Phil online

For my carputer install, I wanted a primary control monitor up front with a touchscreen. This would hopefully solve the need for a mouse, a keyboard, and a display all in one unit. I’m still trying to wean myself off the keyboard, but I have run the entire time with no mouse at all.

I chose the Lilliput 8″ screen because it was the biggest cheap touchscreen monitor I could find. I want the most size I can get without getting too huge. This looks just about right. Also, it’s a VGA monitor, not just a composite or S-Video input type, which is really important for readability and resolution. It also has composite/S-Video inputs, and you can really see the difference when you use those. They’re fine for watching movies, but you need VGA to read text.

I had some trouble with the display drivers in the beginning. The display is rather quirky in how it handles unexpected scan rates and resolutions. I don’t know what I’ve done to it lately, but I find that it won’t even sync up to my text-mode screen when the system first powers up. It also won’t show the Windows 2000 startup banner. When Windows finally loads, though, it does sync up fine and looks great.

It has an unusual resolution: 800×480. My video card supports that (thanks to some utilities that add it) but I don’t like that resolution. Windows makes the fonts too narrow when I choose it. Maybe I can get it to behave better with ClearType fonts or something. But for now, I let it map 800×600 for me and it looks just fine.

Glare is a bit of a problem on sunny days. I’m told that no monitor does a decent job of fixing this problem. But I also know that removing the touchscreen film will make it look much better. That’s not an option for me since this is (supposed to be) my primary input interface. Maybe I’ll build a shield over it.

The monitor comes with a fabulous box (really!) and a pretty cool stand. The stand is much sturdier than I though, and it has a double-sided tape sticky on the back so it can be permanently affixed somewhere. I didn’t use that feature since I don’t want it permanently affixed, and I don’t trust it to hold on on bumpy roads.

I got a mounting kit for Sirius Satellite radios from Circuit City. This thing comes with all sorts of dash-mount gizmos, but the one I wanted was a simple slim painted metal bracket. It’s not moulded exactly right to fit under my Honda dash plates, so I refabricated it a bit in a vise with a hammer and some blocks of wood. You can see where I tore one of the arms. It seems to hold on just fine, though. In the process of reshaping it, I also got to change the angle of the bend (it’s not straight) so it fits my dash perfectly.

By the way, the main competitor for this monitor is made by Xenarc. It’s significantly more expensive (30% or so) and rumored to be about the same results. Some people say the Lilliput isn’t as reliable. If mine dies, maybe I’ll try replacing it with a Xenarc. They also have a cool looking base.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 5th, 2004 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Carputer, Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.