The making of a 1DIN Car PC - design opinions?

[Jonas_R]

So i'm starting to make myself a 1DIN car pc.

First I found this 1DIN radio with a flip out holder for a tablet Eonon M1003:

Video:

Plan was to use this combined with a dell venue 8 pro that I had and then connect that to a usb hub and have vagcom and zeitronix connected at all times.

However nothing never goes as planned, thought the radio looked a bit ugly to be honest and it sticks out alot.

So decided to do something else instead.

I bought myself a Pipo X8 from ebay.de which will be arriving next week.


I will gut the Pipo X8 and use it for parts:

So I have to ideas and would like people's input to which one I should go for:

Touch screen mod:
I will remove the plastic tablet holder which will leave a steel plate where I can secure the touch screen. I will have to cut aprroximately 20mm of the steel plate which is ok because then the screen will sit inside the radio and not stick out.


Option 1:

• Only use the amplifier, aux input and motor control for the holder from the radio and scrap the rest
• Mount the small mainboard of the Pipo X8 inside the radio
• Make a clean new front for the radio with usb, aux, sd card and power buttin in the front.
• The front will have a small latch that will open like a cd-drive when the screen pops out.

Upsides:
Clean look and fairly easy to do.
More space inside for flex cables and boards etc.

Downsides
No FM radio - This can be bought from cartft or similar.

Option 2A:

• Reuse the whole radio
• Make new frame around the radio front panel with a latch that opens like a cd-drive (I will keep the current display etc.)
• Mount mainboard inside

Upsides:
FM Radio, USB and SD access so no need to turn the pc on to listen to music
Relative easy to make new frame around radio with latch.

Downsides:
Radio front panel will still stick out
Not that much room to fit flex cables and mainboard.

Option 2B:

• Reuse the whole radio
• Make new clean front and dont use original radio front panel = I will have to make room in the new front for buttons, display etc.
• Mount mainboard inside

Upsides:
FM Radio, USB and SD access so no need to turn the pc on to listen to music
Clean front and the radio panel does not stick out.

Downsides:
Not that much room to fit flex cables and mainboard.
Much more difficult to make a new front radio panel.



I will update the thread as I progress with the build.

I'm leaning towards option 1 to be honest, not sure I really need the FM radio that much.

[Henkjan]

I'm leaning towards option 1 to be honest, not sure I really need the FM radio that much.

my thoughts also. and you can use yr phone hooked up to aux (or BT) if you need radio

[Jonas_R]

Yeah that is true good point, could also just setup up a hotspot with my phone and use a app to stream it.

[diesel des]

Interesting setups. Will be good to see what a finished setup looks like.

Sent from my LG-H955 using Tapatalk

[Jonas_R]

So had some time today and got the plastic holder off.

Looks like a nice backplate for mounting the touch screen.

[bhlegit]

how did this go? interested in doing the same..