Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Made some more progress recently.

I got around to drilling the holes for the seat support bar so now I can sit in my cockpit!



Tonight I mounted a 15" Dell monitor behind the center console!

Fist I "shelled" the monitor of it's plastic casing.



Then I bent out a few tabs on the metal carriage that were non-structural and drilled holes in them to use as mounting points.



I then traced the monitor on the center console piece and cut out the hole.


I then traced the monitor on a piece of 1/8" plywood and added a 1/2" margin around the edge.  The I placed my MFDs where they should go and traced and cut the inner hole.

I didn't take any pics until the thing had been fully mounted, being so caught up in the process.

Here's the modification of the desk portion that I made to accommodate the bulge of the monitor's back.



And here it is mounted, in all it's glory!



For the time being, I'll be mounting the MFDs using Velcro.  I haven't thought of a better mounting scheme yet that won't scratch or damage the monitor.

I suppose that it would also be possible to cut holes in the top portion of the facade for gauges and whatnot, but I don't yet have the ability to cut holes that large.