Black Beauty Project Build - 06 Ford F-250 Super Duty **1/27/18 - New pics starting on page 41**

[scooter99]

On the topic of Bondo (saw it up a couple posts but I'm not taking the time to quote it all fancy, bite me) they actually have a Bondo Gold professional that is pretty comparable to the rage gold. Sands nice and easy, doesn't pinhole. Costs just a tiny bit less that the rage but you can find it at home depot or walmart, so it's great in a pinch. Or at all honestly I've been using it a lot lately. Just don't put it on too thick and sanding will be a breeze.

I'm quoting you!!! LMAO

Actually I have both. I have the bondo gold, and obviously the rage gold. While I'll say it is better than the regular bondo filler, and probably good in a pinch, I wouldn't say it's comparable to rage. To me, using both, Rage is just better. Sands better, spreads better, feels better, is just better. Again, not knocking bondo gold, and if you need it now most places carry it.

[scooter99]

And here's the rough in. When I say rough in, I mean just that, ROUGH!!! But it got the job done, and even better, I didn't blast through the front! LOL Remember that was my nightmare I had earlier.

And now to clean it up. Admittedly this is not what you should use to do this, but I didn't have a sander wheel that has an end like this that I can sand straight down with, as well as, to the side with. But this seemed like it would do the job for me.

But as you can see, it more than did the job.

Now that I've got that where I need it to be, it needs to be put in and glued. This is where, I think I mentioned earlier, that I'm missing some pics. I think there's a pic of the tablet resting in place with the connector in it. I'm not seeing it here, so it must be one of the couple of pics that didn't get uploaded. I hate photobucket!! So we'll just move on. Just imagine it's here, and you can see it clearly. LOL

Back to my wonderful cheapo ca glue. This is just to tack it in place. Later I'll be epoxying it in here so it's nice and solid and protected.

Just a look from the other side. I think the part that I was most happy with on this, was the ability for the tablet to slide in and slide out easily, and still retain that flush mounted look. You'll see later what I mean.

Now in order to epoxy this in and keep the mess out of the front and off the connector, I need to close off this rather large hole around the connector. So I decided to use some foam tape, as I did with the surround.

Then taped up the top to keep it in place. Now I'm not naive enough to think that will hold 100% of the epoxy back. I'm sure i'll have some to clean up. But I think it will keep enough back to not matter.

So that's as far as I got last night. My next step is to get the epoxy down for the metal, and fill the hole for the connector.

After that, I need to see about getting the magnets glued to the tablet back and test it out. I need to see about how to make the tablet come out. I don't want a string or strap hanging out of it. I did buy a door lock actuator a while back, so I may see if I can make that work. The connector side works well and holds the tablet in well. So I may only need magnets on one side. I think the actuator, with a momentary button, will work just fine for this.

Still quite a bit of work to do on it, the details, but it's getting there. We'll see what I can get done this week.

[bsneon98]

On the topic of Bondo (saw it up a couple posts but I'm not taking the time to quote it all fancy, bite me) they actually have a Bondo Gold professional that is pretty comparable to the rage gold. Sands nice and easy, doesn't pinhole. Costs just a tiny bit less that the rage but you can find it at home depot or walmart, so it's great in a pinch. Or at all honestly I've been using it a lot lately. Just don't put it on too thick and sanding will be a breeze.

I'm quoting you!!! LMAO

Actually I have both. I have the bondo gold, and obviously the rage gold. While I'll say it is better than the regular bondo filler, and probably good in a pinch, I wouldn't say it's comparable to rage. To me, using both, Rage is just better. Sands better, spreads better, feels better, is just better. Again, not knocking bondo gold, and if you need it now most places carry it.

Ive seen the gold alot and wanted to try it, but since I have rage on hand I dont feel like wasting money on more filler. Thanks for the info!

[Wicks]

Coming together pretty nice Dude!

I'm a little confused though at how the tablet is supposed to slide out of that mount?

[scooter99]

Coming together pretty nice Dude!

I'm a little confused though at how the tablet is supposed to slide out of that mount?

It literally just slides in the front, and then the magnets that I'll mount in the back of the tablet will hold it in place, via the metal back of the tablet pocket, as a flush mounted look. Those were the pictures that didn't upload.

I'll do a little video or gif of it or something. It'll make sense.

[Wood]

Dont do this to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SICK updates brother..... damn good updates

[scooter99]

Ok well, I'm trying to upload a video but I'm having trouble.

In the meantime, while I was out there, I went ahead and epoxied the connector in there. So it's in now. No tuning back!

I also decided what I'm doing for final color and design. But somethings just need to be a surprise!!

I'll be back when the video uploads.

[scooter99]

Ok folks. So I am fairly certain how to get this door actuator to work the way I want it, as far as speed and throw goes.

However, I'm a little stuck on how to make it work via a button. So what I want is a momentary button, that I can push, and it will activate the actuator to push the tablet out of the pocket. I can do that, it's not a problem. What I want though, is to release the button, and have it drop back in so when I put the tablet in next time, it's out of the way. I'm sure it's a relay or something, I just haven't found it yet.

I wonder if I could use it like a reverse polarity thing. Push and release the button and it extends the actuator. Push and release it again, and it retracts the actuator. For every push of the button it reverses the polarity.

More research!!!

Stupid video wouldn't upload. SO I'm going to youtube for it. I'll put it up tomorrow morning sometime.

Night all!

[scooter99]

Good morning! Here's the video on how the tablet goes into the pocket.

I ordered up a DC to DC converter last night to take the door lock down from 12v to 7.5v. 12v was just too hard and too fast. I think it would've shot the tablet out of there, and that's not what I want to do. I want it to just move enough so that I can grab it with my fingers. So I've got that, I think i found a relay setup that will do what I want, but I need to do a bit more research and then test it to make sure. But I'll probably have to wait for that until the weekend when I have the DC converter, it's supposed to be here Thursday. Thanks Amazon Prime!

Ok, that's it for this morning. More soon.

[scooter99]

Here's a little update. Not huge, but it's non picture worthy progress.

I've all but done away with the door lock now. I've done some research and working with what I have at home already, I think a servo motor is what I need for this. I haven't put it all together yet, I'll work on that tonight. I'm still waiting on the dc converter anyway that I thought I was going to use the other day. So I'll get that put together tonight, but essentially, I'll be using an Arduino Uno, and a servo motor, combined with a push button switch that I'll mount on the Dash panel next to the tablet. This will push the tablet out, slowly, and I can dismount it. So I'll get that all worked out tonight, because I can't really go any further right now until I get that figured out.

I got a big piece to this puzzle yesterday. The Ampere Audio JM-1 processor. I know I said before that I didn't want to use one, and I was working on the self made SDU, but at this point, I may or may not finish that. The processor is what I'll go with for now to get the project up and running. The good news about this, is it's smaller than I thought it would be. So two of those would easily fit where I was planning to fit them. So that makes the decision much easier for me for the future. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of it. So I'll get those tonight.

Lastly, I got an email yesterday from a company after I requested a quote for finishing the dash and other pieces in the truck. I've taken the pictures, they requested, and emailed them back. So I should hopefully get a price today, and if it's not too much then that'll be a go. It may be a go anyway, because I'm just loving the look. But we'll see.

I think that's it. Steering wheel control replacements should be here tomorrow.