Apexi Power FC Din Converter

[dturpin]

I have just brought the Apexi Din converter for the power FC and was wondering if anyone knows how the hell you are supposed to make it fit.  Looks to me likr you have to cut the printed circuit board up to make it fit, which sounds a bit risky to me.  Any help or advice would be appreciated.

[Eddie]

So you got it from ebay:) watching it myself.

Check fot threads on rx7club and on here, I know its been covered, I think form memory its not as drastic as you think, de soldering is needed and it can be messed up but if your careful it should be fine. honest

But if you not willing to try it then I will take it from you for what you paid:)

CHeers

[dturpin]

yea was me who got it, will look into it and see if I am willing to attempt it, if not I will let you have first refusal on it.

[Eddie]

HI mate just had a quick look for you on rx7 club, I know I have seen a good thread on it, may be lightening in a world of thunder write up. I will keep checking for you to see if I can find it at least you can make a good decision then.

Cheers

[Eddie]

Pulled from RX7club so no idea how acurate it is


There are two circuit boards: one with the controls, one with the LCD. They are connected with 20 solder points and there are little metal pins stuck through the holes on the boards with a dab of solder on each side. Getting these pins out is very tedious, take your time.

I removed the LCD from the board because I was afraid of it getting too hot and being damaged. When I put it all back together my screen was screwed because the contacts on the circuit board have to line up exactly with the contacts on the LCD (kinda hard to explain, think of rows and columns and each pixel dot). It took me a while to figure that out cause I was flying blind and I knew nothing of LCDs. I would recommend against removing the LCD.

I used four feet of 20 pin ribbon cable. The wires are 24 gauge so they\'re a bit hard to work with but manageable. Again, patience is the key. I wanted to put a connector in the middle of the ribbon so I could separate the controls from the screen but I couldn\'t find a 20 pin male/female pair that I liked. My advice: find some connectors. It\'ll make the installation much easier.

Regarding the mounting: I got really lucky in that I had a trim piece from an old Pioneer cassette deck lying around. The plastic cover on the Commander (with Apexi written on it) is the exact same size as the inside dimension of this trim peice, so it fits perfectly. Without this piece the installation wouldn\'t look nearly as clean. A word about the Apexi cover: it\'s stuck on the Commander with a tacky, double-sided tape. It pops right off with a little force from the back. You can then stick it on the LCD when you\'re ready to mount the screen. Right now the screen is very loosely sitting in the DIN spot. I knew I\'d be revisiting it soon to fill the blank space so I didn\'t want anything too permanent. You could super glue the unseen part of the screen to the trim plate, but I want to be able to take the Commander back to stock if need be. I haven\'t thought of a good permanent mount yet. I did super glue the trim plate to the DIN area cause I knew I could pry it off.

The trickiest part is the control mount. It has to be able to withstand repeated pressing. What I came up with is pretty funky, and too hard to explain in words. When I re-do some stuff I\'ll post pics. I used the back of a DVD case for the button panel. It\'s a bit flimsy but it\'s very easy to carve with an xacto knife.

The best advice I can give is to plan everything out carefully, and get all your parts while your thinking about your design. You can put a lot of it together before you de-solder anything.

Hope this helps you

Cheers

[dturpin]

Thanks for the help so far, that is of some help to me.  The main part I am struggling to figure out is the afct that the control part of the circuit board with the buttons on is to big to fit inside the Din converter, and the part that needs cutting off has wire coming off it that go to cable.

[Initial-D]

Don\'t worry about fitting it yet - just get the duplicate ones made!!