Headrest LCD Install DETAILS

[H2Finally]

Re-reading I think I may have been too verbose ... Skip now if you are just curious...

My portable drive partly crashed, so I lost pictures of the actual process. But I'll describe best as I can, and for those interested in doing this themselves, feel free to ask details.

I use NESA NSTM-7055 headrest LCDs. The pic quality is not bad (TV for my kids), price is right, and the OSD is via ultra cool (no buttons!) touchscreen

The headrests come in 3 pcs. The housing, a spacer to raise the housing (prob for cars which does not have thick enough headrest -- not needed for the H2 headrests), and the LCD itself.

I use the inside of the spacer to draw a rectangle on the back of each headrest. Then draw 2 "X"'s from each corner, and cut on the "X"s ONLY. Peel open, start tearing into the foam underneath. The foam has 2 layers, the top is covered in some kind of plastic which needs cutting to make a smooth tear. The bottom is just foam. START CONSERVATIVE, and keep checking with the mounting housing.

For the Nesa, I actually removed the foam all the way to the plastic headrest core in the middle of the headrests. Then I drilled a hole through the plastic headrest core for the Nesa's cables.

Press LCD housing down, use 4 short screws to secure the four corners to the plastic headrest core. Feed cables through hole (-- which comes out by one of the headrest pole legs), and pop LCDs in until it clicks/locks in place.

Very easy.

The bitch of the install is running the wires through the back of the seats . I ended up using a straightened white wire shirt hanger (with small loop at end), and CAREFULLY fish it through from the top, down to inside bottom corners of the seat back. Point of entry is right underneath the headrest mount holes (NOT inside the holes). No cutting, no notching .

Fyi, the H2 leather/vinyl is very flexible, and did not stretch out of shape despite some vigorous pulling. The 1st fishing takes maybe an hour, trying to guide the wire from horizontal (top of seat) to vertical (back of seat). The 2nd takes 5 minutes, using a long skinny screwdriver to carefully press down the corner sponge (so that the wire goes 45 degree instead of a sharp 90).

I prefer to tap power from the interior fuse block (SEO ACCY), to preserve warranty. You only need to remove the back console (3 screws). I fished the power wires under the dash, then run it all the way back, between the middle console and driver seat. You can then simply "tuck" the wires under the lip along the edge of the middle console. Very easy.

The back console is attached with 5 wire harnesses (radio, 2 heaters, 2 power outlets). While I have it off, I decided to do something about one of my peeves -- the fact that if you plug anything in the back power outlets, one of my kids would inadvertantly trip over the protruding plug. Too, you can't fold open the 2nd row seats properly with the protruding plugs.

So I added 2 new power outlets inside the pretty-much-useless tiny storage bin. These are also switched with ignition, instead of always on. I also placed the 2 headphone jacks here (hardly noticable, for if/when I upgraded to wireless headphones), and while I'm at it, I added a A/V input jacks for my kids video game..

I also thought that it would be convenient to have power outlets under the middle seat. I added 2 external power outlets ($7.99 radio shack), and connect it to a switch, placed... where else? -- inside the useless bin.. .

My outlets are actually powered by a sperate line, using the other ACCY fuse. Btw, note that if the power outlets are not used, the useless bin actually retains almost all of its 1 cubic inch storage space...

Technical notes:

1. Power outlet has to be mounted 1-1/8" from the screw holes, to clear the screw bracket behind the bin. The right plug fits exactly between the bracket and factory amplifier's cooling fins.

2. A/V cables are just a +ve (signal) & ground. You can cut the coax A/V cables, and reconnect/extend/etc with regular cables as you wish (the middle/core wire is the +ve, the sheath wire is ground). The video ground is actually shared with the power ground. The audio grounds are shared left and right, but ISOLATED from either the video's or power ground.

3. Quite easy to have independant A/V viewing for each LCD. Each A/V source is split using a "Y" RCA adapter, going to 2 identical $10 A/V switches under the seat. The output of one switch goes to driver LCD (and driver side headphone jack), the other to the passanger side.

That's it.