My Custom Centre Console

[Tillsy]

Two years ago, before I had completed the purchase of my DeLorean, I already knew there was one thing I would hate - the centre console. Ownership only strengthened that - everything from the raised sections, the huge and easily bumped switches, the clock being obscured by the shifter, shallow storage tray, lack of cup holders, etc:

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24104&d=1388271633

To that end I spent over a year designing, and redesigning, my own replacement. After seven months of building prototypes and then, ultimately, the final version I am pleased to finally present the (mostly) finished product:

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24105&d=1388271711

Being as anal as I am, attention to detail has been THE biggest factor of this project. Below is an action shot where you’ll notice the "open door" and "open trunk" buttons are not illuminated - I do not allow this while driving and turn off the lights to make this clear. The lock button flashes when the security system is armed or relaying information. The windows now automatically go all the way up/down with a single press of the button. I have rewired the dash light for the defroster to no longer be stuck on, but instead cycle on/off with the element itself (to show the button has been left on I pulse the button’s light, just as I do for the door buttons when open for example). I’ve rewired my park lights to be on all the time as Daylight Running Lights - and replaced the double-click switch with a single click to compensate, plus my console buttons and clock now dim with the headlights rather than park lights (I’ve also made my headlights automatically turn off with the car). My flux now runs off the car itself and powers up automatically when the doors are open. Relocated the accessory socket to the rear, since anything I want to power would be in the rear tray anyway, and have also added USB charging sockets for iPhone/Go Pro/etc. The cup holders I have located, unlike every other car I have seen in Australia, to not be in the way when changing gears. There are no raised sections, the switches cannot be bumped on, the clock is not obscured, the storage tray is deep enough to actually hold stuff without sliding out while driving, and stacks of other features/design factors.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24106&d=1388271870

[Patrick C]

I love how this looks. Who did you get to make the custom button logos?

[Chris 16409]

What does the "Velociraptor" button do? Eject the passenger? LOL! What about the "Antenna" button?

[Spittybug]

VERY NICE :headbang:

Would love it if you could share some of the construction details, material sources and wiring with us. I have made modifications to mine by using a joystick for the 4 door functions and moved the window switches from their original position.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, please share!!!!!!!!! I think it very nicely modernizes the car's look.

*** just noticed the gear shift lever too! How does it display the gear???? Cool item.

[Patrick C]

*** just noticed the gear shift lever too! How does it display the gear???? Cool item.

I scoped one of these out some time ago:

http://www.gaslock-shop.de/epages/es111647.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es111647_INDY-CATOR/Products/GL-1022

[Michael]

That's just too cool!! I like the shifter gear selector too. The whole thing looks very Apple inspired.


VERY NICE!!

[aipri]

Very cool and very clean, nice work!

[jackb]

:jawdrop:
Stunning. I'm not a fan of the stock center console at all either, but lack the skills to do something like you've done. Your work is incredible.
I am super-jealous.

[Tillsy]

I love how this looks. Who did you get to make the custom button logos?

I hand-designed each of my button graphics in vector format using Adobe Illustrator, enabling perfect rendering at any size and most importantly DPI. This was a nightmare job for two reasons - 1) I am anal about accuracy and detail, 2) It was extremely difficult to strike a balance between accurately scaled detail so they looked realistic and simplicity so they were easy to glance at. The immense variety of shape to the doors and the precise angles (and notch) for the windows being particularly difficult. This was also an opportunity to correct four personal frustrations - the defog symbol on the DeLorean is the square one used on all cars even though our rear window is a narrow rectangle, the trunk symbol used on the DeLorean is a standard rearward opening one whereas ours opens frontward, the unlock symbol on most cars is a padlock pivoted at an angle that padlocks do not pivot at, and the lock symbol on most cars is not realistically depressed into lock position. I had these graphics laser engraved and then black etched into each button by an engraving specialist - I am assured they will wear well and are UV resistant (important here in Australia as UV is so bad these days that plastic, paint, skin, etc perishes insanely quickly). This photograph is of my testing and labelling of each button prior to having them modified (though if you have a good eye you’ll notice some of the graphics are not the final versions):

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24114&d=1388298357

And here is a close-up of one of the completed buttons after laser engraving and black etching with the final version of my graphics:

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24116&d=1388299159

[Tillsy]

What does the "Velociraptor" button do?

That button turns on my animal repellers - here in Australia to shoo away kangaroos, I believe in the US for deers? The way I see it, if you're going to build an animal repeller into a car why not do it with some style ;) Besides, I figure a DeLorean is the only car you could sneak a funny image onto and get away without it looking silly :cool1:



What about the "Antenna" button?

That opens/closes my garage door. Intentionally a little on the discrete side plus requires a little bit of security to activate.

[Tillsy]

VERY NICE :headbang:

Would love it if you could share some of the construction details

Development included a variety of marked (first photo) and cut templates (bottom left corner of second photo) so I could do visual appearance and simulated ergonomic testing with.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24117&d=1388300771

I also made crapload of prototypes with wood to do physical testing with.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24118&d=1388300980

Things changes dramatically during development - if you are able to make out any of the measurements in these images not a single one stayed the same (if you look closely at the photo above you can see even the position of the shifter changed quite a few times in my effort to tweak every last millimetre of space), my original intension for brushed DMC lettering at the top (the space for this remains on the final version but I ultimately left it off in favour of open space), the clock position I experimented with a few times (moving it above the buttons in prototype 4 pictured above was a dismal failure - the buttons were awkward to reach if a drink was in a upholder due to elbow room and the clock viewing angle was not ideal), I constantly tweaked the precise position of each button, the number and type and size of cupholders and trays I bought and tried until I was finally happy utterly peed my wife off, etc.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24119&d=1388301055

For the final version I took my blueprints to a metal fabricator who produced it from 3mm aluminium to provide a balance between strength and weight.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24120&d=1388301173



*** just noticed the gear shift lever too! How does it display the gear???? Cool item.

It uses sensors very similar to an iPhone to detect its exact position, so after putting it through a calibration sequence it knows what gear to show depending upon where it is hovering - very clever :)

[Mike F]

Wow; this is impressive. What kind of switchgear is this? They remind me of elevator buttons. I imagine they have a nice solid, "authoritative" feel to them. Nice work.

[ALEXAKOS]

You've gone way forth mate! Great job!
But PLEASE do add a video of that animal scare sound. Need to hear that. I suppose it sounds like a screech if the horn won' do any scaring..

[Citizen]

Nice job! Warrants adding your VIN to the list of custom conversions on the DMC Registry (at txdmc.org (http://www.txdmc.org)).

Thomas

...

[Patrick C]

You've gone way forth mate! Great job!
But PLEASE do add a video of that animal scare sound. Need to hear that. I suppose it sounds like a screech if the horn won' do any scaring..

If it's anything like deer repellers here in the USA, it can't be heard by the human ear.

[Domi]

Amazing job done here :thumbup:

[ALEXAKOS]

If it's anything like deer repellers here in the USA, it can't be heard by the human ear.
Who said I am human?? Oh dear!!!!!:tongue2:

Didn't know that. Thanx for the info

[Rich_NYS]

Completely awesome. Not just a little bit awesome......completely awesome.

Outstanding work, I now have console-envy!

[Josh]

Very nice work! I can appreciate the time that went into this and wow, what a result!

[aipri]

That opens/closes my garage door. Intentionally a little on the discrete side plus requires a little bit of security to activate.

Can you tell me how you set that up? Did you use a remote and wire it in somehow? I'd like to do something similar.

[Tillsy]

Can you tell me how you set that up? Did you use a remote and wire it in somehow? I'd like to do something similar.
I purchased an after-market keychain remote and programmed its code to my rollerdoor controller - this way I still had the original remotes for our daily cars). I then soldered a short across the contact(s) for the button and, more or less (some security involved to prevent abuse), power it via the console button. Alternatively you could wire a button in parallel to the remote's button, however some remotes use dual contact switches so you'd have to factor that.

[aipri]

Ok got it thanks. So you are able to power it through a 12v source in the car and not the remote battery?

[jfirios]

looks amazing, I did something similar though i added an arm rest with storage. I love the shifter. GREAT Job

[darylfelsberg]

looks amazing, I did something similar though i added an arm rest with storage. I love the shifter. GREAT Job

You have any pics of your's?

[kobachi]

Two years ago, before I had completed the purchase of my DeLorean, I already knew there was one thing I would hate - the centre console. Ownership only strengthened that - everything from the raised sections, the huge and easily bumped switches, the clock being obscured by the shifter, shallow storage tray, lack of cup holders, etc:

What about the raised section bothered you? This is one of my favorite details of the car -- the fact that the arm rests are the same height. I dislike how the center console is so much lower than the door armrest in most modern cars.

Your custom console, of course, looks amazing. I'm curious what the final outer material is. Is it painted/anondized aluminum or a plastic cover on the underlying aluminum? Is there any padding at all? When I was driving my car around with the center console removed, my elbow would get a little raw from rubbing on the hard fiberglass on long drives.

[Tillsy]

What about the raised section bothered you? This is one of my favorite details of the car -- the fact that the arm rests are the same height. I dislike how the center console is so much lower than the door armrest in most modern cars.

Physically I found the triangular section, that exists to provide the required depth for the accessory socket and to create the valley for the window switches to hide in, uncomfortable poking into my arm.

Cosmetically I hated the look of the gear shifter being low, followed by a raised triangle, followed by a low valley with switches, followed by a large raised padded area, and then followed by a low shallow storage tray. To me it looked an utter mess, as if someone had quickly done it to "make things work/fit" during an early development stage but it stayed that way - that's obviously not the case but that's the mess it looked like to me.

I appreciate and share your attention to detail though - you are spot on, the overall height where your arm rests on the DeLorean's console is outstanding compared to most other cars. With one personal frustration though - I find the slight downward slope of modern centre consoles to be a far more natural angle to rest my arm at.

To that end, while I intentionally flattened the entire design of the centre console, one of the countless and subtle design features is I raised the height of the far end to compensate - returning the ideal resting height whilst at the same time adding the slight downward angle I prefer. Here are two photographs that may subtly show this - look closely at the end of the console where it meets the carpet and you'll notice a slight height difference in the two shots (albeit a little exaggerated as in the second shot I haven’t actually bolted everything down yet so nothing sitting snug).

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24326&d=1389401203

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24325&d=1389401173



Your custom console, of course, looks amazing. I'm curious what the final outer material is. Is it painted/anondized aluminum or a plastic cover on the underlying aluminum? Is there any padding at all? When I was driving my car around with the center console removed, my elbow would get a little raw from rubbing on the hard fiberglass on long drives.

I was originally intending to add a small layer of padding. I obviously did a lot of driving at various stages of testing and found the fibreglass (nothing installed) and wood (my prototypes) a little painful after long trips. However once I was at the testing stage of the final two versions made from aluminium, I found no such discomfort with long drives. To that end I abandoned the padding and simply applied my finish - which is a 3M brushed aluminium wrap (I originally made the grain run down the length to match the outside of the car, but in the final version I realised I instead needed to run the grain across the width to match the flow of the console itself).

[Spittybug]

While digging for electrics, I decided to do some prototyping.... The pink is just foam board. I think I'm going to try wood panels in place of the knee pads and the whole center console. Instead of the metallic look that Tillsy did, I'm seriously considering nice light birds eye maple veneer, like in high end cars. The nice light wood should offset the black interior beautifully. I'm still considering installing a touch screen in the passenger side panel or possibly flip down in place of the passenger visor.

[Tillsy]

Instead of the metallic look that Tillsy did, I'm seriously considering nice light birds eye maple veneer, like in high end cars.

If it helps visualise your intended colour scheme, here's one of my wood prototypes.
http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24850&d=1390792453

[Michael]

Wood is a pretty cool idea. I personally think you should look at using a dark color and see how you like it. I was in car last week(don't ask me which one, I drive 30-70 different cars a week). Anyway, the wood was a very close grained dk. brown and almost charcoal color. It was very classy looking and would definitely compliment the grey interior and stainless exterior.

[Spittybug]

I have the black interior, hence the reluctance to go with brown tones. A nice maple would pop!

[Spittybug]

I'm also having a crazy idea to go Tesla.... Instead of console buttons, why not use a touch screen, the Raspberry Pi computer and my new relay board to go with it. Hummmm.

[jangell]

My wacky plan is to replace the instrument cluster with a widescreen LCD (I'm currently trying to figure out how to fit a 27" 21:9 display in there; the tricky part is being able to see over it) driven by a Mac mini. I'd actually drive it with an iPhone if SceneKit was available in iOS. The climate controls would be replaced with an iPad running a custom app (probably have to Jailbreak it so that I can have it launch into the app when the car starts), as well as for apps I don't want to write, like navigation and music.

This of course necessitates getting all the data from the car into the computer. I'm planning on using a series of Arduinos to do the data capture, and send that to the Mac via Bluetooth or USB. Similarly, the iPad will use Bluetooth to talk to Arduinos to handle the climate controls and whatever other functions I might need there. I'll likely replace the climate control vacuum actuators with servo motors to make them easier to control.

All of that also means I'll be making a custom dashboard to fit the displays and such in, which I'll add to the list of things I've never done anything like before.

And then, someday, I want to mount a ring of cameras on the roof and real-time stitch the video feeds into a seamless 360 degree panorama displayed as a strip along the top of the ultra-wide LCD, thus completely eliminating all blind spots. This is slightly tricky, since the cameras have to be as close to each other as possible to avoid distortion, but at the same time I can't mount them in the middle of the roof because then they'd be blocked by the roof itself, unless I put them on some sort of mast, which would be pretty ugly...

Been meaning to do this stuff for years now. Of course, first I have to deal with the holes in my frame, and the hole in the engine block, and take apart the dash to fix the A/C system leak (which would be a good time to put those servos in)... So the Tesla is a little mundane compared to my plans -- well, assuming I ever get around to it... :)

-- Joe

[Timebender]

Go to Lumber Liquidators and take a look at the different kinds of wood as well as laminates they have- there's one that is a dark grey that could work nicely as a dash inlay.

[Spittybug]

Tillsy, would you be willing to share the working drawing of this? While I probably will not go with buttons like you have, the leg work you have done on all of the dimensions is impressive and would be a great starting point for my project. Wood just didn't look good..... still hoping to do the embedded touchscreen/Raspberry Pi.

Thanks!! Owen.

[GS450-Junkie]

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=24106&d=1388271870

Can you tell us about the shifter? What is installation like? Has it always worked flawlessly? Does anyone else on here have one?

Thanks.

[john 05141]

I like the shifter too.
Pricey tough, but do you think it is worth it?
I have read about it before, so my question is also if it always worked flawlessly?

Does it have a battery and how long does that last?
Does it "wake up" or do you have to switch it on?


Great work for the rest. if I may give you one more suggestion..
Get the aftermarket clock with battery and blue digits, it wouls look even better.
Jan

[Domi]

Can you tell us about the shifter? What is installation like? Has it always worked flawlessly? Does anyone else on here have one?

Thanks.

I think its automatic:
http://www.gaslock-shop.de/epages/es111647.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es111647_INDY-CATOR/Products/GL-1022

[Tillsy]

It doesn't have a battery, you wire it into the running circuit.

It has sensors like an iPhone, enabling it to detect the exact angle the shifter is sitting at. You then put it through a calibration process so it learns where each gear is. You can also precisely set the colour. It automatically adjusts its brightness to lighting level.

Works fantastically - I love it. On rare occasions if on a road that's at a funny angle it might momentarily confuse fourth gear with second or second with reverse - that's been the only quirk.

The cable also worked itself out over time, so I've now taped it to the stick to stop that.

However, it doesn't support use with reverse pull setups like the DeLorean so I made a quick mod to overcome that.

[DMCMW Dave]

What does the dinosaur button do?


Sent from phone

[ALEXAKOS]

What does the dinosaur button do?

Sent from phone

HA! Asked the same question.

Apparently in the land down under fierce creatures reign the highways. That is a special tone horn that scares them away.
Lovely icon using a DINO!
Cute!

[ALEXAKOS]

I think its automatic:
http://www.gaslock-shop.de/epages/es111647.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es111647_INDY-CATOR/Products/GL-1022

It's a manual transmission and the shifter head is simply: screw off stock head, screw on gaslock head"
It works by its self depending the agle of the head. (after you have programmed it)

[ifelder]

Tillsy, would you be willing to share the working drawing of this? While I probably will not go with buttons like you have, the leg work you have done on all of the dimensions is impressive and would be a great starting point for my project. Wood just didn't look good..... still hoping to do the embedded touchscreen/Raspberry Pi.

Thanks!! Owen.

I'd also be interested in a copy of the drawing. This layout looks really clean and not having to reinvent the wheel would be nice if I were to ever replace my center console in this manner.

[Tillsy]

It's a manual transmission and the shifter head is simply: screw off stock head, screw on gaslock head

There's no thread and it doesn't even fit our shaft. Had to file the stick down plus drill a quarter-hole to bolt through and hold it in place.

[Dangermouse]

What does the dinosaur button do?


Sent from phone

According to post 10, it is for 'roo repellers, similar to the deer repellers we might use in the states. As in a continuous system rather than a discrete one-time horn that Alex was thinking of.

[Meta]

How does one go about making a built in button for garage control. I wanted to do this with a stock button? Your panel is cool as shit!

[Timeless]

How does one go about making a built in button for garage control. I wanted to do this with a stock button? Your panel is cool as shit!
Take the guts from a garage door opener and make it work with a switch - can even get a custom label print for it. Downside is removing for battery replacement or you can always wire to 12V.