Thread: New car-puter installed - yippee

nice

Foz,
Some more detailed info including costs would be appreciated..
Did you buy in Aus or import one from the US? How you ran the power supply etc.
Cheers
CraigE

The touchscreen monitor came from CDT Technology cost $480
The computer came from Aus PC-Market Online eStore and cost around $700.

I fitted a fuse box on the engine side of the bulkhead and ran a cable from it to the aux battery under the passenger seat. There is a 20amp fuse at the battery end of the cable. The compuer has a 5 amp fuse, monitor 5 amp (3 amp would do) and the GPS has a 3 amp. The power then goes through the switches to the left of the steering wheel to each device respectively.

The cables, fuses, terminals and fuse holders came from Dick Smiths and Supercheese etc and probably came to about $100 all up.

I took the dash apart as follows.

Removed the grab handle on the passenger side.
Undone the heater control panel. left hanging on cables.
Removed the binacle panel.
Removed the windscreen vent covers.
Removed the padded top panel.
Removed the radio/switch cluster panel.
Removed the dash main panel. This gives access to the cable entry grommet in the bulkhead.
Removed the radio from the cluster and cut out the plastic rectangle below the radio. Drilled holes to match the holes in the computer bezel plate. Mounted the computer behind the cluster with the cluster sandwiched between the computer chassis and the bezel plate. Had to use longer screws than those that came with the computer. These should have been 3.5mm screws but I couldn't find any so I used self tapping screws instead. The computer chassis is aluminium so I had no trouble in making a thread.
Once the computer was mounted and the all the cables run I put it all back together leaving the raio till last.
The monitor mount is fixed to plate where the ash tray used to be. The plate sits above the dash and a bar of steel sits beneath with two 6mm bolts clamping them together. The bolts go through where the ash tray was so no holes had to be drilled. I can also mount a camera on here to film my off road quests! I will post a picture of the plate later.

The mouse type GPS unit came from GPSOZ - for all your GPS requirements. and cost about $150 This is mounted on top of my snorkel. The Garmin unit which I've had for yonkeys donks sits to the right of the steering wheel on top of the speedo binacle.

This set up is the mark 2 version. The mark 1 being a desktop computer mother board mounted in an aluminium box that was bolted to the back of the cubby box. Although this was cheap it didn't look anywhere near as cool as the Artigo unit and there were cables everywhere.

I was a bit nervous about pulling the dash apart at first but it was a piece of cake and the results were worth it.

Ray

Originally Posted by foz.in.oz

Just got to try and explain to the missus what it is next time she gets in the car and why is there no money left in the bank

just remember when the missus tells you to
"Get Lost"

dont laugh---

Ray,
Awesome. Thanks for that. I have a laptop in mine at the moment, but that is a bit bulky and a car puter would be ideal.
Maybe one of mods can post this as a sticky.
CraigE

Originally Posted by foz.in.oz

The touchscreen monitor came from CDT Technology cost $480
The computer came from Aus PC-Market Online eStore and cost around $700.

I fitted a fuse box on the engine side of the bulkhead and ran a cable from it to the aux battery under the passenger seat. There is a 20amp fuse at the battery end of the cable. The compuer has a 5 amp fuse, monitor 5 amp (3 amp would do) and the GPS has a 3 amp. The power then goes through the switches to the left of the steering wheel to each device respectively.

The cables, fuses, terminals and fuse holders came from Dick Smiths and Supercheese etc and probably came to about $100 all up.

I took the dash apart as follows.

Removed the grab handle on the passenger side.
Undone the heater control panel. left hanging on cables.
Removed the binacle panel.
Removed the windscreen vent covers.
Removed the padded top panel.
Removed the radio/switch cluster panel.
Removed the dash main panel. This gives access to the cable entry grommet in the bulkhead.
Removed the radio from the cluster and cut out the plastic rectangle below the radio. Drilled holes to match the holes in the computer bezel plate. Mounted the computer behind the cluster with the cluster sandwiched between the computer chassis and the bezel plate. Had to use longer screws than those that came with the computer. These should have been 3.5mm screws but I couldn't find any so I used self tapping screws instead. The computer chassis is aluminium so I had no trouble in making a thread.
Once the computer was mounted and the all the cables run I put it all back together leaving the raio till last.
The monitor mount is fixed to plate where the ash tray used to be. The plate sits above the dash and a bar of steel sits beneath with two 6mm bolts clamping them together. The bolts go through where the ash tray was so no holes had to be drilled. I can also mount a camera on here to film my off road quests! I will post a picture of the plate later.

The mouse type GPS unit came from GPSOZ - for all your GPS requirements. and cost about $150 This is mounted on top of my snorkel. The Garmin unit which I've had for yonkeys donks sits to the right of the steering wheel on top of the speedo binacle.

This set up is the mark 2 version. The mark 1 being a desktop computer mother board mounted in an aluminium box that was bolted to the back of the cubby box. Although this was cheap it didn't look anywhere near as cool as the Artigo unit and there were cables everywhere.

I was a bit nervous about pulling the dash apart at first but it was a piece of cake and the results were worth it.

Ray