Sat Nav That Hides Away
What my sports car lacked was a satnav, I wanted something big enough to see but I wanted it to be easy to hide away, space is limited and I did not want it up on the wind screen, so the only logical place is on the passenger side in a blank area of the dash.
Now to make it disappear!
The Design
The materials that I had knocking around in the workshop were
- Laminate flooring offcuts
- A pair of drawer runners
- Brass and silver solder.
- Drawer spring catch
Drawing one shows the part that will slide in and out
Drawing two shows how it will all fold away
Drawing three shows the poseable mount for the screen
Drawing 4 is the general assembly.
The Brass Work
I wanted to do a lot of this in brass for two main reasons, number one I love silver soldering brass and two I like the retro look that fits so well in a car like this.
The brass support has been designed in a way that the screen can be positioned at almost any angle.
The last photo shows the front bracket before heating up and bending.
The Woodwork... or Laminatework :)
The floor laminate made up the fixed and sliding parts of the build, the drawing shows the sliding part with the drawer slides mounted and the cut out where the satnav screen will drop into when it is not in use.
There is a rectangle of laminate that takes the other part of the drawer slides and in turn is bolted via spacers to .....
.......The other piece of laminate is the full length from under the front of the dash to the bulkhead where is can be fixed at both ends The front fixing has a brass cap just to make it look nice:)
Assembly
The first picture shows the slides, the spring catch and the satnav mount
The second one shows the satnav folded flat ready to hide under the dash
Fitted
....So half an hour of being upside down in the passenger seat had it all fitted and connected up
Picture one shows it stowed away.... just as intended it cannot be seen.
picture two shows it up and running in the the passenger viewing position.
Picture three shows that the driver cannot see the screenwhen it is like that so...
...Picture four shows it turned toward the driver.
The last photo is a view from the footwell showing it all packed away.
Video shows how it works, enjoy!