So I bought a DVD player and put it in the arm rest of my 07 TL w/ Nav. Plays great using AUX inputs underneath. I retained full funcitonality and use of both compartments underneath and I have been witness to absolutely no skipping or overheating whatsoever, even on a 4 hour southpark marathon. Works great...

Had it in for about 2 months and haven't had a problem yet. I hated the idea of having to go to the trunk or back seat to change a DVD so here goes.

See pics.


passengerview


DriverSide View


Watching 24 season 5 dvd


Top View of ArmRest


Another Side View.


Front View of DVD mounted.

Also, I lean on the thing all the time and couldn't be happier about placement and usability. Haven't seen anyone else do this yet but I haven't been on the site in a while either.

 

Very nice Idea.........I like it.......

 

Thanks, I got so many cool ideas from this forum so I figured I would give one back with my little project. Also, I would have posted sooner but I wanted to give it two full months of testing before I proudly displayed my concept.

 

Do you seriously have a cross hanging like 4 feet from your rear view mirror?

Nice job - personally I like the half din setup in another thread on here; my fear would be leaning too hard on the arm rest and the increased risk of a break in because it's easy to see.. but nice work!

 

I honestly forget that the cross is even there unless for some reason I stop short which is not very often, because when I do, I notice it and the cross swings into the windshield a couple of times.

I'm not too concerned about a break in but being that only 6 tiny little screws hold the armrest onto the spring bracket, it would be really easy to smash and grab.

As I mentioned though, I lean on it heavily and I actually mounted the dvd player into a metal housing which was then slid into the armrest after some resewing of the leather. My hand actually hangs over the face quite a lot and when I open up the compartments with the little latches, I have yet to accidentally hit any of the buttons on the face of the player.

 

going to hell for this.. but do you think Jesus appreciates you slamming him into your windshield over and over again?!?!

 

round of applause for the dvd set up of the year

 

I was wondering what brand of dvd player u have, how much and where you got it from....

sweet setup by the way!

 

+1

Looks a bit "high" but seems like a prime location. Pics of the wiring and compartments?

 

I took advantage of the fact that the 2007 TL w/Nav came with aux input right next to the car adapter in the bottom compartment.

The Audio is plugged into the aux input in the bottom compartment along with the power going to the car adapter right next to it in the lower compartment.

The Video is wired out to the trunk along the passenger door sills in between the seats and the trunk pass through.

The armrest is about an inch higher than before but I didn't notice a difference in my arm position and I lean on it just like I used to.

The reason I didn't take pics of the install yet is because I still have an "I.R." extension to position so I can control the remote more naturally. At the moment I use the ir on the face plate to fast forward, reverse, pause, play and stop or I just press the buttons on the face if I'm really lazy or can't find the remote.

 

To Answer your question, The DVD/MP3/CD player is a VALOR DV-180 and I paid 160 USD or so and I bought it online at crutchfield. I couldn't be happier with my choice of unit.

The reason I chose this one is because of the 1/2 DIN size, the IR on the face, the slot loading, power options and most importantly an extra video out so that I can add external monitors in the future if I choose to add them.

A word of advice for anyone attempting this one though, the face plate on this unit is held together very flimsy so before you attempt to mount it into the armrest make sure you heavily tape the face plate at the seam where it meets the housing. The only thing holding it together are some small and very flimsy tabs on each side of the faceplate that snap in place and if the face comes off it is attached to the ribbon cable that provides power, ir and all of the front panel buttons. You don't have to pull too hard to pull the cable off of the main board and there goes your unit. I had to use needle nose tweezers and a magnifying helmet to get the ribbon back onto the board after my wife grabbed the unit by the face and the unit hit the floor while the face plate and ribbon cable stayed in her hand...

 

Sweet setup. Thanks for sharing.

Next step is if someone can design the armrest with a folding/sliding front flap that will hide the DVD player when its not in use.

 

thats pretty slick, I'd be interested to see the upolstery work that was required.

 

Well I thought of that earlier on during my planning of this but realized that any mechanism that provided the slide/fold would add more height or possibly width to the armrest which I didn't want to do since you already have to automatically add height for the player. I think if you pushed the payer far enough back into the armrest it may be feasible without much additional space required but pushing of the buttons and maybe even aesthetics may be compromised.

 

When I pulled the player out of the package I immediately placed it right on top of the armrest and it was a perfect fit within the outside seams. So the only issue would be adding an inch or so up on the sides to accomodate the unit and its wiring. A metal housing was inserted first so that the dvd player could slide into that once the cutting and sewing was done. Padding was added to the rear behind the dvd player so that the top rear of the armrest was still smooth and flush and not hollow inside which would have looked and felt hideous. That's pretty much it. Sorry, I didn't take pictures of the upholstery work but there wasn't much to it once the concept was there.