Reddit reviews BW 4.3'' Color TFT Car Monitor Support 480 x 272 Resolution + Car Rear-View Mirror System Monitor, Mini Monitor for Car/Automobile

Note, links here with a [!] are ones not in the album.

• Starting off HERE we have a view of the entire area. On the left is my rack topped with HP 1020, semi-dead retired PS3, and Netgear R6300v2, a few parts and tools. An HDMI switcher sticks out the back waiting cable management and routing to a shelf up front, also exposing IR receiver for it for manual control although it auto switches to the latest turned on device.
  
  Off to the right is a desk which has been converted to a ghetto entertainment center. I'd rather buy servers than furniture! My apartment is absolutely tiny anyway, like 600 SQFT. Logitech 2.1, Dell S2740L. I'd not pay that much for a dashboard monitor, but, I use it for media as well, so the price of it new when I got it, nearly 450 after taxes/shipping, was worth it.
  
  
• Over HERE a second R710 sits unused while I get another iDRAC chipset for it, and maybe another motherboard for it. Maybe. It works with it's damaged RAM channel but limits it's expansion. We'll see.
  
  
• HERE is my GLORIOUS GRAFANA SETUP! This is displayed on the Pi, refreshes every 30 seconds, data is dumped every minute to InfluxDB, some graphs use ELK Stack, and the Pi in addition to showing this uses a cronjob to dump temp/humidity data. A more detailed screenshot is HERE From left to right, top to bottom, you see,
  
• Power Usage, stats pulled from OpenHAB (more below)
  
• graphs of Humidity from an AM2302 sensor. I'll release Python sources when I'm comfy with them, r/Homelab will be the first to see 'em, no worries.
  
• A bunch of single-stat charts showing "right now" data: Rack intake temp, Rack exhaust temp, C-temp INSIDE the rack, Power Draw, and firewall incoming packets rejected over the last 5 minutes. More on this later.
  
• Stack-graph of intake and exhaust temp over time. Shows me how much "heat" is being shoved out the back better, visually. And I can see when I'm doing crazy stuff on CPU loads ;) - the sensors used here are THESE DS18B20's from Amazon. So easy to get working because it's 1Wire.
  
• Then I graph "ambient"-ish sensor data from my IPMITool dumps. A cronjob runs THIS[!] command every minute, and dumps the sensor data. The data in this graph is backplane, motherboard, ambient temps, etc. Nothing "Hot."
  
• Then, I graph the "hot" data - IO Controller hub, RAM, CPU cores, etc. Unfortunately the R710 and R210 don't have any hot data? Just ambient, and that's it. Boo!
  
• Next up, fan speeds. I consider this important and bolded the lines of fans that I've swapped so I can make sure they don't fail.
  
• "Ports" blocked is wrong, it's packets. This graph is polling Elasticsearch which gets pfSense firewall logs. It then graphs ICMP (Ping) requests it's rejected, and all other Layer4 packets on a separate line.
  
• Then, another Elasticsearch graph showing packets that have passed through - I only have three ports exposed - two RDP and one PPTP for when I lab at work. I want to see when my RDP sessions are being messed with, so I graph both of them. A management VM runs on the standard port, and a "production" (file/print/dhcp/dns/iSCSI) RDP session for "emergencies" runs on a nonstandard port.
  
  The last two graphs honestly tell me a LOT. ELK Stack is WAY more powerful than I thought. Unfortunately I don't like how Kibana's dashboards look, so save the geoIP stuff, I am using Grafana all the way. TODO: Get the Pie chart plugin working!
  
  
• THIS is my OpenHAB setup. Pardon the bulges on the side, screencaps from an S7 Edge, stitched together. Top down:
  
• Scenes (off/sleep/wake/work[all on])
  
• a 2800 Lumen living area light
  
• an RGB (though locked to single color due to limited OpenHAB2 support for this particular model) bulb behind the monitor seen HERE[!]
  
• An Ikea dome lamp I ripped the mains socket out of and replaced with LED strips, powered by an ESP8266 and custom driver circuit. Communicates via MQTT with a server, Mosquitto, on a VM. Sits above my bed. Reowr.
  
• AUX Power is for my hydroponics setup. I'm a basil/pesto nerd.
  
• Server rack power "right now." updates every 15 seconds.
  
• AUX Control controls the water pump for hydroponics. It's on a 1hr OpenHAB "cron" rule to water itself.
  
• Server Control, expanded upon HERE
  
• Network devices lists me and my SO's laptop and phones, and an NZXT H440 tower I built that we share. Seen here in an old photo playing Jak X at native speed, woo!
  
  
• HERE is a view of the rack, with THIS bandana I am in love with. The 4.3" LCD is THIS model LCD panel. It's disabled as the Pi outputs to HDMI, but I'll get SNMP graphs going on it when I get a second or even more Pi's.
  
• This LCD was previously used for a DIY snake climate control system, but I had to abandon my snake when I moved a year ago :(
  
• The setup was HERE[!] - old photo showing semi-complete. Eventually had it fully coded. This is a tkinter GUI and a PID control algorithm PWM'ing a heating mat for his cage.
  
• HERE[!] is a better view. I could VNC in to change his thermostats.
  
• BOY[!] did it fucking work great or what. HERE was a primitive Apache script charting the temps stored in SQLite via PYGAL. Note that the second plots are days at a time. The first is a plot of data over weeks. The dips are me resetting the script for improvements.
  
  
• HERE is the top of the rack with ghetto-WAP and HP laser printer. Semi-dead PS3, some spare PSUs, tools, PATCHKABEL, etc etc.
  
  
• HERE she is herself! Top down of the rack as follows,
  
• 1u HP ProCurve 2810-48G. I love this thing man.
  
• 1u Cheapo Ebay wannabe NeatPatch that cost me like 20 bucks.
  
• 2u Keystone inserts with one-off stuff like the modem, NUC, Pi, jacks in the back, routed up front for easy access.
  
• Blank
  
• 1u Shelf, left: Surfboard Modem, right: Intel NUC 5i3RYH. Pardon the 1/3-unit offset! It's trashy, I know, but the NUC is too tall >_<
  
• 1u Shelf, Sager NP3260 (Clevo W25AES) laptop. Used as a media center machine. Kodi, browsers, etc.
  
• 1u empty, awaiting rails for the R210 to mount it here.
  
• 2u empty, soon to house the second "spare" R710
  
• 1u currently holding the 210 on a shelf, soon to just hold tools or cables when the rails arrive...
  
• 1/3u reserved 1u, shelf.
  
• 2u, C2100 48GB RAM, 2xL5630, 3x1TB, 2x250GB, 1x160GB internal, soon to have an additional 30GB ssd when I prep it. Runs ESXi, virtualized FreeNAS w/ HBA Passthru.
  
• 2u R710 in good condition. Both this and the spare R710 rock an X5550 with 24 GB RAM. This currently has 4x 10K drives, soon it'll be 2x in each 710 as local storage. This in addition to the C2100 will be my vCenter Server lab, with vCenter Server itself running on the R210 (along with my management VM).
  
• 1u empty
  
• 1u blank
  
• 1u times two PDUs; outlets are at a premium even though I don't even use that much power!
  
• 1u empty TODO get a UPS in there.
  
• HERE is the MESS of wiring I hide by shoving this at a wall. Why I monitor the temps lol. You also see the HDMI switcher free-floating, and an HDMI Keystone in the next image below. I intend to shelf-mount the switcher up front for access, but eh, cables are thick, lazy, haven't gotten that far yet.
  
• HERE shows the quick disconnect and patch keystone at the bottom rear. So I dont need to rip my modem out if I wheel the rack around. I built it for portability, even though it never moves. For modularity, I left the input and output of the POE injector in the rack for my work-from-home phone. Hence the 5-inch loop connection.
  
• HERE is a glory shot of the trio of cables running along the wall. 2 data to my desk, 1 coax to the wall.
  
• HERE shows the HDMI switcher which is missing one port. Pi, Sager Laptop, and soon to be VM with Passthru. It switches automatically to the newest source, but I leave the remote handy in case I need to switch it myself. So, it shows the dashboard at all times, and if I fire up the media center with the remote keyboard, it shows that. If the media center goes to sleep, back to the dash. Also intentionally using Grafana because it's gorgeous dark theme.
  
• HERE shows my zen area booting up the best workhorse a man could ever buy himself - a THINKPAD! \ o /
  
• HERE I kick it back staring at the IT equivalent of paint drying.
  
• Since I work night shifts and sometimes even from home, I have curtains to isolate this area from the rest of my studio apartment.
  
  ---
  
  Power is metered/controlled with THIS switch. Make sure you have no way of shutting this off! Else you cut power to the whole lab. So far it hasn't had any random-shutoff issues. So I'm happy.
  
  This lab has taught me A TON, entertained me during off hours, given me uninterrupted sanctuary, prepped me for exams, and everything. After I get MCSA, the R710s + C2100 will be clustered to teach me much more advanced stuff for VCP5/VCP6 study.

For video I am using a car backup monitor because it is cheap. I don't know if my package was missing directions or if they just don't include directions but the power input is 12v DC. The package came with wires meant to be attached to a battery but I used the power adapter for my power drill to make it run off AC. Since the screen is so small I had to make the font bigger so that I could read it. This can be done by running 'dpkg-reconfigure console-setup'

Upgrade
http://www.amazon.com/Monitor-Support-Resolution-Automobile-Rear-view/dp/B006MPRFJQ/ref=pd_cp_e_0

Cool. I bought one of these (http://www.amazon.com/inch-Foldable-Rearview-Monitor-Screen/dp/B006MPRFJQ/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1426113319&sr=8-8&keywords=backup+LCD) to see what I could come up with with it, and noticed the ball-joint that connects to the back of it was perfect. So, I threw the display in a box, and cut the base off the stand, and used the ball joint for the arm of my display.


I imagine you could hack something together from there without a 3D printer. Though, I have to admit, now that I have that particular hammer, I'm finding a lot of nails.

Looking at the manual (http://www.fatshark.com/uploads/pdf/1722-1.pdf), HDMI is input only, but there is an AV In/Out port. You should be able to connect the AV cable to a small LCD (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Reversing-Satellite-Receiver-Equipment/dp/B006MPRFJQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1417057805&sr=8-5&keywords=car+lcd) powered by a 3S battery.

Buy two of these

This is the monitor I'm looking at, and it says you have to provide your own power source. I'm dissapointed about this cause it says "12V DC" and That's more than 5v.

Is there a way to do this? And if not, can anyone point me to a 4+inch monitor for a good price?

edit: this was in the comment section:

If you own a soldering iron and a screw driver it is VERY easy to make this 5v powered. The power input (red wire) goes to a buck converter which converts the 6-32VDC input down to the 5VDC that the display uses. After this change it pulls about 2W. At first I rewired the power connector to a USB but it's so big, bulky, and a waste of limited USB connections that I later changed to a 2 pin header to plug into a 5v/ground pair on the GPIO header. This will be on the edge of what the Raspberry Pi can source so you'll need to do one of two things. One option is plug the screen into a powered USB hub, but this defeats the simplicity of the mod. Instead just bypass the polyfuse (big green chip near the power connector on the Pi) and buy a 10W USB charger as your power source (I have the New Trent one from Amazon which is only $10). On average I am seeing ~4W total while playing music + WIFI + USB audio DAC + this beautiful monitor.

Is that explanation true/worth trying?

Screen

amazon link

Voltage boost converter for powering it

amazon link

I think I will use this screen and strap it onto the top of my 9xr along with the vrx. Gonna be alot of electronic work dont really have to much experience with. Got to cut the wire and put a those red jst's on it.