touchscreen to laptop question

I have a HAMi unit which came from Skypro and no there is no decay between the lappy and the unit even using a 2 metre cord.
You also need a USB cable to enable the touch screen.
One thing I found its a bit fiddly to change the default screen settings but can tell you how to do it.

The other thing is that you have to set your laptop screen to the same screen settings( like 16:9 or narrower) as the touch screen as otherwise it looks funny.
800 x 600 is the best resolution.
It is fine as a navigation screen but I found it flares a bit using it as a rear view camera screen.
Possibly because the camera is a high quality one.
Will try my caravan one which is a bit more ordianry and see what it looks like.
As for your links the dearest one has by far the best output of brightness being 400:1 against the other two being in the mid 200's. In saying that the Hami is bright enuf.
They are all Chinese made anyway.
Here are some pics of it installed The little screen is my car rear camera.

Feel free to mail me if u like

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Ditch the laptop. Buy one of the ebay variants of the 4.3" GPS navigators for similar $$$ and mod it to run OZiexplorer CE. So long as they run the Samsung ARM CPU, an SD card and Windows CE 4 or later they can be tricked into running it. Just carry the laptop for updating track plots etc but run the navigator on the road.

Pearl,

There is no problem with signal loss over a few metres of cable. We have a touch screen running Ozi in a small computer behind the passenger seat. This works well. You will need to run a USB cable and the video cable, and depending on the monitor, a power cable. (Ours actually feeds power through the video cable, a strange arrangement, but it works.) With the USB connection, suggest run a cable to a convenient place up front and install a multi USB adapter there. That way you have easy access to plug in the gps, the monitor, a mouse, a keyboard, the card reader for the camera, a wireless link to talk to the household computer, etc etc.

We find the touch screen easier to use than the mouse when mobile, but a mouse is preferable when stationary.

We use 1024x768 resolution; the native resolution of the monitor is 800x600.

Mounting the monitor is an issue. It needs to be protected from shock, so mounting must not be rigid, yet must be secure. We finished up with a sling secured to the pod on top of Troopy's dash. The monitor hangs down in front of the radio in the centre ofthe dash - easily lifted out of the way, visible to both driver and passenger.

One disadvantage of central mounting is reflection off the screen. The screen should be angled down so that it doesn't reflect your companion's chest when driving towards the sun. Mounting from the roof near the rear vision mirror isn't really an option because of strong backlighting from the sky.

These aren't glamour shots, but may give some ideas:Image Could Not Be FoundImage Could Not Be Found

HTH

John

Thought of a 7 inch in-dash screen? Mine is not a touch screen, so we work it one the move with a cordless mouse. But you can get the in-dash ones now with touch screen and VGA input.

It hides away when not in use:


Then you pop it out for rear view camera:


And it takes the computer maps:


The computer folds away into a pocket:


I've used this setup for 2 years now, and I suits me better than many other setups in the past. It doesn't encroach on space, and when you're parked in the shopping centre carpark, its all hidden.

Cheers
Phil

Thanks to everyone for all the really helpful feedback. That's what's really great about this site. If you have a question specific enough for people to get a grip on, there's a lot of experience out there and a lot of people kind enough to share it.

I feel like I oughta shout you all a round of virtual beers. (Not as satisfying as the real thing, but a lot safer to have all over your computer.)

Cheers,
DB