C-Macc's 2 Scratch Build

[mayhem]

Time for a small Update.

Well i have put in the shelfs and allso been working on the Doors for the front.

Here you can see the work done on the front.





I then did the door with White plastic Spay can undercoat as per OMDs build logs and then the surrounding frame with black plastic under coat. Once that had dried i used Grit 2000 wet and dry and sanded down . I then did a fine mist of white on the black and black on the white and again rubbed it down with 2000 Grit wet and dry. This revealed a fair few dimples and large deep air lines marks on the wood so i filled them and sanded it down again. I then re undercoated it all.

Iafter 24 hours in the airing cupboard and a pre warning to every one in the house to stay out i then pulled them out to find a grate big dent across one of the door (was i annoyed i think so) My kids had thrown in some plastic toys and damaged them ...

So again after filling and redoing the under coat and another 24 hours i then used Gloss white car spay paint on the doors and Matt black on the frame work. And again after sanding down with 2000 Grit wet and dry and re doing it all again a few times i then left them 24 hours to harden ad dry but this time i fitted a lock on the airing cupboard to stop any mishaps lol ....
#
Once the 24 hours was up i then re sanded them down with 2000 grit wet and dry and applied several coats of clear Lacquer and left them for 8 hours and then wet and dried and re lacquered them. Once that was done and dryed after 24 hours i then fitted the locks.

I still need to polish them but ill do that laster on. Pics below ...

[mayhem]

Just placed a order for this.




Looking forward to implementing this into the CP.

[mayhem]

I had to change the moniter to a VGA connection version.

So i have orderd this from http://www.carcomputer.co.uk/

Lilliput EBY701-NP/C/T



Now for the specs

Specifications:

MODEL:EBY701-NP/C/T
COLOR SYSTEMAL-4.43 / NTSC-3.58
DISPLAY SCREEN: Diagonal 7 inches/ 178mm (15:9)
DOTS PIXELS:1152000 pixels(800*480)
AUDIO OUTPUT: ≥100mW
CONTRAST RATIO:200:1
BRIGHTNESS: 400cd/m2
VIEWING ANGLE: 45/60(U/D),65/65(L/R)
INPUT VOLTAGE: DC 11-13V
POWER CONSUMPATION: ≤10W
DIMENSION (mm): 192×115×30


Now after much research i found that the 800*480 is just the moniters Res. Ill be running it at 800*600 giving me full scope to run it with GameEX.

Ill post more info and pics of this excelent peace of eqipment once it arrives.

------

Working on another panel, this time its the base panel.

Again we start buy getting a send belt sander and then using 100 Git run it over the whole board. This rips up the rubbish revealing all the pits and tears and holes. Then using filler i fill what i can see and trust me what i can see is only half of what is there.

Pic's of the wood before i start -





First set of filler layerd down






Then i sand it down with set and dry 180 Grit and then take another look. Again there is still loads of pits and holes so off i go again filling and sanding. I had to do this 5 times and it took about 3 hours to do.

1st coat of filler / primer and again more filler.





3rd primer filler and sanding.



Once i was fairly happy i then used Prim filler and undercoat from a spay can and then give it a good spay over. I do this 4 times at 15 min intervals. Once its dried i look again and fill all the holes and pit with filler and then again sand down with 180 grit wet and dry. Once the ready i then layer over 3 more coats of filler / primer. This takes about 40 min to do. And again I look for more bits and holes and marks and again i do the same as before. All in all its takes about 12 hours to do to get its close as possible to what i would call near flat.

5th sander filler and priming....




On the 5th time ive moved to 400 grit wet and dry sand paper.

Getting there ....

[mayhem]

Added 1 coat of plastic primer after sanding down with 1200 Grit wet and dry.




then a second coat again sanded with wet and dry 1200 grit after 1/2 hour





and then stuck in the airing cubord for 24 hours .....

[mayhem]

Lilliput EBY701-NP/C/T

Well My little Lilliput arrived from http://www.carcomputer.co.uk/ today. I must admit I'm very happy with it. there are a couple of niggles but these can easily be overcome. Any way on with a small review of the item in question the Lilliput EBY701-NP/C/T.

Delviery.

The screen came well packed in a over sized box. First it had Bubble warp around it then polasyrene Peanuts. This was excellent and only took 2 days to arrive. Thank you to http://www.carcomputer.co.uk/ , some places like to make you wait so that a big plus point.
The Box on the outside doesn't really contain that much info and is a pretty normal boxed LCD. There is a Photo on the front that has a picture but this is not of the actual tft screen its of another screen the HR 701-NP which got me a little confused at first as i did not order that version. Photos below of the box.





Whats inside the box

on opening the box you get a small flap with "Car Entertainment world" Written across it. On opening this flap you get to see it all neatly in place and well sealed up and a nice piece of paper warning you to check everything before you remove the seals. If you remove the seals and something is missing you will get a restock Charge of 25% which would equate to Approx a £40 charge this is quite a stark realty check. It all so Warns that if the seal is broken then the screen the warranty is Void (Consider it Void before i even opened the box) .... Taking note of these pre warnings i then put it to the side.

Below you can see a nice selection of cables and the wrapped TFT Touch screen.

• VGA extension lead with USB adapter
• AVI / Sound / VGA Brake out lead
• Docking station for the screen with a Sticker on it for mounting on dashboards if you so require.
• Small remote control
• UK power adapter rated at 12V * 200 Milliamps
• A cigarette Lighter Power Supply with Suppressor (nice to see)
• Black and white Manuel
• Driver CD for touch screen interface.







Once all the packing was removed and checked for damaged i took a look at the screen it self. Now the screen feels quite heavy which is a good sign and feels quite robust. The buttons have a nice solid click to them when depressed and are raised about 1 mm from the surface. You can see the IR receiver is Just above the buttons on the right which doesn't look out of place and is in a good position. I hate receivers at the bottom of the screen as sometimes you have to lower the remote for it to work correctly. One thing i was suppressed not to find was a protective plastic layer over the screen itself.






On the back side there isn't that much to see. You get the Sticker with the model no but there is no serial number which was different. On the left hand side you can see the Brake out cable input as well as the power supply plug point. You can all so see the speaker holes to the left on the back plate. and the mounting point for the dash board mount. One thing i noticed straight away was there are plenty of air vents dotted around the back and again this is good to see. All so there is a Styles' holder on the back left with a styles inside.






Will update after my tea ....

[mayhem]

Oky more info on the Lilliput EBY701-NP/C/T from http://www.carcomputer.co.uk/.
The brake out cable for the touch screen is very well made it has 2 Wings that you depress to fit the lead to the monitor. It is very good as once it is fitted it is going no ware fast. The powe cable is standard and has none of these features.
Photo of the lead.....

The pen
Once thing im not to impressed with is the Pen that comes with the system. after a little play i found the pen feels like it is scratching the surface of the screen and feels real cheap in dead. After 2 times of pulling it out of it recess of the back of the screen it then became lose. The pen now doesn't seem to hold its place very well. So my advice would be to go out and buy some nice pens for the Nintendo ds instead as these feel much smoother but will not fit in the back which is a shame.

The remote control.
To my surprise it also came with a remote which i didn't see till it fell out of the box from its hidden recess. Now the remove is a very cheaply made remote. It can turn off and on the monitor and flick between the av / Tv settings quite easily. At distance its to say the least a bit dodgy mind you saying that its not a bad thing as these were made for a car not a living room so its not a big problem. One thing ill say which may sound a little wired is that it did not change over my 42" Samsung TV in my living Room. Why did i say that .... well its because i have several MP3 player's that have these cheap controls and when playing with them in the past they have turned over East Enders (which does not impress my lass) this one didn't do that thank god ...
Pictures of the remote... (ill take some after as ive just found it lol)

Installation of the Lilliput EBY701-NP/C/T.
One thing that was missing from the box is the fact it doesn't come with a DVI to VGA converter but to be honest at the price its cost it is defiantly not a deal breaker. You can get you off line for as little as £1.50 if you look round or by asking at your local computer supplier. Now the Brake out cable comes in two sections. There is a din style plug on the end that connects the VGA brake out section. All you do is screw this together. Again nice idea as this stops it from being pulled apart. The total length of the cable is approx 4 foot which is a good length. This can be extended with a monitor extension cable. There is also Audio in built into the cable(mono only) but these are only a few cm long so you'll need to get a extension cable for them if you like to use the sound on the screen. I won't be testing the sound as i have no need to use it. There is all so 2 yes 2 RCA jacks for video. I presume these are for extra systems on a car for the likes of reversing and the like. But that is handy to know for maybe a hidden 3rd screen for system setting and such things ...






USB - 4 wire retentive Touch screen system and software.
On the brake out able there is a USB 2 cable that attaches to the PC for the Touch screen system. Do not install this until you have used the driver cd and installed your drivers . Now for a list of supported systems that the software supports ...
• Windows 98 SE, ME, NT, 2000, Xp , Xp 64, Vista 32, Vista 64, Dos (in fact all MS OS's)
• Linux
• Mac
• Windows CE
• Embedded XP
• HP Digitizer 32 and 64
• QNX Neutrino RTOS v6.3
(now come on this is excellent i think some Hardware makers need to take note of this company)
The CD also contains OLD drivers and PD Documents for the system and even teaches you how to build your own modules for Linux (My lass had to revive me after i saw that).....
Now the software is created by eGalax - http://210.64.17.162/web20/eg/drivers.htm (Driver there) Just in case you need them. Latest Version is 5.0.1.5310.
Ill not go into the software to much but it contains every you need to get the system up and running and works well. I have tested on Xp , Xp 64, Vista and Vista 64 without any problems what so ever.

More to come on the screen

[mayhem]

A few people have ask why a second moniter and how esp on a aracde system ..

so here is a demo preview of WHY !!!!!

There is still a whole load of work to do but hay life wasnt created in 1 day ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61QsSA5t7D8

-=Enjoy=-

Oh and any comments or question ill try to answer them ....

[mayhem]

On with some painting .

The base bord was then smoothed down with wet and dry 1200 grit and then painted with Black spray paint.



after 4 coats of black paint and then sanded down with 2000 grit wet and dry.



Then i layerd 6 coats of Varnish on the wood and wet and dryed each coat with 2000 Grit wet and dry and then once it all had dryed after 24 hours added the rails.




As you can see the rails extend right out and this is how the pc will be fully accessable from the front of the cab. To add to that the Rail allso unclip off allowing the Pc tray to be un hooked and worked on with out the need to be near the cab ...

[Pob255]

Nice i like the touch screen control.
would be nice if when playing music you could keep the controls on the touch screen while the visulations played on the main screen

[mayhem]

Im working with some one about making that happen. Its taken a while getting the Juke box to move across automaticly to the second screen. Atm im using macros with wait timeing but ive made a better version now wich i spent all night on. Ive still got a load of work to do on the software.

I only showed it becuase on other forums i had many people asking why a touch screen in a arcade system and why two screens.

I was going to use a normal LCD but i thought they were a little old hat now esp with small screens comming down so much in price. Might as well get the best i can out the system and make some use of there features.

[mayhem]

Bad wood working skills test fiiting the TS to a CP. Its a little tight but it goes lol ..

Had to lose the warrenty though .... Speaker has been remove and the back pannel has gone to boot as well. Ive sticky taped the back PCB to the back of the screen to hold it into place. that babys is going no ware fast i can tell you.

This is not the final (could be though) but more over giveing me idears how to fit it.

[mayhem]

Well a few more updates.

I've been working in the crazy British weather. One min it dry and lovely next is pissing down with rain and boy does that annoy some one whose just spent a few hours spay painting. Any way on with the show as such ...

To start off with I Painted the top Sliding draw for the PC to fit on and then after a few days of it hardening in the airing cupboard i proceed to use T-Cut and polish on the wood to get a smooth deep shine.





After a few about 20 min of letting the polish filtrate i then give it a good rub down with a cloth.




As you would expect it has a nice deep fish to it.
Next I proceed with the Touch screen Cp and sanded it down and then undercoated it a few times. Pics of it in different stages below.










The low and behold it started to rain ... arrrrrr...



After drying it down and waiting for the rain to stop i then did a quick sand down with 1200 grit wet and dry and then spayed plastic coating over the top.


The once that is dry you supposed to wait 24 hours lol ... did i hell. I then started to paint it.

[mayhem]

This is the vairous stages of layering paint on the lcd CP ...











Then off to dry in the airing cuboard

[mayhem]

Another load of build pics for you to looks at. First we have the LCD mock yp set up and then its been layered with varnish. There is how ever still some damage to the system due to the lovely British weather but that's just life. im sure once my kids get their hands on it it would be worse ...

[mayhem]

Then i fixed the LCD section to the base CP and then re sprayed it a few more times ..





Once that was all dry i then polished it down. you'll notice some damaged due to the weather but that is just life and since there i need to put a graphics and also a plastic over the top its not to much of a problem.

[mayhem]

and to complete this round. here are some photos of hopefully what its starting to look like....