Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Everything Else => Topic started by: SavannahLion on October 06, 2013, 11:27:20 pm

Title: Car Monitors
Post by: SavannahLion on October 06, 2013, 11:27:20 pm
Has anyone used the car monitors like those you find on eBay or DealExtreme? Is the quality pretty reasonable despite the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- resolutions?

I'm thinking aobut getting a BeagleBone (preferred) or a RasPi and want to get a monitor smaller than 7" for it.

I don't want or need a touch screen for it,  nor do I want to shell out $100+ for the addons for either of those boards.
Title: Re: Car Monitors
Post by: CoryBee on October 07, 2013, 01:50:25 am
I have ordered a couple off of ebay before for projects not related to Arcade building. The cheap ones I picked up worked really well and never noticed any quality issues when playing DVDs or games through them.

These are the same ones that can be found on DX, but I prefer to have them to me quicker so I use ebay and US seller settings.

I am curious now, what is it you are building???????
Title: Re: Car Monitors
Post by: SavannahLion on October 07, 2013, 02:06:44 am
It's too early.

I'm just shifting gears a bit. I fell victim to "feature creep" and spent the last three months* writing a custom emulator. Then I realized
that to buy a microcontroller board with the required external RAM was going to set me back $49 and some change. A price point I wasn't going to be able to match if I built it myself (I don't have the right parts). That wasn't counting some of the components I already purchased (AVR daughter boards, 7 segment displays, etc). I can continue using most of the parts in this project or elsewhere so it's not too much of a loss.

For $45, I can net a Beaglebone Black with relatively astronomical amounts of processing power.

I was still on the fence until the Pachinko (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,134870.msg1391735.html#msg1391735) thread appeared and...
The older ones can be fun, but the video, sounds and bonus reels make for a much more interesting and engrossing experience.

Never thought of it that way. Like one famous movie quote,
Quote
...so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

Moving along. I found this monitor that looks very promising
eBay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/HDMI-7-LED-LCD-Monitor-Kit-Rear-View-Backup-Car-Camera-System-/390662548511)
Same thing but at the bitcoins website (http://www.buyincoins.com/item/37478.html)

However, I really question the lack of resolution and the HDMI claim. I don't see any populated place on the PCB for an HDMI input.  :-\

*Three months worth of breaks, lunches and late night programming after the family went to bed.
Title: Re: Car Monitors
Post by: Louis Tully on October 07, 2013, 08:43:45 am
.
Title: Re: Car Monitors
Post by: CoryBee on October 07, 2013, 08:59:15 am
I sent a message to the eBay seller on your behalf.

I was hoping you were making a small arcade :D
Title: Re: Car Monitors
Post by: SavannahLion on October 12, 2013, 08:18:13 pm
I'm at a bit of an impasse. I can drop a few features and forgo the monitor/Beaglebone or jump up in the feature set but pay roughly double or even triple what the Beagle costs for the monitor.

I haven't decided a course of action but this might be a project fail if the costs go too out of control.
Title: Re: Car Monitors
Post by: SavannahLion on October 18, 2013, 10:46:39 am
I found some 7" screens for around $60 or 8" for around $80. I think the best bang for the buck is a 7" 1024x600 with a control board boasting HDMI (amongst others) support. No audio though so I'll probably have to split the Beaglebone HDMI output to get my audio out of it.

While searching I did find a 7" touch screen with a microcontroller and flash intended for a microcontroller parallel interface which looks very interesting for the same price. I might have to kludge an interface of my own since I don't care too much for the Arduino platform.