Tackling the dreaded center console design that will house an Ipad for control

[artisticent]

Well just as I was about to send my car in for the beautiful Nappa leather interior job, I decided that I would still be frustrated over the design of the stock center console. Even though I have a nice new dash and binnacle, I still I my old ones that were in terrible condition so 2 nights ago I decided to get them out and start my design for my ultimate set up. First off, I am not looking to design something that is so out of place for the Delorean. Even though I intend to custom install an Ipad for total control over the D, I still would like to retain the look of the stock console. I am starting by making a mold of the existing dash and binnacle so that I can build outside of the car. One of the characteristics I noticed when sitting in the D is that the dash has quite a decline before reaching the top of the center console. Obviously you would never want the dash or center console obstructing any view out side but the center console could still be raised a few inches and be blended in to the dash and look great. I also want the area where the ipad and controls will be to be slightly facing the driver and pushed 2 inches off center. This will all make more sense once I start the actual build and post pics. Here is just the first stages of taking the fiberglass mold and mocking up the front to start designing. Ill keep everyone posted.
The greatest quality about the car is that the front stage is simply made up of bolt on componetnts. the dash, binnacle, center console and knee pads. My intent is to remake these items maintaining the spearate component aspect. Also it will make it very easy to return to stock if need be. But I feel that lots of people would be interesting in having a more functional center console keeping it "era" correct looking but housing more practical media components. I will be hiding the window controls behind a very easily sliding cover and a hidden area with 5v USB connectors for the charging cables and devices. Considering the idea is to have the ipad in dash, you wont need access to your phone as it will all be controlled via the ipad. Any idea will be welcomed as I do want this to be a generally desired console.

Thanks

[artisticent]

These are very quick mock ups that will be modified a lot. The molding job at this point doesnt need to be anything special. Just for me to have a place to start.

[bdmiko]

This will look great when it is done. I am thinking about doing something similar with an android tablet but haven't figured out how to control all of the missing light switches, temperature control, radio, etc. Looking forward to watching your progress.

[jangell]

I want to do something similar, although a bit more involved. My plans extend to replacing the instrument cluster itself with an LCD driven by an older model iPhone (which will probably be a 5s by the time I get around to it), and an iPad in the center console for all the apps I don't want to write myself. Such an update will require a (reversible) redesigned dashboard, and replacing the vacuum actuators with solenoids. I'm a bit delayed by the whole "replacing the engine due to a hole in a block" thing that I'm working on at the moment. My A/C is leaking at the evaporator box, so after the engine is replaced I'll have to rip apart the dash anyway...

An iPhone can drive an external HD display (only 720p, but hopefully they'll bump that up at some point in the future), and modern iPhones are easily powerful enough to do everything I want. The phone would drive a completely custom UI, likely implemented through iOS 8's support of the Apple SceneKit API. They also require very little power, and thus can remain on even when the car is off, both of which avoid many issues associated with conventional car computers. The iPhone has a Guided Access mode that lets you lock it into specific functionality (say, only run a specific app and not allow you to exit to the home screen), and iOS 8 provides SDK access to the Touch ID scanner (so, I could use the finger print scanner to authenticate instead of a key, if I wanted to go that route). You can turn off auto-lock and then dim the screen to 0 (which I understand actually turns the screen off) when the car is off.

To interface the car with the iPhone, my plan was to use multiple Arduinos and Bluetooth LE. There are a few Bluetooth LE Arduino-compatible devices being released that make this pretty easy, and the Arudino is a low-power device, so it can remain powered when the car is off (even so I'm going to add some more batteries and possibly a second alternator and dedicated circuit for these devices to keep up with the load; need to do some more research first). The app on the iPhone will be able to gather data from these devices, and will be able to issue commands as well (say, to unlock the doors, adjust the cruise control cable position, control the eventual power steering motor... then I just need a way to apply the brakes... :) ). Similarly, the data from the MegaSquirt EFI computer will be read via an Ardino and sent to the iPhone for display on the monitor via Bluetooth LE. There are some other things I want to wire up, like a Bluetooth tire pressure monitor (http://www.mp3car.com/blogs/146483_hardware-review-portal-media-bluetooth-tpms-module.html) I just discovered existed.

I might use an LTE iPad mini instead of an iPhone, mostly because I want it to have a net connection and it's cheaper to have a tablet on your cell plan than a phone.

For the climate controls, I was thinking of using another iPad in such a way that it could be easily removed, which would be useful since it would also have all the car repair manuals on it. I was also wondering if I could build a simple gimbal of some sort so I could tilt the screen towards the driver or passenger a bit without removing it form the dash. This housing would also make it easier to upgrade to different iPad models in the future. An app would be provide the actual climate control UI, but it would also be available for other apps for things like GPS navigation. It would be particularly cool if I could get the iPad to act as a CarPlay display so that my everyday iPhone could be used through it for Siri, music, etc., but I'll have to wait for someone to reverse engineer the protocol for that to work. Otherwise, I might resort to a CarPlay-capable head unit and the smaller iPad mini.

Assuming I don't go with a CarPlay radio or can't figure out how to make the iPad act as a CarPlay display, there are some computer-controllable car radios like Car2PC, and I remember an older one that may not be around anymore. Since these days I mostly listen to stuff from my phone, and since most radio stations support streaming, I might just just my existing radio as a glorified line in jack for the iPad/iPhone.

In principle none of this sounds TOO hard -- for me, the toughest part would be building the new the dash (I've never done fiberglassing before, for example, but then I've never taken an engine out of a car until recently either). It's more just getting around to doing it, since I've been threatening to build various implementations of this for many years now. And with the engine and A/C issue I have at the moment, it'll probably be another couple of years yet, unfortunately.

Mine likely won't look as "era correct" as yours is going to. I've also been thinking of making the dash slope less (possibly just straight horizontal) so that I can get more space for whatever gadgets I want to cram in there, and more height for the iPad and likely repositioned center vents. I plan on making all electronics upgradable -- for example, the instrument cluster screen wouldn't be in a housing, but would effectively be free standing (a VESA adaptor plate would bolt it directly to the dash structure), and the iPad area would be designed to be upgradable without having to rebuild the entire dash so that I can upgrade the iPad periodically.

I will be very interested in how your project proceeds -- I find it incredibly valuable to see what other people have done and how they approach these kinds of modifications, and I'm quite curious to see how yours comes out. Good luck!

-- Joe

[Exolis]

To interface the car with the iPhone, my plan was to use multiple Arduinos and Bluetooth LE. There are a few Bluetooth LE Arduino-compatible devices being released that make this pretty easy, and the Arudino is a low-power device, so it can remain powered when the car is off (even so I'm going to add some more batteries and possibly a second alternator and dedicated circuit for these devices to keep up with the load; need to do some more research first). The app on the iPhone will be able to gather data from these devices, and will be able to issue commands as well (say, to unlock the doors, adjust the cruise control cable position, control the eventual power steering motor... then I just need a way to apply the brakes... :) ). Similarly, the data from the MegaSquirt EFI computer will be read via an Ardino and sent to the iPhone for display on the monitor via Bluetooth LE. There are some other things I want to wire up, like a Bluetooth tire pressure monitor (http://www.mp3car.com/blogs/146483_hardware-review-portal-media-bluetooth-tpms-module.html) I just discovered existed.


Sounds like a cool plan, though I have a few questions for you.
1. Why use Multiple Arduinos? Something like the DUE has many outputs and inputs, I can't imagine needing more for something on the simpler side.
2. Why Bluetooth and not a hardwire?
3. Not much of a question, but more so advice. The arduino is capable of going to sleep and drawing small amount of current. Have the arduino control a relay to power the additional circuits. So basically your phone will connect and wake up the Arduino, the Arduino turns on the other loads when the engine is running and IGN On. This will prevent having to add any additional batteries or a 2nd Alternator. Everything you mentioned should have little effect if the Alternator has enough capacity to charge. Should you need more, I would recommend finding a higher capacity alternator rather then adding a 2nd. The only time you'll find 2 Alternators and 2 batteries on a stock vehicle is on a HD Truck. Even the most fancy cars with a crapton of electronics will run well on 1 battery and 1 alternator.
4. For safety reasons, I would heavily recommend never having an iPhone or any device control or even have access to anything like Cruise Control, Power Steering(not much you can do with that anyways other then log Steering Angle data), and especially the brakes. On modern cars, these modules have specific and very extensive work done on embedded hardware and embedded software.

Sounds like a lot of work ahead of ya, but sounds pretty interesting. As an Automotive Test engineer that works on Electrical modules, I recommend you keep it safe and keep it simple. Make sure you shield proper wires because you are adding a lot of different frequencies and can easily come into a lot of EMI and EMC issues. Don't try to duplicate, just make something similar with simple functions. Good luck!

[jangell]

Sounds like a cool plan, though I have a few questions for you.
1. Why use Multiple Arduinos? Something like the DUE has many outputs and inputs, I can't imagine needing more for something on the simpler side.

I wanted to use multiples so I didn't have to run wires everywhere through the car. Having separate Arudinos allows me to keep the software on each simpler, and lets me give each a dedicated function. It's really just to artificially segment usage and keep each component simpler. It also makes it easier to add new functionality in the future if I've designed for multiple modules. That said, I haven't quite figured out exactly what I'm hooking up yet beyond "everything", so I don't quite know how many inputs I'd need yet.

As an aside, I'm going to use the classic Atmel Arduinos instead of the ARM ones (just because I don't need that kind of power), and preferably physically smaller ones, so I can tuck them into different parts of the car easily and not have to run a bunch of wires everywhere.


2. Why Bluetooth and not a hardwire

Mostly easy of installation (limited wire runs), but there is also a practical limitation: it's not easy to hardwire anything into an iPhone/iPad. To even get access to the API docs you have to join Apple's Made For iPhone program, which is not cheap. Or you can jailbreak, but that makes it harder to upgrade the phones as unsancationed APIs change or disappear entirely over time (plus it takes time for jailbreaks to be released, so the phone has to run an older OS most of the time). There was an officially sanctioned dock cable to serial port adaptor at one point for such projects, but I don't think anyone has made one for the Lightning connector yet.

The Bluetooth LE API in iOS also seems to be pretty simple, and doesn't require jumping through any hoops to get it to work, so that's the main reason I'm leaning towards it. While it is arguably a security risk (in that someone could hack the Bluetooth), I have the whole "security through obscurity" bit going for me. Or I could encrypt it. I expect I'll have bigger problems if someone actually tries to hack the electronics in my car.


3. Not much of a question, but more so advice. The arduino is capable of going to sleep and drawing small amount of current. Have the arduino control a relay to power the additional circuits. So basically your phone will connect and wake up the Arduino, the Arduino turns on the other loads when the engine is running and IGN On. This will prevent having to add any additional batteries or a 2nd Alternator.

Good point; I knew of that, but since I've done just two Arudino projects so far that are always plugged into mainline power, I haven't needed it yet. My multiple alternators and battery thoughts date from when I was going to use a Mac mini, which while they only use ~40 watts of power (and like 10w when in sleep mode), it's still a power hog compared to a cell phone. I was a bit concerned about running a DC/AC convert continuously to drive the large LCD monitor that replaces the instrument cluster, but until I test I won't know how much power it draws while the car is on. I doubt the cell phone or Arduinos would be much of an issue.


Everything you mentioned should have little effect if the Alternator has enough capacity to charge. Should you need more, I would recommend finding a higher capacity alternator rather then adding a 2nd. The only time you'll find 2 Alternators and 2 batteries on a stock vehicle is on a HD Truck. Even the most fancy cars with a crapton of electronics will run well on 1 battery and 1 alternator.

That's good to know -- I don't have much intuition about how much power I can safely draw. I know the stock alternator is underpowered, and I have a beefier one in the car (140 amp, I think), but I always remember the battery meter never quit reading as high as I expected. But that's probably a badly calibrated meter or bad grounds or something like that.

If I did wind up having a significant power draw (like, way more than a higher amp alternator would handle), I'd probably mount a second alternator and battery and create an entirely separate power system that shared grounds with the main system, with the logic being that I wouldn't have to worry about messing with the power to the critical car systems (engine control, starter, etc -- I can still drive home without my computers). I'd rather avoid that, though, since it seems like a pain to set up. I'm not even sure where I'd put another battery, much less hoe I'd mount the alternator.


4. For safety reasons, I would heavily recommend never having an iPhone or any device control or even have access to anything like Cruise Control, Power Steering(not much you can do with that anyways other then log Steering Angle data), and especially the brakes. On modern cars, these modules have specific and very extensive work done on embedded hardware and embedded software.

While I think it would be neat to be able to drive my car around a parking lot with my iPhone, I don't think I'll ever actually build anything like that. I'd like to have ABS too, but I don't trust any code I can write to work in such a critical application (I write 3D graphics apps for a living -- when that crashes (which happens more than I'd like), people don't die). Not that I haven't thought about how such a thing would work (ABS and remote control). And those special modules you mention aren't really documented for DIY projects, since they don't want to be liable for stupid people. Even if I did build a remote control thing ("just because I could") I'd have multiple physical safeties before it could even be enabled and completely electrically (and possibly physically) disconnected when disabled, and constant keep-alive pings between the remote and the car that would cause it to slam on the brakes if it ever lost the connection for more than a few fractions of a second. And even then I'd probably be too scared to actually power it on and test it anyway.

As such, pretty much everything I do will be reading values out of the various systems and displaying it. Only non-critical systems will be controllable through my code (windows, door locks, HVAC, etc). I have lots of other projects that don't involve killing myself that I should work on...


Sounds like a lot of work ahead of ya, but sounds pretty interesting. As an Automotive Test engineer that works on Electrical modules, I recommend you keep it safe and keep it simple. Make sure you shield proper wires because you are adding a lot of different frequencies and can easily come into a lot of EMI and EMC issues. Don't try to duplicate, just make something similar with simple functions. Good luck!

EMI shielding is something I worry about a bit, given what I've heard about how noisy a car's electrical environment is. I'll be dealing with this in a few months when I do my MegaSquirt install, as I understand the tach wire needs to be properly shielded. This again is one of those things I don't have good intuition for, nor how to even tell if there's an EFI issue or how to test for quality shielding.

I'm a decent programmer, but a fairly amateur electronics guy. That's why I like the Arduino so much -- it's like electronics for programmers. So mostly I'm making this up as I go along. :)

Thanks!

-- Joe

[mluder]

Oh I'm following this thread!!!
I can't wait to see how it turns out.

[jawn101]

That does look like the nicest incarnation of this idea yet, but personally I'd never put this much work or faith in a consumer electronic device with a programmed death timer like an iPad. I have drawers full of "two years ago's" tablets, iPhones, iPads, iPods... they are designed to have a usable life just long enough for you to build your wallet back up and get that "ooh, shiny!" feeling about a newer model. Batteries die (not a huge deal if it's going to get constant power), hardware support drops, OS and App versions/patches stop being released, until finally new and more resource-intensive apps, new connectors, new wireless specifications, etc render the device completely obsolete and unusable.

My fear is that in 3 years an "old" iPad will look even more dated than a Craig. At least the Craig will be retro.

Either way, you're doing a great job mocking this up and I can't wait to see how it comes out!

[artisticent]

Jangell---as you have stated in your vision, there is a lot that can be done and your plan is very ambitious. I am trying to draw a line in the sand of how intricate I want the result to be. There are certain things I wouldn't want want eliminate simply for the reason that if the tablet malfunctioned in any way, I don't want to be disabled. I'll leave the gauge cluster and HVAC controls. The tablet ultimately will be a monitor of the gauges and HVAC. As well as obviously and primarily being the media center. My goal is also to not turn the car in to Tesla, spend as much as a Tesla and end up with something that is nowhere near stock looking.

EXOLIS--- I love your background in engineering and potentially running by you certain scenerios. I own a home automation company and we specialize in taking products that no one has found a way to integrate and found a way to do it. That applies here with this project as I would love to find a way to have more of an OBD2 system for monitoring over more components in the car and possible 2 way communication.

I will be making the components in the center console modular. Removing the tablet section and remaking a new one or modifying it for a different or more modern tablet would be very easy. The console and dash design will be built to stay the same.

My priority list for the purpose of a built in tablet is:

Media center/navi/camera display (front and rear)
HVAC control (mounting the HVAC behind the iPad modular section)
Gauge display
Drive train moitoring

JAWN

I get what you mean about the current technology being outdated quickly but the reality is this is the direction of every home and automobile. I'm on top of it in the home and want to be just as versed in auto. I've had a Tesla for a few weeks and am convinced that the center tablet type control is the near present standard. Also being able to connect to a network and upgrade, download and modify programming is an amazing feature.

[jangell]

Jangell---as you have stated in your vision, there is a lot that can be done and your plan is very ambitious. I am trying to draw a line in the sand of how intricate I want the result to be. There are certain things I wouldn't want want eliminate simply for the reason that if the tablet malfunctioned in any way, I don't want to be disabled.

Right -- for me, that's any critical system necessary to the operation of the car itself (steering, brakes, engine control, etc); I can limp home without an instrument cluster (heck, my speedometer hasn't worked for years), and I may rig up an idiot light for fuel as an emergency backup. I expect it wouldn't be a very comfortable drive home if the HVAC system gets stuck running the heat at full blast on a hot summer day, but I'm figuring that since I'll have built this thing, I'll know how to manually disable anything that's stuck. That's the theory, anyway.


I'll leave the gauge cluster and HVAC controls. The tablet ultimately will be a monitor of the gauges and HVAC. As well as obviously and primarily being the media center. My goal is also to not turn the car in to Tesla, spend as much as a Tesla and end up with something that is nowhere near stock looking.

The only reason I think I can get away with the level of mods I want to do in a DeLorean is because of Back to the Future. Retrofitting any other car, especially an older one, would come across as sort of odd, but thanks to the movie it's not too unexpected in a DMC. At least that's the rational I'm going with.

Tesla is the closest to what I want to personally see for the car user experience. They don't go quite as far as I'd like just yet (for example, one of my eventual goals is a ring of cameras that creates a seamless 360 degree panorama with zero blind spots -- hence the need for a large LCD to display it on, although there are technical issues to overcome, primarily generating the image quickly enough to be useful while driving at highway speeds. I also want to put side-pointing cameras at the corners of the car so I can see to turn without sticking my nose into traffic), but they have the right philosophy of moving away for the old, ingrained automative philosophies and towards the future. The only reason I haven't considered getting one is that I do JUST enough long trips that the 265 mile range would be a hinderance, and having to run an extension cord 50 feet from my condo to my parking space to charge it. Still, maybe a Model 3...


I will be making the components in the center console modular. Removing the tablet section and remaking a new one or modifying it for a different or more modern tablet would be very easy. The console and dash design will be built to stay the same.

That's very much what I was thinking of doing as well. I'll be following your project very closely -- I've only been talking about mine and doing some preliminary design, but you're actually building yours. Good luck!

-- Joe

[Exolis]

Jangell---

EXOLIS--- I love your background in engineering and potentially running by you certain scenerios. I own a home automation company and we specialize in taking products that no one has found a way to integrate and found a way to do it. That applies here with this project as I would love to find a way to have more of an OBD2 system for monitoring over more components in the car and possible 2 way communication.



Sure, shoot me a PM whenever, be glad to help! As for OBD2, the definition changed a little bit where it only applies to Engine and Transmission, nothing physical changed about it. Look into CAN(Controller Area Network) Bus, it's basically the communication between all modules in the vehicle that is messaged based in a ring topology. i.e. In a modern vehicle, VDC/ABS module reads Speeds data and sends it out for other modules like the Meter to display the Speed. Which I believe Arduino is capable of handling CAN communications (with appropriate additions).

Jangell, shielded wire is very easy to deal with. Basically just GND at least one side of the shield, which can be done by crimping a terminal to it or to a pin if used in a connector.

[jawn101]

You're absolutely right that this is the future of automotive instrumentation. But the difference between that and consumer grade electronics is what I'm worried about. There's a reason it's taken the auto industry so long to catch up - the requirements are very different as the components are subject to much different stresses. Also, have you ever left an iPhone in the car on a hot day? It goes into extreme temperature panic and will refuse to work until it cools down. You may find yourself spending a lot of time looking at a yellow exclamation point rather than slick graphics if you're not careful.

I like the idea of the modular center pod, but I hope the overall size of the devices doesn't increase too much to still use that area over time.

[jangell]

You're absolutely right that this is the future of automotive instrumentation. But the difference between that and consumer grade electronics is what I'm worried about.

That's quite true. Although there are also much higher bars to clear when you're selling something to even one other person, much less hundreds of thousands of people, vs. doing something just for yourself.


Also, have you ever left an iPhone in the car on a hot day? It goes into extreme temperature panic and will refuse to work until it cools down. You may find yourself spending a lot of time looking at a yellow exclamation point rather than slick graphics if you're not careful.

I haven't actually seen that on my own devices, and although I've known about it I didn't actually think to consider it for my installation. One of my plans was to come up with a discrete place to install solar cells to run the HVAC blower motor to keep the car cooler, especially since the DMC does get very, very hot when left out in the sun. I figured I'd channel some of the air directly past the devices to keep them operating properly. While I don't mind doing a custom interior, I was hoping to keep the exterior pretty stock, although building a custom T panel covered in solar cells had crossed my mind. You can also do some other things to improve device cooling, like removing the back panel of the phone or relocating its battery so that it doesn't heat the other components as much when charging. it's harder to do that with a device you want to make removable, though. At least iPads and iPhones have metal bodies that won't melt in the sun, anyway.

I briefly looked into electrically-operated A/C compressor as well, but they all seem to require a lot of power to operate. For example, googling suggests the average car has 1800 BTUs of A/C, but the only 12v compressor I could find puts out only 3800 BTUs. Electric cars and hybrids both support the higher voltages needed for more powerful compressors. So there's no practical way you could replace the stock compressor in a straight up gasoline vehicle with just an electric one, not to mention it would be far less efficient in normal use. I sort of wondered if I could rig it up in parallel to the engine-driven compressor already in the car just so I could use it to keep the car cool when I'm not in it, but the fact that it's probably a very high amperage device rules it out for the limited number of solar cells I'd be able to mount on the car anyway.

I also toyed with the idea of electrically-tinted glass coatings that would let me darken the windows when the car is off, thus keeping it cooler. The problem with these is that they aren't yet entirely transparent when energized (unless you get the really expensive LCD panel style ones, which wouldn't really work well in a car), and they require power to be transparent -- the last thing I want is to have an electrical problem on the highway and have all my windows black out, even if I do have cameras installed (especially since a power loss would take them out as well).

-- Joe

[Exolis]

Yeah, having an Electric Compressor would be awesome, but unfortunately impractical for Normal conventional vehicles. I do like you imagination and can appreciate the creativity, though I think a less expensive and simple solution to keeping the vehicle cool when not in use would be either a car cover or those foldable sun shades for windshields.

Don't think you can be discrete enough with solar panels, at least large enough to power a blower motor. With all this additional talk about EVs/HEVs, really makes me wanna gut a Murano HEV or Leaf and put it in my car...

[jangell]

I really can't think of a discrete place to mount solar panels. I had seriously considered the T-panel thing in the past, and might go with that if I need the power. I also thought about making some kind of custom louver with panels embedded in the individual louver things (whatever they're called) -- more surface area than the roof, and a bit more subtle (dark blue panels on black louvers), but a lot more build effort. I'd probably do that if you louver was cracked, but it's in pretty good shape at the moment.

I was thinking that solar cells would be used to keep a 12v scooter battery (smaller than a car battery, so easier to find a place to put it, and without the risk of draining the starter battery by running the fan for too long) topped off, in addition to having the existing the alternator change it. Couple that with using an Arduino to roll down the windows when it's not raining and only turning on the blower when the car hits a certain temp, I might be able to keep the car cool enough without using too much power. I've also been considering an electric heater inside the dash to warm the cabin up in the winter; while a remote starter would work to warm the car up with the engine as usual, the DeLorean is too loud to really do that in a residential community.

Mostly I'm too lazy to deal with a car cover or those reflectors you put in the windows. If I could find electric tinting that failed to clear on power loss I'd definitely do that as well. I think it's due to how they work like LCDs -- the particles are unordered when there's no power, and look opaque/frosted, but when power is applied they align and light can shine through. Doing the opposites seems like it prove difficult. Interestingly, some Google searches found some tint films for sale specifically for car windows from a few places, and I think they do fail to opaque, which seems horribly unsafe. I don't think they sell it for windshields, though, just side windows (but it's just a film -- you could easily apply it unsafely to the windshield).

I did consider putting an EV drivetrain in the DeLorean instead of a Monaco/Premier engine, but I decided I should keep it "simple" for my first engine swap. At some point in the distant future I'd like to put a separate electric motor on each rear wheel (something a recent Mercedes AMG does, although I remember even more clever "electric motor in the wheel" designs as long as 20 years back), since then the "transmission" is decoupled from the engine, and thus it is much easier to figure out how to fit everything in the car. Nearly the entire engine bay could be filled with batteries, and some mounts just need to be built to point the motors at the wheels, and some driveshafts have to be cut to mate the two. That seems easier to me than cutting the frame to fit a different transmission (which seems to be a Porsche 911 or nothing), and then figuring out the precision work required to get whatever gas or electric engine you get to mate exactly with the splines on the transmission.

-- Joe

[Kane]

I am currently looking into doing something very similar but with a Nexus 7 tablet instead of an iPad. I can see how one could control something like the headlights or power windows with this kind of thing since those are just electrical circuits, but how does this work with HVAC? The HVAC system is all vacuums and valves and such. How could it be electronically controlled? What did you guys have in mind for tackling that?

[jangell]

My plan was to buy some stepper motors and use then to control the flaps instead of the current vacuum actuators. I think it may be possible to get motors used in other cars, which will conveniently already have some kind of mounting hardware on it. I really have to get my dash apart before I know for sure what I'm going to do.

-- Joe

[artisticent]

I was almost considering a new electronic system out of another vehicle. Seeing as I hate these old vents and will do the 92 eclipse vent upgrade mod, there wouldn't be a lot of work involved. It's really a matter of finding something that will look good and work well.
Also I will have a small auxiliary vent tube running in to the back of the center console where a lot of the electronics will be.
As far as apple or the nexus or any tablet goes, I dislike apple very much for many reasons, however the couple of things I do like about it is the connector to charge it, airplay, it's wifi range capacity and the available apps. I am an android phone and tablet guy all the way but the reality is apple's one ipad product is almost 50% of the market share over the 100s of android tablets. Crazy. Either way my design is modular and basically any controller will fit so it really will come down to what will control and display the electronics the most reliably

[jangell]

I like Apple myself, but I agree -- the platform doesn't matter in this context, as the device is almost incidental to everything else that needs to be done. Not to mention that as long as the dash is built well, it probably won't be tough to switch platforms in another decade or two when neither platform is viable anymore. :)

-- Joe

[artisticent]

So I spent a little time today building up some modular sections of the center console and have decided I need to either design the tablet to be horizontal (for some reason I just liked it vertical) or I go with the Ipad Mini. Also the Brights, hazards and the idiot lights in the hvac control can definteitly be removed which means the hvac cluster can be reduced in size considerably if I am to use the stock control. ill widen the hvac display by about in inch. leave the temp and fan on either end and drop the selector down to in between. This will cut the display in half.29840