Vehicle Mount for Laptop - Here's a great one.
Submitted: Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:33
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Member - Mick O (VIC)
If anyone has ever tried to buy or make a solid, yet unobtrusive vehicle mount for a laptop, I think I’ve just stumbles on the answer!
I went to Brown-Davis Automotive in Bayswater to have an 80 litre sub-tank fitted and have them repair the leaking rear 145 litre tank that was supplied by another “premier” 4x4 supplier (who I’m not about to identify and poke bARB’s at here) that survived one off road trip and failed 1 year out of warranty and who didn’t want to know about it…..anyway. I had a brief chat with one of the
young blokes there about shaping up a steel mount for my Laptop utilising existing
seat mounts etc.
Came to pick up the car that evening having forgotten about the mornings chat and Kevin, the rollbar guru at B/D had just gone ahead and done it. Top job & I don’t mind saying so. He’s mounted the platform and ball mount from a RAM system I already had but his bar work is unobtrusive and exceptionally solid. Damn site better than the RAM mounting systems I’d paid a small fortune for and far less $$$. I’ve posted a few pictures on my rig-page for those who are interested. The side bar is removable but provides no hindrance as is. Unit is very solid without it anyway.
Seat slide is still fully functioning.
As a prototype, I’m going to go shake the bleep e out of it come May and report back but if you’ve got a Patrol and need something similar, it’s a great job.
Cheers. Mick
P.S. No interest or association with Brown-Davis, just appreciate good work.
Reply By: Member - John (Vic) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:44
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:44
You fitted a Brown Davis tank???
Your a braver man than I am.
Do an archive search on Brown Davis and see what comes up.
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:59
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:59
John, I can only hope. I've had a bad run with tanks from the only other two manufacturers you'd look at. The last with ARB was just the pits. Went thru 4 main tanks in 30,000km of driving with another manufacturer (who I would still use and recommend tho due to their incredible customer service) so I thought I'd give these guys a go. Went and inspected their tanks and processes at the factory before making the choice so I'm reasonably confident. May's trip will soon indicate if there's an issue.
Feedback guaranteed.
Mick
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Follow Up By: Richard Kovac - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:46
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:46
John & Mick
I had a Brown Davis tank, fitted to my Datsun 720 in the 80s, drove down from
Broadford spent all day in wonderful Bayswater.. picked her up drove to the servo filled it up (.20 odd cents a L) and fuel (petrol) every where coming out of the sender unit.... Now some people may think I'm a angry ant now... I was only in my
young twenty's.. LOL
drove back and they had not gone
home, still sitting around counting the money,, boy did I get the attention.. :-)
any way drained the fuel fixed the problem and never had another problem..
Cheers
Richard
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:57
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:57
Jeez Richard, 20 cents a litre, that's genuine 1970's prices my friend. I'm working this years fuel calcs and costs at an average of $2.50 per litre
Heaven help us next year. I can remember the first time I paid $1 for a litre of juice. 1983 and it was at the Mt Barnet Station on the Gibb. Outrageous we thought at the time. It was still only .68 cents at
Birdsville that year for gawds sake!
Cheers. Mick
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Follow Up By: Richard Kovac - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 22:03
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 22:03
Mick
I made that price up .. LOL
I can,t remember those days, it was my 60s ...
Richard
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 22:19
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 22:19
I'm thinking you may have popped on the blue singlet and spent that day in the Bayswater "Bloodbath" Hotel Richard. She was a fairly rough joint in the early 80's. I lived in Boronia which was just as bad! I actually had a 720 back then as
well. Started with a new 1981 2x kingcab and bought the very first 4x4 Kingcab Ute from Ferntree Gully Nissan in 1983 (with the massive L18 Donk..1800cc or raw power......not!) Mick.
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Reply By: Bonz (Vic) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:47
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:47
Big qn is HOW MUCH? Brown Davis fitted my premier winch and they did a great job, I had just done a weekend trip with the guys from there too, Good blokes
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:55
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 18:55
I Know Kevin spent all day on it as a prototype but he only charged me $150 which I was very happy with. Now he has the prototype as a template...don't know. I'll definitely get them to fabricate my rear HF areal mount.
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Follow Up By: Member - Paul S (VIC) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:45
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:45
I had them fit a heavy duty bash plate to my hilux recently; the original was mangled beyond recognition. Kevin made a template from a lux they had in at the time and called me when it was ready. Half an hour after getting there I was driving away with it and all for $200. (a bargain compared to other prices received) The plate is made from 3mm brightform and is powder coated; a real professional job.
I have no affiliation with Brown Davis, only passing on a 'happy customer' experience for the benefit of other members.
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Reply By: ExplorOz Team - David - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:20
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:20
Seen
my home made jobbie-
!MPG:3!
!MPG:8!
Now holes drilled in any part of the vehicle and added a GPS and mobile phone holder at the same time. It is strong a houses and Michelle usualy grabs hold of it and shouts at me when we are outback (not really but a good story - we do not have time to go bush anymore).
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:24
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:24
I think you're spoiling her too much David, a make-up table for the outback, who ever heard of that! (lol)
How have you attached it to the front of the dash?
Mick
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Follow Up By: ExplorOz Team - David - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:37
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:37
Mick,
If you look at the lower
pic you will see a metal strap - these go around the grab bar. There is two of these and they are really tight (with some protective material behind them. Basically that is it you can see the solid piece of timber that goes from one side to the other that is connected to the straps. The upright is solid WA jarah and the phone/gps table is bolted into the tray throught the plastic moulding (using the orginal hole into the chassis). The upright is then bolted using a medium angle bracket.
It is very solid and ther is no problem pulling yourself into and out of the seats or eben holding on for dear life.....
Anyway it was a fun weekend project and has currently served us for over 6 years.
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Follow Up By: KiwiAngler - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:58
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 19:58
My only comments are:
" what happens when the air bags deploy"?
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Follow Up By: ExplorOz Team - David - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:06
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:06
If the air bags went off I would assume I am resting in a cloud up there somewhere as I would have to be dead aleady as my old trusty 80 does not have any.
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Follow Up By: KiwiAngler - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:20
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:20
David
I was making the comment more of a " general " observation for laptop mounts rather than your setup in paticular.
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:13
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:13
Kiwi,
Don't have a passenger air pag in the Patrol but in any case, the computer does not imping on either the drivers or passengers forward momentum should anything happen. Sideways movement would probably give it a hit. Hmmm looks like I'll have to leave the better half at
home. Nice one.
Mick
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Follow Up By: ExplorOz Team - David - Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 11:03
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 11:03
Kiwi,
I do agree with you about the saftey aspects and one must take this into account with all vehicle mods. There is a new vehicle computer system comming out in the market in the next few months and next time (when I can afford to upgrade) I will be installing something a little more new tech but as yet there is nothing on the market that is perfect.
Have a good weekend.
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Reply By: Willem - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:19
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:19
Mick
Mine works
well. A tad rough seeing as its tek screwed into the dash....lol
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/bz157/Kempen_photos/?action=view¤t=laptopdesk.jpg[/img]
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Follow Up By: Willem - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:21
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:21
Bugger..it didn't work
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Follow Up By: Willem - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:26
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:26
Try again
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Follow Up By: Willem - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:33
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:33
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Follow Up By: Willem - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:36
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:36
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Follow Up By: Member - Andrew (QLD) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:45
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:45
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Follow Up By: Member - Andrew (QLD) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:51
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:51
Hope that helps ;-)
Two things i have noticed:
- Don't Select "Share URL - Email and IM" (it returns an unusable link)
- Preview is your Friend :-) .....if it doesn't show, then it's not going to work.
An interesting mounting none-the-less :-)
Andrew
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Follow Up By: Willem - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:54
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 20:54
Thanks Andrew
Not sure what I was selecting....lol
Cheers
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Follow Up By: Member - Andrew (QLD) - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:00
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:00
Got some good dust in that beast :-) LOL
Andrew
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Follow Up By: Willem - Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:05
Friday, Jan 18, 2008 at 21:05
I live in the country in the driest Sate on the driest Continent of the World
The old truck does its fair share of bush trips
Cheers
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Reply By: Booman1n2 - Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 09:39
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 09:39
Mick,
That guy has done an excellent job with the laptop mounting system.
However I have asked the question before, how safe would this be in the event of an accident?
Does the Mount obstruct the airbags in any way?
I know people are going to say "here we go again".
The main reason I ask is that I was going to do something similar but have shyed away form it due to the risk of further / increased injury involved if an accident was to happen.
Has everyone considered the personal insurance aspects if an accident was to occur with this modification to the interior of the vehicle?
Sorry guys, its my job! It's what I do!
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 11:55
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 11:55
B/M
I outlined in early follow-up that I don't have a passengers airbag and that it doesn't restrict forward movement of passenger or driver. Yes indeed it is a consideration. If no passenger, no worries as the unit will off set further into the passenger side. If two in the vehicle and a rollover for example, sideways movement would indeed cause some concern (as would everything else in the cabin such as O/H console, radio, GPS, satphone, steering wheel, centre console contents, lunchbox and assorted tools).
This is primarily intended for use in remote outback treks, particularly off track where speeds are slow and a knowledge of what's in front and where you are are imperative. Computer is not used for city, long highways hauls where trouble is most likely.
Cheers. Mick
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Follow Up By: Member - Scott & Gaby (Canada) - Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 12:33
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 12:33
Mick
Love the pics. May you say!!! I guess I will have to get my passenger to hold our Computer to be on time. Now that should be safer I think. Oh one other thing, you have a satphone that works?
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Follow Up By: Member - Mark E (VIC) - Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 14:09
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 14:09
Likewise......wouldn't be a bad idea to check the legalities of adding anthing to
seat mounting points also..... not trying to spoil the fun, though.
Cheers,
Mark
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Follow Up By: Member - Mick O (VIC) - Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 14:21
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 14:21
No I didn't say the satphone worked. It's a globalstar! I use it soley as a paperweight to hold the maps down on the bonnet!! Mind you I have friends who do so go to bed you bloody foreigners. It's dark on your side of the world. Oh one more thing. If she's holding the computer, how is she going to manage her beer as well? Tough one eh?
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Follow Up By: Member - Scott & Gaby (Canada) - Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 23:42
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 at 23:42
Good Morning
Mick, I know space is always a problem but with the computer not only can you get rid of the maps but in your case you can also get rid of the sat phone. Beer? You mean Bailey
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