My first car computer was a thing of beauty (see it here). Unfortunatly, that system is long gone. About a month after getting the Bronco I started putting together car computer #2, AKA BronCo-pilot. Yeah, the name is kind of catchty but mostly lame.

I didnt put much thought into the name. The same could be said about how the car computer #2 has been installed in the bronco for the last 1-1/2. It was pretty much just laying in pieces on the floor, everything worked but nothing was convenient and certainly nothing looked good. 

As a matter of fact, I cant even find any pictures of complete initial installation. That says something when even I, the one who takes pictures of all my little hobbies, would not take pictures of this one.

As you may remember my 7" touchscreen LCD recently broke. I was able to fix it but its much to fragile to just have rolling around in the Bronco any more. While it was broken I started thinking more about the best layout for the car computer in the Bronco. I decided that a 7" screen was too small given the size of the car.  I needed something larger. I had always thought of lots of ways to mount the screen such that I still had all the legroom I could ever want in the Bronco. All these mounting solutions were too complex and not pratical. After much deliberation I finally decided that if I got a larger screen I would mount it near the floor in between the driver and passenger seat underneath the dash. This will eliminate some leg room but will be pretty easy to construct.

At this point 15" LCDs seem to be the right mix of size versus price. 15" is a little larger than I wanted, but the price goes up if you go smaller (or you get old P.O.S. screens with really bad ghosting). I found a screen on craigslist that looked pretty good on paper. $65 later and its mine.

Let me start out with the bad parts, it has 1 dead pixel, 1 half dead pixel that works once its been on for a while, one really dim area, its not a touchscreen (yet), and its in a white casing. That said, it was $65 and the right size.

Now let me talk what makes this the perfect monitor for the Bronco.

1. It has tremendous off-angle viewing, even better than my Xenarc!
2. The picture quality is great.
3. Powers on as soon as it is plugged in, no need to hit the power button. This is killer for me b/c I will be essentially "plugging it in" every time I turn on the car computer. I wont have to turn on the computer, then turn on the screen.
4. When it turns on it auto-adjusts the picture so it looks great.
5. If there is no video signal being transmitted, it does not even power up. It only powers up when there is a signal. Many other monitors power up (meaning turn on the backlight) just to tell you to check your video connection, then they turn off. What a waste. This one does not do that.
6. It runs off of 12v and 5v DC, not something weird like 19.2v DC like many other screens. This is actually perfect because my car computer power supply puts out a clean 12v and 5v signal. This screen has the perfect power requirements!!
7. The power supply for the screen has a label that clearly identifs what it puts out and on what pins! I love it! I dont have to mess with the volt meter just to figure out what lines have which voltages.

That is a pretty long list given that I have only owned the screen for a few days so far. Since getting the screen I have been inspired to get to work mounting it in the Bronco. I decided not to do another fiberglass install as I didnt want to put that kind of time into it. The screen install had to fit on under the dash such that both front seats could still be slid foward to allow people in the back to get out. This means that the screen enclosure should be a strong as possible while still being as skinny as possible.

In the end I decided to build it out of aluminum. Its pretty strong, fairly easy to work with, realtively cheap, and easily available from Home Depot. My plan is to build a sturdy frame out of L shaped pieces of aluminum the cover the frame with thinner aluminum sheet, and finally cover the whole thing in padding and black or tan vinyl to match the interior of the Bronco.

So far I have build the aluminum frame. Its light, strong, and holds the screen at the perfect angle.

 The best part is I will have plenty of space behind the screen once its mounted. I am planning on putting all of the computer parts (motherboard, power supply, etc.) behind the screen inside the aluminum enclosure. This will allow me to have a fully functional center console again.

Next I painted the white enclosure of the screen with a black spray paint. I was lucky to find that the texture of the spray paint perfectly matches the other black plastic pieces in the Bronco. I went ahead and mounted the partially black screen to the aluminum frame:

My finally task for today was to get the LCD screen powered off of DC power rather than AC. I cut up the cord for teh LCD’s power brick and wired it to a female 4 pin molex connector, like what you would find on a hard drive. One of the things I love about this screen is that it runs on 12v and 5v dc. In my case I have a 12v and 5v connection coming out my power supply in the form of standard molex connections. Powering the screen of the molex connection is great because I know its getting a regulated voltage, meaning I save money by not having to buy more electrical components, and the screen only gets power when the computer is on. Perfect.

Here is the screen mounted and powered by my computers power supply:

Check out the rest of the pictures and the full size versions here.