HPP

What I meant was all 3 vents in the center of the dash. You have 3 *****, so, if you were to put a ring just inside the vent hole (but in front of the air directional thing-y - basically picture the stainless bezels people put in), and spin that ring to control the HVAC.

So the first one is 4 position (or whatever it is) and controls the blower speed. The middle is hooked up to the cable (tricky, but anything is possible). And the far right is hooked up to the vacuum switches. What you might need to do is use gears or linkages to move the post under the **** we currently grab hold of. Like I said, I'm not sure how to actually do it, but it has to be possible.

That would more or less hide the HVAC controls, or, you could put a small indicator on the dash and mark the bezels to make it look like it was supposed to be there all along.

Probably the easiest idea would be to use the PC to control the blower speed **** and put the other 2 in the traction control area. Not sure just how good that would look, but, it would work without having to hide the cable/temp **** anywhere.


7" isn't too bad in a wide screen. I like what I've seen. What I really would want to have though is something that is wider to fill in the space, but could be squeezed into the current head unit location while keeping the HVAC controls where they are.

It might be possible to move those controls down the width of the inner frame bezel, allowing for more vertical screen real esate. My car is at home in my drive way right now so I can't really analyze it.


Your pics require membership to view them.

lo_jack

iTrader: (27)

Yeah gotcha on that - put them in all three of the center ac vents?

That was my next idea - and why i dstroyed an AC control unit to begin with. By mounting them recessed or something instead of flush, you are right oyu could get more real estate. I didn't get to explore that enough.

Ok I will work on that...LS1tech, as great as it is, has no place for me to house that image and its too big to be an attachment.

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

Bernhard, the guy in my thread named Firebird with the 10.4" monitor, was planning to put the 3 ***** in the 3 vents. I wouldn't want to do that myself though. It may look good, but no vents.

I'm pretty sure I have a way to lengthen the cable. So if that obstacle were removed, where would you put it?

The vacuum lines go to the right, above the glove box and there is a universal looking plug for all 6 lines. They can be seperated there.

What are these bezels you are taking about that people place in the vents? I don't think I've seen those.

HPP

My bad. I had seen the pics a number of times and for some reason thought they were a slip on trim ring. Turns out it's really either a vent replacement, or some paint touch up -
http://home.comcast.net/%7Ecfdemarco...s/Interior.jpg

http://finalfate.londonforces.net/vent3.jpg


However, what I was thinking still ought to be possible, just require even more fabrication than I first thought.

You know how the vents are recessed a bit? Picture the area in front of the vents (or between the vent and the driver). Picture that (the wall of the tube hole, essentially), being able to rotate, independantly of the vent, and not blocking air flow. Now just hook that rotating section up to the HVAC controls (via gearing or whatever). Then you could even go so far as to paint the settings info on the rotating ring itself, and have a small hash mark centered just underneath the vents for the writing on the rings to line up to.

In my head it seems like it would look good and be kinda trick. But whether it would when translated to reality remains to be seen. lol

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

That first picture has replacement vents, like from the new G6 or maybe a Vibe. I've seen those on some different Pontiacs. They look good, I'll have to do some more digging on those.

I think I see where your going with your description. It sounds very complicated and I don't think it can be done. I think I saw something similar on a prototype show car. It was all hand made though. I'm just trying to find something very reasonable to do. I wouldn't want to make the ***** and such from scratch.

I wonder if any other cars have a smallish climate control center. It would be nice to transplant a smaller setup into the cig lighter area.

HPP

My Grand Prix (91) has push button climate controls, that are placed vertically off to the left side of the stereo. It fit better visually with the stock headunit, than it does with my Kenwood Excelon.

But it's a small piece. 2 buttons at the top for fan speed (press them multiple times to go up or down, sorta like a flappy-paddle gearbox), a buton for each vent location/mode (heat, vent, A/C, Max, Defrost, Bi-Level, etc), and one slider for temp setting.

Here are some pics from Autotrader to give you an idea. You can't really see it clearly, but it's the size of the opening on the right side of the radio.
http://images.autotrader.com/images/..._A.562x421.jpg

http://images.autotrader.com/images/..._A.562x421.jpg

I'm not sure if this would work, and I don't think it would look all that great, but, it's just an idea/option.

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

I think I would need to go to a junkyard and actually look behind several controls to try and find one that would work.
For right now I think I'll just get a second one from e-bay and cut out the center **** and mount the 2 outer ***** like I mentiond before with a nice bezel to hide the seams and then put the whole stock assembly in the glovebox.

For my use that seems to be the best way. It's not very often I use the temp **** anyway. Summer it's on full cold, Spring and Fall it's windows down driving and in Winter it's mostly on warm and maybe full hot sometimes. Still, it's not too hard to reach the glovebox on those rare Winter occasions.

HPP

So you'd have redundant fan speed and mode controls?

What about the idea of cutting out the fan speed control, rather than temp? Being an electrical connection, it shouldn't be too hard to control that via the PC. That would require a screen permenantly in place though. But, you could even script it to somewhat automate it. Or, you could make a rocker switch (similar to the TCS switch - or something on the throttle of the Saitek X-45), and use that for fan speed, since it doesn't really need to be circular, it just needs to have up and down (and off). That might allow you to squeeze the whole thing into that area, and keep it looking very clean and require less console re-fabrication.

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

No redundant controls. I just don't want to cut up the stock control panel. I would just unplug the wires and vacuum lines from the original control and transfer them to the individual controls below the monitor.

You can't relocate the cable control below the monitor without legnthening the cable and sleeve. That just seems like unecessary work to me. Did someone suggest putting the temp and selector ***** in the cig lighter area? I didn't see that.

Although it's true that the electrical fan switch is the easiest to replace, but having just the temp and selector ***** visable just doesn't look right to me. I'm kind of **** about the overall look. The fan speed is the most used by me so I would want it to be proper looking. Even if I could convert it to a button that you pressed multiple times to change the fan speed and I could then fit the 2 ***** and the button into the cig light area, I'm not sure I would do it. It would have to look uniform, like the button in the middle. If it can be made to look good, them I might do that.

As far as looks go, I'd rather have the fan and selector ***** visable and some alternative to the temp selector, but I'm at a loss to know how to do that.

lo_jack

iTrader: (27)

I messed around with changing the ***** and mounting hardware a little. I put electric guitar hardware on the factory **** posts, using ***** with set screws. It doesn't make the workings of the switches any smaller, but it makes the interface area smaller. So instead of 3 1.5" ***** and the graphic behind it that says what it does, I was aiming for 3 half inch diameter ***** with no information about what they do. It freed up some more space, and since the switches need not actually be next to each other, allows you to mount them more places.

I just didn't get much farther with that idea.

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

That's a good idea in concept, but the switches behind the ***** are already very close to one another.

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

Here is lo_jack's picture:



lojack, did you lose the use of the cupholder? It's in the shadow and I can't see it.

If I were going to do a similar install, I think I would seperate the faceplate from the body and mount the body in the glove box for easy CD access and then mount just the faceplate in the cig lighter area. It could float there so you wouldn't have to do any cutting.

Back to my own setup. Assuming I relocate the A/C controls to the cig lighter area I still have the faceplate sized controller for the H700. For that I will mount it right above the rear view mirror. There is just enough room there. If you don't have a H700 then you could mount the radio's faceplate there and the body in the glove box. That would be stealth and look good.

As far as relocating the A/C controls, I can't help but feel like were a bunch of monkeys trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
I think I need to find an expert on these controls to see what the options are for changing them to something smaller.

HPP

What is an H700?

CD access should be somewhere in the center console, even if the slot is hidden. (and preferably with a slim drive for (hopefully) less weight)

It's not "OEM-like", strictly speaking, but.... if you want to go with a 10.4" or some other big screen, what about hinging the screen on the passenger side and putting light springs on it, with one of those press 'n lock/disengage mechanisms you find on cabinets or entertainment centers. That way you press on the driver's side, it pops out, with very little pressure it opens up and is held there (somewhat) while you adjust your controls, then just close it, press to latch, and you're done.

Probably less fabrication and cutting that way, and it doesn't require space in the glove compartment, or eliminate your other switch area.

I know you had mentioned the idea of motorized screens before, but that might be a heck of a lot of effort, plus something extra to break.


Alternate ideas for the controls would be to convert the fan speed and temp *****. The electrical conections are pretty easy to deal with, and the cable is mechanical, that means you can use gears, linkages, and even electrically controled (not PC controlled) servers, like something right out of an RC car. This would let you resize the vacuum ****, and make the other 2 controls however you'd like, and place them virtually anywhere.

lo_jack

iTrader: (27)

JWW thanks for posting my pic.

I took out the cupholder because at the time I didn't need it. I could have kept it in with a little more modding, but I didn't take the time to do it. They way I did it, I could also have nearly returned that to stock. Also keep in mind that is the stock height shifter, and when I subsequently changed over to a hurst with an LSS, it is much closer to the faceplate from the shifter, which turned out well.

Yeah the AC control thing starts messing with you and you start to think "how can this be so hard?" If I knew more about vacuum lines and that metal cable I could maybe come up with more practical ideas, but you are right; we need an expert. HPP your ideas seem like you know more about it but the RC stuff and small electronics I know little to nothing about. Care to elaborate on that?

Overall there is just a lack of space for the equipment we want to ha ve in arms reach. I was even toying with some Millenium Falcon type concepts, using the t-top devider in the roof as a place to put swtiches, but decided thats kind of impractical, and I don't have a wookie to co pilot.

JWW explain more on this H700. Is it like a larger scale PAC SWX? It sounds like its opening up some mounting options. If you put your ac stuff where i put my stereo, you should be in really good shape. You may need to seperate them from each other and use slightly smaller *****. I believe I measured that once and found that all three ***** with switches behind togeher might take up just slightly less room than my stereo, were I to seperate them from each other and move them closer together. I believe there is just about 2" of wasted space in the panel they are mounted in, that you could recover if you seperated them and mounted them closer together.

One other thought I had on AC controls was putting them in the side of the console up by the driver's right knee. The passenger would never be able to get at them, but the lines will all reach. You could use the smaller *****, but more or less keep the actuators the same, since there is room behind there, just not for large ***** to stick out.

HPP

When reading your driver's side mounting idea, I was thinking about what Jason said about the controls behind the ***** being real close together even with the large **** size. If that were the case, you could cram them closer together by using extensions and pushing the middle one behind the outer 2.

Regarding the RC stuff, it's really simple and straight forward. It's just that the servo and control technology there is somewhat mature. Strength could be an issue, but then, it's basically just a motor, should be swapable.

On an RC aircraft, for example, you have a tab on a control, like say the rudder. 90 degrees to that you have a servo with an arm mounted on it, and a linkage (simple wire) connecting the arm to the tab. When the onboard receiver gets the command, it moves the motor left or right, which in turn moves the rudder left or right.

Now you could replace the direct linkage with gears. And replace the transmitter/reciever combo with a direct electrical control. Basically I was just using RC as a frame of reference.

The end result would be you could have a rocker switch that was purely electrical that controled the temp cable. Heck, you could even hook that up to something to add indication of where you were on the left to right (cold to hot) travel of the cable. Really shouldn't be that hard. Then you could mount it whereever and however you liked. Or... you could control it through the PC if you wanted to at that point.


That's thinking about controlling the existing control end/interface. It might be possible to come up with something better at the other end of that cable. But I don't know what's there or how it works.

lo_jack

iTrader: (27)

Me too - its way down in there and I cannot see where the cable or the vac lines terminate. We need one of the serious racers who has stripped all of that out and has seen it to tell us whats up in there.

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

The Alpine PXA-H700. That's what I use for x-over, EQ, etc...

If your transplanting a regular CD player then the glovebox is a good spot, if your talking about a slimdrive CD-ROM drive then there are all kinds of places to mount it.

I considered hinging it, but my shifter got in the way in all directions.

I did have the idea of a movable screen, not necessarily motorized. If you mount the screen sticking further out of that dash hole and build a fram around it you could put the whole assembly on tracks so that it could slide up or down. You could just leave the stock A/C controls in place (or maybe recess them just a little if needed) and have the screen raise up when you need to adjust the controls. Now you could lift it with a linear actuator or you could use a vacuum actuator. The vacuum actuators I'm talking about are like the ones in the vents that change the airflow direction. They have a lot of power, but are a little slow to react. They are very cheap and easy to control, though. I'm just not sure building the whole thing out would look very OEM like. If I could positively make it look factory, then I would do it. The bonus feature of this design is that the screen gets raised closer to eye level, but it does block the vents.

There may be a way to make the track stiff so that you could just raise it with your hand and it would stay there. That would be fine with me. I might even leave it up during the Spring, Fall and Winter when I'm not really using the vents and then just shuffle it up and down in the Summer when I'm using the A/C. I think it's a good idea. I may look into it some more to see how OEM looking it can be made when in the down position.

HPP

Good point about the shifter. Hadn't thought about that.

Damn, this is like playing chess against a master, every move is countered. lol

What about a garage door concept? (the non-segmented doors) Have it pivot near the top and slide up, into the dash. The top pulls back and prevents the bottom from kicking out too much and the whole thing retracts inside, granting access to the HVAC controls, and full size optical drives if you wanted to use them and mount them there.

The trick there would be getting the track to work in a way that the bottom doesn't kick out too far and get in the way of the stick, and, to get the top to lock in place when it's down in the usable position.


Or you could get semi-cheesy and put a quick disconnect plug (like a hot swap drive backplane - as an example) on the display, and just pop the entire thing out to adjust your controls, then pop it back in place (sorta like a detachable faceplate for a stereo I guess). It would make it very difficult (if not impossible) to adjust while driving, but, it would be fairly simple, not take up extra space anywhere, and have everything totally hidden. And if you don't use the controls often, it may not matter that they are somewhat difficult to get to. (I can tell I'm starting to run out of ideas )

JasonWW

iTrader: (2)

No, the cable would have to be lengthened. The cable goes from the right **** straight to the back and slightly to the right. So you could move the controls further right, but not further left. There is no extra slack in that cable.

I posted some pics and a link to a guy that converted these controls over, did you see that? He uses a servo motor to control the cable and used a pulse width modulated controller to move the servo to whatever position and hold it there. It's a bit too complicated for me.

The cable setup is really not all that complicated. If you remove the plastic cover panel from under the glove box you will see the cable end housing. Take out one screw and it will come off. The setup consists of one long cable that starts under the dash, goes up to the switch and then loops back down to under the dash again. The cable has a crimp lug on both ends and one in the middle that the **** can grip and make the cable move. The 2 ends of the cable have a spring stretched across the crimped metal lugs to pull any slack out of the cable. Here are some pics to show you.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...echanical2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...chanical3b.jpg
And in the attachments are some pics of the controls minus the vacuum lines and cable.

lo_jack

iTrader: (27)

That's when it's time to take a break.

A solution will present itself. I just got a SWX-I and I think I might toy with that and the steeringwheel controls. MAybe I am not thinking outside the box enough on this headunit situation.

If you take the angle Jason is working, the AC stuff is going to the shifter console and hes moving the HU entirely. So he will be in the clear if he can mount the monitor in a useable way. Moving the HU is what set him free, well more free than me.

Consider this: if you have to have a hu (like me) then mount the hu in the center console, abandon playing CDs with it for a slimline mounted under the monitor in the dash. It may be possible to cut the bottom out of the center console to allow the cd player to mount vertically in it. Wiring would be centralized, which is good. You just can't play a cd player with it because vertically mounting horizontal units doesnt turn out well.

Has anyone tried to put a HU in the center console? I was going to put my hard drive and so forth there, but the space saved in the dash will make up for that.

Jason where are you going to mount your MB, PS And HD?