Hey guys, I mentioned this in an ecu+ thread... and it made me think to offer it up to you guys too in case any of you were interested. I am CADing up a bracket to hold my laptop in the rear of my car. It will mount to the "V brace" that you see when you remove your rear seatback. It will require drilling 4 holes (as the layout stands right now.




as it stands, the bracket includes a 3 in long gap in the rear where my comp has the serial port and USB ports.

I could potentially add holes so long as they dont compromise the holding capability of the bracket.

Right now it is measured out for my laptop in particular... 11in deep by 13in wide.

If you are interested in the files (inventor) they are here:
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/utara/laptop%20bracket/

I prefer solidworks and am working on getting my hands on a copy.

Right now I plan on using 3/8" steel for it, yeah kinda heavy... perhaps 10-15lbs in all? Aluminum is also a possibility if someone wants to pay for it, I think I will personally use steel for 2 reasons
1. I cant afford another laptop if this thing doesn't hold mine.
2. steel is much cheaper.

So basically I'm throwin' this out b/c if there are those of you who are interested, even if vaugely, it would be nice to give the metal shop a quantity for a quote... You guys know the deal, more quantity=cheaper units.

I expect ~$20. I've gone through them before. They made my W/Alch. inj pump bracket and my camera bracket. Both $11 or less.

-I'm not looking to make any money on it, so I'll give you all the price of it being made, painted (so it doesnt rust before it gets to you) and shipped with no profit on my end. I am getting one made either way, so I thought I'd offer it to others while I'm at it.

BTW, gonna get it done at milwaukee steel in Lynchburg, VA. (you may have heard of them from the Discovery channel show "Southern Chopper")

Lemme know guys.

 

Why would you put it there???

 

Yeah, seems like an odd place, but I designed it that way for a few reasons
1. I still have instructors... so the passenger area is out.
2. Installing harnesses, so I wanted it to be out of the way, even of the harnesses that bolt to the rear seatbelts.
3. There really are very few clean places to bolt something to in the rear of the car while not getting in the way of anything (including the camera mounted on the rear deck)


-Just sent an email off to milwaukee. I'll see the individual price. Anyone else lemme know if you may be interested before I order it.

 

Umm, how do you plan to access it?

Installing harnesses? Attached to what? I hope to hell a roll bar/cage. You may want to read that other thread.

I'd just think that be a completely useless place for it.

 

dude. You can turn around and access it if you really want to... you should probably be racing though.... I'ts there for logging.

And not that it really is of much importance to you, but I'm going to go w/ the schroth 4 pt anti submarining harness. Please dont lecture. I did see the other thread, and I started one of my own.

So are you interested?
Is anyone else?

 

There's going to be a pretty big canitlevered load placed on the V-brace with your design. When you go over bumps, I'm guessing you're V-brace is going to get bent. The thin sheet metal of the v-brace is not designed to handle cantilevered loads.

If I were you, I'd design a laptop bracket that bolts straight to the floor where the laptop tray is supported at all four corners.

 

lf I really wanted a laptop to log the easiest way would be to remove the back seat and make some removeable restraints there. you are right though, you don't want that thing flying around inside the cabin, but a steel bracket is needlessly heavy, complicated and ugly.

something a little stronger than tape would hold it down if you screw the fabric down.

 

With 3/8" steel it'll be more like 25 lbs.

 

lol, I'll take that as a unanamous "we're not interested."

It will definately be beefy enough to hold the cantilever load, especially with the triangular brace on the bottom.

I wanted to put it on the floor, but that makes is totally inaccessable. I felt thick steel would offer strength and cost efficiency, of course at the cost of weight. It will be like 20-25lbs. That doesn't bother me seing as I only do DEs right now, not TT.

I'll post up pix when I get it. Thanks for the responses.

 

You could probably hollow out the center to reduce weight. You can also use thinner gauge sheet metal on the sides to further reduce weight since they don't see much load.

 

true, didn't think about putting a hole in the center of the tray, that would have been a good idea. Ah well. This is only a solution for now anyways. At this point weight reduction is really of no concern to me, in DEs... my car is already too fast. If I go the TT route, I will remove my passenger seat and cage the car, and have a new bracket in the passenger seat area (of aluminum).