2nd monitor (7" vga touchscreen) - where best to install?

[Cretster]

My cab that I'm building (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=104968.0) was going to have a touch panel added for easier additional use as a jukebox, but then I remembered that I already have a small Lilliput 619GL touchscreen monitor that might do instead.  


Yeah it's way smaller so not quite so nice for prodding the screen to choose music or view albumart etc, BUT it has the advantage of being a secondary display so I can have two different things going on at the same time, which I thought would be kinda cool.

For instance, like others have done with game artwork showing while playing games, or stuff like that.

My only question at the moment is where in the cab to install it?  Here's a few locations that seem obvious spots, although I think fitting it into the control panel would be a costly mistake!





Would welcome suggestions on where would look/work best for this.  Being impatient though and knowing myself I 'think' that if all else fails it will be in the middle of the marquee area.  Would like if people have any other ideas or thoughts on this though.

Cheers!

[Kevin Mullins]

What about right above the primary monitor ?
Even if you have to box it out a tad in order to mount it.

[Cretster]

Sorry, I'd meant to post a pic of exactly that spot but I must have missed off the link.
You mean like this I presume?


Cheers for the suggestion

[Kevin Mullins]

Yeah, that's where I was thinking.....it was just hard to judge by the other pics just how much room you would have to work with there, I could tell it would be close.

[Cretster]

Well, no point hanging around.  I decided "If in doubt, get on with it and worry about it later if it turns out crap!".

So I've hacked into the panel above the monitor.
I have also destroyed the front screen surround piece of the monitor itself so it is now 100% officially a project item only, as it's never going back how it was.

The result of this currently is like this:


Needs to be lowered slightly so that the underside panel behind the marquee fits cleanly over it, unless I cut a bit from the back edge of that.  I think even then I'd still have to lower it a tiny bit.

Should look ok once the bezel is painted and smoothed in place etc.  I figured that I needed to use the front bezel really to make the screen look alright as it needs some sort of neat edge to it, and my mill is not accurate enough (and/or I'm not!) for cutting a precise aluminium bezel out for it.  Shame as I have all the gear at home for anodising stuff too, so there's good bling potential.

[Cretster]

Sorted:


To my dismay though when I hooked it up I have found that the red colour signal is not working for some reason.  I know it was previously fine, and the display can show red no problem (ie in the OSD menu), but the signal through from a vga source is not giving me any red, which results in a weird picture.  Hoping it's just a bad connection that will resolve itself but I doubt I'll be that lucky.....

Any suggestions?