2k1Toaster's Civic of Death! Ominous Warning for 56K users!

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 12:15 AM

======================== UPDATES 20/01/2009 ========================
New CarPC: No pictures yet, will try to update soon
HID Retrofit at Post #55: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/1285183-post55.html

======================== OLDER 24/02/2007========================

Ok, just got back from Denver area where a fellow mp3car member GoHybrid helped me out with my screen bezel. (Thanks man!)

I built the case all myself before hand using a 30W laser cutter and 4 sheets of acrylic. As of now, it is not finished. My plans are to buy some electroluminescent strips or pads in blue, and glue them between the black opaque 3mm bottom and the 3mm clear right above it. That way the entire clear section glows blue, and not just spotty like using LED's.

Still a work in progress.

So here is a picture filled worklog...

EDIT: So many pictures, so little bandwith...

If the pictures don't show up then refresh. If they load slowly, it is because they are on a computer with a processor that is over half my age old. 300Mhz with 16Mb of RAM, and a slow crappy cable connection. And I can't upload to imageshack because there are so many and I don't have that time. And it wont take any of the zip files I try, so yeah... Sorry.

EDIT #2: Ok, I got all the pictures on Imageshack's servers now and my router has finally calmed down from blinking the crazy light. It was going pretty fast for a while there! So enjoy!

EDIT #3: You need a computer with at least 1Gb of RAM or a pagefile of 1Gb to view this thread happily. Who doesn't have a 1Gb nowadays anyways?!

EDIT#4: Disregard #3. I updated the pics to be thumbnails so hopefully that lowers the strain on your computers. As always, any opinions (good or bad) are appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Case:

Here is the case sprawled out after being cut. The big hole in the back is obviously for the back panel connectors.

You can see the hard drive stands here for the 3.5" and 2.5" drives.

Here you can see the holes for the M2-ATX. There are 4 holes because I was going to put power, ignition, and ground in 3 of the holes, and then all the others like power switch and remote lead and sirius connector out the fourth. But Then I decided against that and just shoved crap out the holes as it fit!

And you can see how shiny the plastic is, because yoiu can see the clear piece in this piece's refelction.

Here are the fan grills close up.

My brand spankin' new 2.5" laptop drive. 60Gb. I am going to use this to store the OS, and then the 3.5" for the media. The 3.5" has developed some bad sectors over the past year, so I hope the 2.5" will hold up better.

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 12:21 AM

This past week, I broke my TS overlay!

I was repositioning the screen because of the not-so good angle it was on. The old position was just fine except for when viewing lightly coloured movies because the image would invert. Stupid boo-boo on my part. So I decided to reposition the screen and in doing so the glass cracked along the bottom of my shiny TS.

So I got a replacement:

Only problem is that it is for the lilliput 619 and 629 which look just like my screen but aren't. I have an Ex-Audio screen which came out before these screens and the touchscreen connector is on the left side of the screen. This new one obviously is not. It is also more dense so that it seems not as bright, and also needs a harder push to get it to work. All in all, I think the Ex-Audio Hong Kong ripoff screen is better quality than the lilliputs. I used to think they were equal but after this I am no longer convinced.

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 12:25 AM

Here is another pic of the case being built. No top on it yet, but still shiny even though there is so much dust. This plastic loves to pick up static.

Here is my new HD mounted in its cool little sleeve.

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 12:32 AM

Here I just put in the standoff screws into the motherboard and made sure they were semi straight and centred enough for the components to be placed:

Here I have the stuff screwed into the standoffs, and I have started gluing some magnets onto the bottom. There are matching magnets on the case's sides so that the top and sides slide off but are held together magnetically from the inside. That way it looks clean on the outside.

All the stuff on the board bottom:

With the top on the case:

Here you can see the Civic letters vut into the top to match the side:

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 12:42 AM

The Ghetto Rigged TS:

Ok, feel free to

at this! I know I did!

Since the TS is now on the wrong side of the case, I had to extend the 4pin connector. So I did by taking a header cable I had laying around and also a PCB header with the pins and shoving them together with a little brute force and plyers!

The plug to go into the TS overlay's plug:

The donor header... Kinda useless now, but I needed pins!!!!

The mating (Cue Enforcer joke):

And no project is complete without some Duct Tape! It wont be like this for long. Only another day or so. It was because the following day which is now today I was and now did go to Denver to work on my screen with GoHybrid so I needed easy removal.

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 12:44 AM

The semi-final case until I get some EL strips (note the ducttape

):

My case and the 2nd smallest cat we have ever had:

Our 2nd smallest cat:

Our newest and smallest cat at only a few months old...

spoonraker · 02-25-2007, 12:52 AM

Looks good so far, I really like that case.

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 01:02 AM

Here is the Civic Screen v1.0 with nice gaps around it at the time. See how it is angled upwards. That was a boo-boo. My plan was to use a Metra double din kit and just chop off the sides and glue them to the sides. At the time when I planned to do that I had a Dremel. Then the project went to the backburner because it wasn't really top priority. Then I forgot about it. And then I cleaned up my workbench and found the double din kit, and was like, "WTF! I thought this was in the car!

" Then I took a look and slapped myself. I had driven around for a year with gaps.

Now by this time, I no longer have my dremel. It was lost to an unfortunate Thermite "accident". But I assure you it went out with a bang and lots of FIRE!!!!!

And the dremel was my only power tool, and it had stopped working very well at that point and I has lost every single bit for it except for this weird square bit that I never figured out what it was for or how to jam it in the dremel. Well for the dremels last day we epoxyied it to the outer case. Needless to say it went bye-bye too.

So this is what I came up with for the short span of 3 days. And decided I didn't like it that much and posted about some sort of spot puddy that required no sanding or anything, and could just be applied to fill in the gaps and be done with it. I got no such help, but GoHybrid offered to help at his shop and it was only 1hr away. Well 45minutes tonight, traffice was moving at 80-90 mph!

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 01:13 AM

So here is where GoHybrid came in. We decided to screw the whole no paint no fuss because it was more fuss than it would have been worth. We were going to use "Allumite" but, went the Bondo, sand, prime, paint way. And all within 6 hours. Wow. This guy is a genious. A real good fabricator.

EDIT: 6hrs with Dinner!

First we took out all the rubber Plasti-Dip crap I had shoved in there, and then we made it look like an alien with some masking tape:

And you gotta live how a honda just comes apart when needed!

And the best part is that everything fit right back together too! Didn't loose any of those stupid metal clips, so I was proud.

Got some light sanding action going on here:

Then we gooped some bondo poo on it. Not bondo brand though. It starts with an E, and is supposedly better than the brand stuff:

EDIT: The stuff that starts with an E is called "Evercoat" and it is a fiberglass reinforced body filler

It hardened in like 5 minutes to the point of sanding.

Then we peeled off the painters tape (before it completely hardened to keep the staright lines opposed to messy lines as if it hardened all the way):

And that is the final product.

j/k

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 01:18 AM

Then we remasked it with a bit of an edge showing on the monitor casing:

Then after much sanding:

And this point there were still some gaps, but it was only the first coat of bondo:

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 01:35 AM

This is more sanding after a second coat of Bondo has been applied, but this time with some added resin so that it is a lot thinner. It takes longer to cure, but still is pretty fast. This is the final bondo coat:

Ready for primer-ing:

Primered:

Here you can see some of the little dusty particles that have accumulated on the primered surface. There was quite a bid of sanding today! Also he said the atomizer on the paint sprayer was too small for such thick primer, so it dried before hitting the piece, resulting in these little things.

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 01:36 AM

After sanding the primer lightly:

Painted and put in:

The rest are kinda blurry and I will get some good ones in the daylight hopefully tomorrow along with a carwash!

GoHybrid · 02-25-2007, 09:21 AM

it was alot of fun working with you and i think things turned out very nicely! thanks for the opportunity!

for those wondering: the filler product we used was short strand fiberglass-reinforced filler by Evercoat. This stuff is just sick strong in thin sections and feathers very nicely. You can harden it with the same hardener as Bondo even. Then we thinned it out with polyester resin for the second coat.

Did 2K1 also mention that 6 hours included dinner? ;-)

2k1Toaster · 02-25-2007, 04:56 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by spoonraker

Looks good so far, I really like that case.

Thanks. I didn't see your post alst night because I was too busy uploading stuff!

Quote: Originally Posted by GoHybrid

it was alot of fun working with you and i think things turned out very nicely! thanks for the opportunity!

for those wondering: the filler product we used was short strand fiberglass-reinforced filler by Evercoat. This stuff is just sick strong in thin sections and feathers very nicely. You can harden it with the same hardener as Bondo even. Then we thinned it out with polyester resin for the second coat.

Did 2K1 also mention that 6 hours included dinner? ;-)

Indeed it did turn out nicely. I love it. My mother and sister also love it! I can't believe it was all done in 6hrs!

Well minus dinner!

That dinner was good too.