player
I would still like to find out what is the best screens choice out there, I have been searching all over the forum with conflicting result regarding the best TS screens also did anyone ever figure out how to get around the reflection/visibility problem with this screens

sciontC · 09-07-2006, 09:36 AM

so you have a dash made out of plaster of paris? i really dont see that lasting long. it will crack, why dont you just get a dash for $10 at a junk yard and mold the screen in. it will look nicer, be more durable, and probably even take less time.

As for a screen recomondation, i can only tell you what i have and that i like it. I have the 7" xenarc and have no complaints

samiam05 · 09-07-2006, 10:26 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by sciontC

so you have a dash made out of plaster of paris? i really dont see that lasting long. it will crack, why dont you just get a dash for $10 at a junk yard and mold the screen in. it will look nicer, be more durable, and probably even take less time.

As for a screen recomondation, i can only tell you what i have and that i like it. I have the 7" xenarc and have no complaints

The dash is completely made out of fiberglass and the reason I did that is to create an enclosure to recess the screen in without having to cut the orginal or weld it with Bondo, here is also a before and after pictures to show what I am working with here

samiam05 · 09-15-2006, 07:45 PM

I am halfway there and reaching my goal

As I mentioned before my goal was an OEM look without cutting into any of the original parts so bezel is completely made out of fiber glass using the simplest material for molding and fabrication (everything from Home Depot and Walmart ) and above all is finishing it all under $300 including

1. TVIEW DVD313 FM TV FlipDown Detachable Face DVD Receiver
2. TM-868 8" USB Touch Screen VGA RCA TFT LCD Monitor
3. Fiberglass, Polyester etc..
4 used laptop, dock, wires and harness

now I have a question if anyone care to help, my car is Honda Civic 2005 and I will need power for the power converter, screen, AMP and AUX power for whatever what is the best place to tap into to get power from the car ?

note: I have not painted the bezel yet the last picture is the bezel with black primer

scott_fx · 09-15-2006, 07:53 PM

thats great work and impressive that you made that mold.

as far as the best place to get power...it would be the battery. get the proper gauge an a distro block. run the wire close to your amp and then use the distro block to distribute the power to the pc and the amp

samiam05 · 09-15-2006, 08:33 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by scott_fx

thats great work and impressive that you made that mold.

as far as the best place to get power...it would be the battery. get the proper gauge an a distro block. run the wire close to your amp and then use the distro block to distribute the power to the pc and the amp

Thank you and I appreciate you help, but does that mean that I will need an on/off switch for the power and I will have to turn it off every time or can work something out with the ignition/Aux sorry for the question but when it come to automotive wiring and power I am ignorant

scott_fx · 09-15-2006, 08:46 PM

what do you want to turn off? you are going to have to tap off of your 'acc/ign lead' to tell the amp to shut off when the key is pulled. if you get an opus or m2-atx then you'd have to give that power supply the same acc/ign signal. if you want your aux socket to shut off then you would want to add a relay to that as well.

one option would be:
power wire from battery (don't forget the fuse 6-9" from the battery) to a 4 way distro block.

from the distro block run a wire to the amp, another wire to the psu and a third wire to a relay.

now run an acc/ign wire (can be tapped from the stock head unit/radio harness) to the area where teh amp and pc are. connect that to the relay to tell the relay when to open and close. now off the relay run wire to another distro block (smaller one since we are dealing with probably 16-18 gauge wire here) from that distro block, run wire to the amp and pc's turn on leads as well as to the poss. terminal of the aux socket.

doing it this way will cut power to all the equipment when the key is pulled. oh...and i'm making an assumption that you know how to wire a relay. if you dont, let me know and i'll help you with that as well.

samiam05 · 09-15-2006, 10:24 PM

Thank you very much that will help me a lot, I will try to figure out if not I will be back here asking you for help. I should be done with most of the fiberglass fabrication and installing the AC vent, AC control, head unit and screen by Monday I will post more pictures then, regarding the psu I actually will be using a an old PIII laptop with a dock station under the passenger seat and I am still trying to figure out a way to integrate the head unit with the computer since it has TV tuner and DVD player otherwise I will just have to use the A/V switch on the monitor switch between them again thank you for the help

samiam05 · 09-20-2006, 06:43 PM

Ok so I am almost there, I think!!! Anyway I got most of the wiring done thanks to Scott_fx he was a great help letting me know what I needed to do. But let me tell you the whole idea is a royal PITA

I never imagined that it will take all this time and effort but hey what the heck otherwise I will be watching TV. So I got the bezel done as you see (I have not attached it yet to the dashboard permanently but it sets there and won’t move thanks to the Honda design) piece of advice about the paint if you have a Honda Civic with black dash board use semi-gloss paint DON’T use flat, gloss or even texture they all suck. I also got the laptop up and running under the passenger seat with an on/off momentary switch in the bezel (the shinny little one on the right) I got the head unit all wired but I am still trying to figure out where in the earth to put it, it looks like I will have to get rid of the cup holder (I will miss my morning coffee) and make a new fiberglass cover for this area however if anyone got an idea to save my cup holder please let me know. Oh and the reflection on the screen is only visible if you are setting at the back in the middle but if you are driving or in the passenger seat there is no reflection or it is very minimal at best I think this is because the screen is deeply recessed
Sam

samiam05 · 09-22-2006, 07:07 PM

I have a question if someone care to help, I am feeding the sound from my computer into an audio-in in my new head unit and sometimes I got a feedback in the audio, it is weird but I can hear the car acceleration through the speakers!! Just like when you playing a video game I have no idea where is that coming from and I have no problem if I am playing a movie or CD in the head unit only when I am playing mp3s from my computer, any ideas out there. Do I need to install a filter or something somewhere?

Prot · 09-22-2006, 07:56 PM

alternator whine?