Finalizing The Monitors Installation

I'm far from done working for the day but I figured I would take a quick coffee break and do a little update on what I have done so far for today. Here you can see my LCD monitor video board mounted onto a Lexan plastic mounting board I custom made, took me a little while to come up with a configuration that would work well for mounting in this board. Luckily I was able to add on an additional piece of Lexan plastic to further help mount the video board to the inside of the dash, it also served as a good place to mount the Step-down converter from 12V DC to 5V DC.

I also added on a Molex connector for the power and ground wires for both my LCD screen that will get hooked up to a PC and my GPS unit. The little extra board that came with the LCD screen that has 5 tactile buttons on it for adjusting the LCD screen settings, I added on some 22 AWG wires that also go into the Molex connector. Those wires will go to the bottom buttons of my make shift Space Matt buttons seeing how this little board will be not very accessible in under the dash. I do have them mounted in a way that they can be worked if the dash is ever taken out for servicing at any point. But the lower console Space Matt buttons seem ideally suited for such a function. I'll also hook them up to the V.B. DTMF tone Random Generator.

Also now that the S-1 Monitor Frames have been painted and clear coated I reinstalled the two monitors back into the frame. I just applied a little blue Thread-lock to the threads holding in the circuit boards for the GPS and the LCD Monitor attached my custom Lexan plastic mounting. In a short while before the day is out I'll mount the monitors frame back into the dash. I fired up my air compressor to blow out any dust and debris inside of my dash first though. This afternoon I'm hoping to get the other end of the Molex connector wired up and the Monitors frame back into the dash. Hopefully I'll get the LCD screen's video board all mounted into place too.... we'll see how the rest of the day goes. ;)

Installing And Wiring My Space Matt Buttons

"Buttons, Wires and Connectors, Oh My!"

Well I installed my make shift Space Matt buttons a little differently that I wanted too. I was going to cut out my rectangular hole a little bigger so as to sink the Space Matt buttons array into the hole so it would sit flush, but I'm a little hesitant to do that because the hole is cut to the size of the USB Space Matt Keyboard buttons that you can get from Knight Rider World, and like I say these may just be temporary buttons for me to use until I get around to ordering the USB buttons. Of course me doing it this way means that my plastic overlay I made is a little too thick for how I have the Space Matt buttons placed into the console as in they sit a little deeper down. I may make a thinner overlay out of some metal stock I have kicking around, I'll see what ends up looking good.

I had drilled in a large enough hole into the top of the fibreglass console to be able to thread in my wires for all of the buttons. I had to add a little more length to the wires so I would have a little more room to put in my Molex Connectors. I had to get a couple of 15 Pin Connectors as the electronics place did not have anything bigger. That's OK though, it just means having another connector sticking out of the wire loom ;) Each one will be clearly marked so they can't get confused so no biggie.

I have the one wire that connects all of the buttons together on the far side of the Molex Connector and then the 4 rows of individual wires for each button connection using up the remaining pins of the connector. This way I can organize them on the connectors in rows from top to bottom. Here in this picture on the left you can see I have started putting together the wires into the connector, I have the main buttons feed wire in place and the first top row of buttons wires in place, now to complete the connectors by following the same format. ;)

Installing The Molex Connectors For The Switch Pod Buttons

To help make installing the Knight Rider 2 TV Dash a lot easier I started adding in a 12 Pin Molex Connector for connecting my Switch Pod Button wires to the Mini Relays board that will be installed under the OEM plastic dash in the car.


This Molex Connector will be for the left hand Switch Pod Buttons, the right hand buttons will be on a separate Molex Connector depending on what is being hooked up to them. Whatever it may be I can still see them needing to go through a Relay so another Molex Connector will be the logical choice. I still need to add the wires to the connector for the other buttons but I'll do that tomorrow sometime. I'll need to pick up another Molex Connector just to have on hand for when I get around to adding a little extra length to the right hand Switch pod Buttons wires and running them to the Relay board when I figure out what I want them to activate.

K.I.T.T.s Voice Projection Unit Parts Wiring Assembly

It took me a little while to assemble all of the wire and Molex Connectors and wiring harnesses. I'm making all of the parts for part of K.I.T.T.s Voice Projection Unit all prepared and ready to install. I have some of them assembled here in this photo and numbered as follows:

1- Sound Effects And Microphone Board With Volume Control

Modified slightly using the board from the hand held unit of the Annunciator Loud Speaker. I basically added wires to the connections for all of the momentary push buttons and I relocated a couple of components from the board like the Mic and Indicator LED and moved them to a small board so as the two boards can be fitted into my Upper Console.

2 - Long Wire Harness With Molex Connectors

This is a long wire harness of 12 22 AWG wires connected at both ends with a male and female Molex Connector. This wire harness will run up the drivers side window frame across the top and go the the Upper Console where part number 1 will be fitted.

3 - Short Wire Harness

This short wire harness is basically the same as the long wire harness only it has one Molex Connector on one end, the other ends of the 12 connections will go to SPST Relay terminals that the Switch Pod Buttons will then activate when pressed. This wiring harness will be fitted to the inside of my Knight Rider 2 TV Dashboard.