22 Inch Cinema in Your Car

Road trips with kids can be a royal pain in the asterisk without proper entertainment. We discovered those portable DVD players a few years back and have never looked back. Our recent model went on the fritz, and I decided to kick it up a notch with some gear that I had from other projects. Unfortunately, there is a safety aspect that must be considered, this project will block your view out the back from center mirror. This is not an issue for me because my tent trailer is blocking it for me (please check your local laws).

The concept is very simple: use some foam board trimmed to be wedged into place, a small projector plugged into a power inverter and voila: in car cinema!

For this project you will need the following:

1. Pico or Pocket Projector 500$ See recent models
2. Power inverter 50-500W depending on your projector (check your specs) 20-50$
3. Piece of foam board 2$
4. Skinny pry bar
5. An old hard drive
6. A bolt that fits in the projector mount
7. Some nuts and lock washer
8. Basic tools

Measure the maximum extents of your space, add half an inch in both dimensions. Try to fit your screen, mark up with a pencil the areas that require trimming. Trim. Repeat. The idea is to be able jam the board into place so it stays without additional attachments.

I've used this magnet mount initially for my Cake Decorating project, and later for my Pac-Man Augmented Reality Concept, so this explanation is basically copied from those projects:

Warning, these magnets are VERY powerful and could pinch your fingers or break if you let them snap into each other. I removed about a dozen in an afternoon, and was paranoid that they would start self agglomerating on the table in front of me...The average household should have 2 old computers gathering dust, if you don't then someone you know does. They are unlikely to be worth anything, so you can go ahead and recycle them: but first, pull out the hard drives and harvest the magnets. All you need is a set of torx screwdrivers (which look like a six pointed star), and maybe some Philips head drivers as well depending on the brand of hard drive. Take off the cover by removing all the screws as well as a few that are likely hiding under stickers or labels. If the cover is not coming off then you likely missed one; rub the labels with the tip of the screwdriver until you find the divot where that last screw was hiding. Once you have the cover off you should find a metal bracket in one corner near the axle for the reader head (see the images). Remove any screws that may be holding the bracket in place and pry off the bracket. It will likely take a screwdriver to get it off because the magnets are very strong. Once you have removed the first magnet, you will see a second one looking back at you. Remove any screw and extract this one too; in fact the bottom one is usually more useful because its bracket is less protruding making it easier to use directly.

I was lucky enough to find a bolt that fit perfectly into the socket of my projector. The magnet is already on a piece of steel we can use to make a mount. The bolt head was thicker than the magnet so I filed it down so that the magnet was flush. I then drilled though the steel bracket, put the bolt through and added a nut to secure it into place. Carefully screw it into your projector; don't overscrew as you may break through into the projector and smash something important.

There are any number of ways to setup your projector in your car, and you are unlikely to have the same split seat opportunity as myself (Sante Fe XL). Sticking the pry bar between the two seats allowed me to adjust the height and angle of the projector. I ended up using some hockey sock tape (rubbery and easy to remove) to thicken and increase the friction of the pry bar. I used an Iphone 4 to push the movies to the projector (using the now arcane adapter) . I had initially planned on running a cable to the auxiliary port on my car stereo, but the Bluetooth link worked perfectly. There are still a few movies that I have heard several times and not seen (while I am driving).

I am looking forward to taking my cinema on the open road; the only thing is I wish that I could sit back there and watch classic zombie flick. We all know how that scenario ends; "For the First Time in Forever".... and ever and ever.