TREZ63

Hi guys,

I am installing a car PC which I put together (Touch screen and everything) and for the NAV I need an external antenna. I looked around and for the SAT everyone keeps talking about the t-bone install of the antenna but I cannot find this on the forum. Can someone help me look for it? Thanks. Also pictures of how any of you may have done this would be greatly apprecited.

The Antenna I have is a 1" sq magnet base antenna with a 2 mm thick cable extending many feet from it. The tip of the cable is also 2mm for ease of installation so I won't have any problems putting it through a 2mm hole.

Thanks

T

moa4r

what kind of pc are you installing?? Is the touch screen in dash? please post pics when finished

TREZ63

I'll post pix soon.
The PC is actually my laptop which I will take out of the car with me when I am not in the car, this cut back on the cost of the whole thing and also solved all my power and portability problems.

The Touchscreen is an 8" model I got from Hong Kong. But its not in dash. I have a pretty clean Flex Arm that mounts to the Seat brackets. The screen in the adjustable in case someone wants to watch DVDs in the back or if I just want to enter my NAV destination.

I also have wireless connection to my home PC for sinking my MP3s easily.
The best thing is perhaps the fact that I can plug the Sound card output directly to the Aux in the Glove Compartment so I can swith between CDs and Radio and PC pretty easily.

The Touchscreen make the NAV much easier and the NAV software I have rocks compared to the one that comes with Benz. I have all of US and Canada in one or two Gigs of the laptop and plenty of room to spare.

Its a pretty cost effective solution especially if you already own a laptop.

Now I just need a good solution for the antenna. I have some ideas but they all suck.

T

fazooley

Dude no offense but thats mad GHEY!! I mean cmon, get it integrated with the comand system you'll enjoy it much more. I've looked into doing this multiple times since I already have a tv tuner installed and have the video inputs into the comand. A little cube computer with a pcmcia card slot would make it very easy to go wireless via goamerica or sprint data svcs. IMO having some moniot just hanging there connected to a laptop is just silly.

Fazooley

kort677

The t bone install is for sirius sat radio, the nav antenna will NOT work if installed using t bones method,

TREZ63

Hmm, actually it works really well for me. Especially with the touch screen. I don't want a keyboard and mouse in the car cause that to me would be mad GHEY. The Screen is easily removable which is nice in case I don't want it in there for some reason. And there are no wires showing at all. In fact its all pretty tastefully done so far. The screen in the only part of the whole thing you see and I didn't have to deal with powering the PC with a backup source evrytime I want to turn off the car, the laptop just jumps to battery power automatically. Plus I get to use the laptop for work which saves on the cost of the whole thing.

How do I get video input to the comand from an outside source? That would actually be kinda nice. Although I wonder how high of a resolution the comand screen would handle. Right now I can do 800x600 on the 8" display that I have.
Have you been able to get the comand buttons to do anything for you?? I pesonally feel the comand module is very simplistic but I could be wrong.

BklynBenz

ATS

HAHAHAHAHA.. That pic is great!

scorchie

Umm, yes it will. Navigation antennas have been mounted this way for years. That's why we (and others) started doing that with the SIRIUS antennas.

-s-

TREZ63

Ahhh, will one of you please point me to the t-bone install so I can decide for myself if it will work or not.

Thanks

onpaws

sure.

http://yuchanli.com/w211/disassembly/sat09.gif
http://yuchanli.com/w211/disassembly/sat10.gif
http://yuchanli.com/w211/disassembly/sat11.gif