Sorry for the delay. Brent at Columbia Rovers helped me install my Ram Mount last friday and I took it out to Tillamook on saturday for some light trail testing and it worked out beautifully. Here's some pictures of the mount installed. We ended up ditching the base that Ram sent with it and opted for a steel plate that we drilled and used as a stabilizing point on the dash. It's pretty stable, although I think putting another plate on the underside of the dash and sandwiching it will be the best I have not yet gone that far yet, but for where it is it's good and doesn't bounce around all over. So far VERY happy with the install.

A few more pictures with the computer on board...

Looks good. Glad to hear it doesn't bounce around sounds like you have a solid mounting solution.

Craig,

No worries, I appreciate all opinions and advice. I know it's not the best looking. And it by no means complete. I still want to finish it, But it's functional. I was planning on painting all the parts as well. That idea with the coin tray is good. I will look at that and see what I come up with. i was also considering trying to find a vertical anchor point in the front to secure too. so I can get rid of the top plate entirely. It is definitely close and working, just needs that fine tuning. 

I will show the actual final product once I have a plan, but for now, my impatient side is apeased.

AJ

This is exactly why I love this site.

AJ

Here is my setup. Purchased cheap $50 (cheapest?) CFL-800 laptop mount available over amazon. www.jeniko.com Mount comes with  plate for attaching to floor or transmission tunnel, vertical extension tube, swing arm and plain laptop tray. Swing arm is huge. I cut it down quite a bit. Actually there is enough material to built double arm from one supplied just like their CFL-1000 but after some testing, in order to reduce vibrations I concluded that the shorter the arm the better. Mount comes with some Velcro but I purchased more. One important feature I added is screen holder (few rivets and $10 worth of aluminum). It pivots up and down, holds back of screen with Velcro as well. My mount and laptop survived Nevada Trophy so I'd dare to say it's pretty sturdy and been put through it's paces considering that I manged to rip my shocks in half. Screen holder is a must on rough roads. Without one I wouldn't be surprised if it just falls off after some time. On a side note having large 15" screen is nice and gives pretty decent situational awareness. I pretty much didn't care for DeLorme atlas I had along. Mount was low enough that laptop didn't obstruct my vision yet I was able to see clearly when needed or even oprate keyboard without too much distruction.

That turned out great. It's similar to what I did. I used a RAM laptop tray and two RAM ball mounts with those cool clamp thingies they make. They are connected by a piece of 1/2" galvanized pipe from the hardware store -- very high tech ;-) To eliminate flex the base-ball is mounted to a piece of angle iron that is held in place by the PS seat mounting bolts. It's been very reliable over the years.

These pics are from the install in my '87, which is now in my '94, and instead of the old Compaq Armada W95 (it was virus proof!) there is a 15" Powerbook running MacGPSPro.

Great builds & ideas going in here now. 

I'm curious how your co-pilots get along with the install, any complaints about knees bumping into brackets that sort of thing?

For the summer I'm going to be stuck with an old dell C610 for use in my rig and I was thinking of attempting to extend the laptop screen so I could remotely locate the guts of the laptop and just have the screen & mouse up front.   I'm just worried that the signals are so low that 3 or 4 ft of extra cable might degrade the signal so bad it craps out.

The price on those Jeniko mounts is within the sweet spot for experimenting.  Much thanks for that link!!

Whatever I get worked out I'll add to the thread.

Jay,
Passenger comfort has always been one of my concerns as well.  In most cases, I think the passenger can just turn the laptop towards them and the their legs will go underneath like a desk.  Land Rovers have wider interiors than many vehicles, so your mileage may vary.

A tablet folds up flat, and takes up much less horizontal space than a traditional laptop.  Similarly, a UMPC on the dash is 2x as big as a traditional GPS and doesn't interfere with the passengers at all.  You can take a laptop and instead of mounting it like an "L" you can open it up wider so it is taller but flatter.  I think Geofff has his mounted in his sportsmobile like this.

I've posted this in my build thread already, but this thread seems to be the hotspot for install photos... so, here's my Semi-ruggedized 7" Sunlight Visible EO Tuftab on a RAM mount.  The GPS is a through hull SIRF III GPS.

does anyonhe have experience with RAM's universal tripod mount?  The one with the flexible legs that uses the PS bolts and one toward the front of the tunnel?  Flexible legs sound good so long as they remain ridged enough to hold a big notebook computer upright.

Craig, most tablet computers have high rez screens don't they? 

I am seriously considering mounting my 15.1" screen HP notebook in the Tacoma.  But it's major problem is fadeout in bright sunlight.  I have a 1520 Pelican case that I used to carry the notebook out in the field with me for work.  I started strapping the case down on the passenger seat with a couple of 1" wide nylon webbing, and would use two bunji type cords to hold the notebook firmly on the top of the closed case.  With the use of a small power inverter and DeLorme's Topo software and LT20, I found it worked pretty well.  The major problem of course was that there was no room for a passenger, and that I had to take my eyes waaaay off the road to look at the map. 

I could replace the existing 120 gig HD for a 250 Gig version in my computer pretty cheaply.  Then I'd have enough room for all of the Overland Navigator maps that I now own. So many options, so little time, or is it money?

This looks like a pretty good computer for Overland Navigator.

 
$499, 1-2gb of RAM, 60gb HD, 8.9" screen, ruggedized.  The processor is fast enough to run Overland Navigator, but probably not multiple applications at the same time.  www.gottabemobile.com