Just curious to see if anyone has seen pictures or has done this. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick with an iDevice for some time, so not too worried about changing tech. I was thinking the following locations:
- In front of the window controls in the center console
- In place of the cup holder
- Above the headunit
- beside the headunit
I'm not interested in a cigarette lighter mounting crap, I want this to be factory-looking, solid, and no wires.
So if anyone has any pics of an iPhone mount or similar phone/mp3 player, I'd like to see them.
-- John
I thought about doing something like that in the bottom of my cd player since there's a gap there, but I bought a pioneer and use a 250gig hdd instead.
I really like what this guy did
here but I don't think we have that kind of room to work with on the Sunfire center console. I'm thinking the power window switch area is my best bet, but I'm sure I'll change my mind a few times before I start cutting. I'll post pics when done, might be a couple of weeks.
-- John
Why custom it in? We don't really have much real estate for that kind of thing.
The iPod decks out there are pretty nice these days.
bradsk88 wrote:Why custom it in? We don't really have much real estate for that kind of thing.
The iPod decks out there are pretty nice these days.
have you seen his car? its not a normal every day run of the mill fire...
hell i didnt even know he was still alive, let alone into j's still
I agree on not having the room for what that guy did. Seems to me like you said, the window switch area is best, only because you want it somewhat in comfortable reach of driving so you are not getting in an awkward position to change songs or see whats playing.
I do like the idea of the cup holder area only for the fact, that if you could make it work as to where your hand is on the shifter and can change songs with your hand there.
First of all, great looking sunfire. Never seen that front bumper.
Back on topic.. even though my idea was more towards gauges, if you extended and angled it right, an iPhone could work.
you could do it where the change cubby is. and use that as your base so it could still pop on and pop off. just have to work on an angle that works good with the shifter, keeping it low enough and out of the way when you shift, but there so you can rest your elbow on the center console lid and change tunes as u go. wouldn't be to hard really.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography
I like the change/window switch idea the most. If its anywhere else you might as well use the deck to control the ipod. Thats the only location where it should be right at your fingertips while driving. Personally, I just leave mine in the glovebox and use the deck. If I wanted to show it off, thats where I would put it though.
Thats what I'm thinking too. Unfortunately the Sunfire console is not wide like the Cavs, but I also
don't want to convert to make this work. I figure I'll section the switch portion out, slide it as far back as possible, then have my little cutout for the dock.
This is an old pic, but just a quick visual.
-- John
I feel like the angle youll have to put the dock at to see it properly will ruin the lines of the center console. It would be sticking out at kind of a weird angle but thats just how Im thinking.
Also I'm not interested in controlling the songs through the headunit as mine is too old, and I'm not in the market to get a new one (unless there are any killer deals looming around here
), I'd rather have full control of the phone without having to reach my arm all the way out (I'm a short little guy after all). So the dock will charge and provide aux-out to the headunit.
-- John
John....I love your car.
I just picked up a 32gb ipod touch yesterday for 100 bucks soooooo I'm back in this topic for the long haul
hi
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- Sold my beloved J in April 2010 -
John, what iPod do you have?
I was thinking mount it horizontally and do a vent + fog light switch delete. That's the only place I can think of that would look good.
I'm mainly going to use it with my iPhone 4, I've jailbroken and modded the he'll out of it and use it for pretty much everything. In the car, main uses will be Music obviously, TomTom navigation, charging, and viewing incoming calls easily.
I thought of another relatively simple, relatively badass mount idea. Since I want to keep this as clean and uncluttered as possible, I have been thinking it would be cool if it was hidden flush on the face of something, then make a 90 degree flip down to reveal the connector (like many of the new home audio stuff has). So now I'm eyeballing the center left dash vent, think it'd be perfect to mod it to hinge down and house the dock, giving me the perfect viewing spot while still looking factory-ish and wireless.
What you think?
-- John
I think that sounds like a good idea, that left vent is pretty much useless imo. You thinking about motorizing? You could mold the back with glass to make it pop up when the motor pulls back in.
He said the CENTER left vent. That, to me, is the most important and least "useless" vent there. You are probably thinking of the far left vent that barely gets any air flow.
On the other hand....you have other fingers.
"You really need to staple your face shut"-THE Joey Baggs.
Yeah I was thinking far left vent, not so sure I'd want my cell phone popping texts up and such for passengers to see. But at the same time the center would look cleaner imo.
You may also be able to make it like a flip up by attaching a length of something rope-like inside that dash that would cause the ipod to flip up when the dock pops out.
For motorization i'd start cheap with something like the motor and gears from a computer dvd player. Just some thoughts, I'm sure you'll come up with something cool.
Well I finally got my dock delivered, and there's a couple things that I didn't expect. 1) I can't really have the dock itself flip down due to space constraints with the wires 2) Im going to have to try an Oem Apple dock already on order) because this cheapo eBay one gives off major feedback when the dock connector is plugged in and providing power ( the dock otherwise works, but feedback is too bad to use in this application).
Another thing that I'm not totally digging is the sound quality from the line out coming from the dock. When the iDevice is docked, it goes into "accessory attached" mode and normalizes the volume coming out. It's a night and day difference between that and simply plugging into the phones 3.5mm jack, which sounds a lot louder because I can adjust volume. I'm hoping I can find a jailbreak tweak to modify this somehow in the phone, but I'll play that by ear. I'm starting to think I just need to get an updated head unit if this is going to be an issue.
But as far as the mount, taking all your thoughts into consideration, I think I'm going to make the face of the vent hinge down and reveal the dock on a sliding track that will simple click out and in as needed. Motorizing is cool and all, but might be a bit overkill for something this simple, also I really don't care for showing this car anymore, it's my daily driver and I just want it to work consistently.
-- John
The SQ is odd. Ive always heard that the normalized signal coming out of the bottom is better since it doesnt go through any external amplification like headphone jack. Maybe its just a shotty dock or something. Idk.
DD???
Really?
Anyway I thing the vent would be the nicest location there when you need it not when you dont.
Want hub spacers? Shoot me a PM.
TheSundownFire wrote:The SQ is odd. Ive always heard that the normalized signal coming out of the bottom is better since it doesnt go through any external amplification like headphone jack. Maybe its just a shotty dock or something. Idk.
The bottom is better, you can turn it up to full volume with 0 clipping on a clean track.
If you go through the headphone jack, some iPods will clip. Some won't, but I don't have the list of ones that don't. Nano does.
what if you cut out a slot and molded a cubby/compartment to house the phone right under the window switch panel, like a cubby that goes back into the console. kind of like the rsx except the iphone slides down into the cubby that is actually inside the console from right underneath the window switch. then you could just use a charging cord instead of using a dock and run everything from inside the console and leave some slack to have access to your phone while still being plugged in.
