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I just tapped my power and ground wire directly to the wires behind the dc outlet aka cigarette lighter plug located between two seats in back. It's always on connection so don't forget to turn DVD off when leaving car. Just unscrew some plastic to get access. Watch out most posts never fit perfectly being a little more wabbly than stock. Also you might loose the up down lock on headrest post due to most adapters not having matching notches. My headrest is in down position and slightly further back from my head since DVD headrest are not as fat as our stock headrest.
Thanks for the helpful post. I'm looking to install some rockville headrest monitors today but wasn't 100% sure I could use that as a power source. Best buy technician said something to me about active vs. accessory power sources, which had me doubting myself. Anyone know of a good "car lighter-sized" switch I can install to make sure I power these things down? I might just drill a 3/4 inch hole under the lighter plug for a switch.
I installed AudioVox DVD headrests in my wife's Edge. Ended up pulling out the one we never used on the driver's side, since it was not as good of a headrest as the OEM one. The downside to DVD players is you obviously have to change the disc to watch something else. Upside is it never needs charged like a tablet. I wired them to non-switched 12V, so they don't stop playing when the key is cycled. When "off", they don't draw enough power to be an issue even after sitting for 2 months during the Takata airbag recall (it has a LED on the power button that is lit whenever it has power). I wired the sound to the Sync system through the Aux input (sounds fantastic) but we have a small rechargeable speaker we use with a audio cord coming from the DVD player most of the time. Edit: She wears the wireless IR headphones now and it works perfectly.
In the other vehicles, I use this mount https://smile.amazon.com/TFY-Univers...dp/B00IPCJFR4/ to hold a standard Fire HD 8 tablet with a 64 GB SD card. It stays in the car always, so we don't use the super padded kids model. I don't like the mount style that goes on the headrest posts, as it sticks out too far. The one I linked is as "low profile" as you can get. You don't want them to be able to touch it. I think the other types of mounts would be more hazardous in a wreck as well since they stick out and have a lot of hard, rigidly mounted parts that would be directly in front of the child in a wreck.
For content on the tablet, I rip DVDs and re-encode them using a free piece of software called handbrake. Takes a bit to figure it out, but not too bad. The encoded video files get put onto the SDcard, and I use VLC to play them on the Fire tablet. VLC is nice because the volume and brightness are adjusted by dragging up or down on either the left side or right side of the screen. So if it's too loud, I can reach back and turn it down without looking or finding a button. Same for the brightness at night. Put a mount in each car and you can swap the screen from one to the other easy.
Aside from having to rip DVDs and re-encode them, the only downside is it has to be charged. It does run 10+ hours without charging though, and you can obviously charge and run it at the same time if it's getting low on battery.
I installed AudioVox DVD headrests in my wife's Edge. Ended up pulling out the one we never used on the driver's side, since it was not as good of a headrest as the OEM one. The downside to DVD players is you obviously have to change the disc to watch something else. Upside is it never needs charged like a tablet. I wired them to non-switched 12V, so they don't stop playing when the key is cycled. When "off", they don't draw enough power to be an issue even after sitting for 2 months during the Takata airbag recall (it has a LED on the power button that is lit whenever it has power). I wired the sound to the Sync system through the Aux input (sounds fantastic) but we have a small rechargeable speaker we use with a audio cord coming from the DVD player most of the time. Edit: She wears the wireless IR headphones now and it works perfectly.
In the other vehicles, I use this mount https://smile.amazon.com/TFY-Univers...dp/B00IPCJFR4/ to hold a standard Fire HD 8 tablet with a 64 GB SD card. It stays in the car always, so we don't use the super padded kids model. I don't like the mount style that goes on the headrest posts, as it sticks out too far. The one I linked is as "low profile" as you can get. You don't want them to be able to touch it. I think the other types of mounts would be more hazardous in a wreck as well since they stick out and have a lot of hard, rigidly mounted parts that would be directly in front of the child in a wreck.
For content on the tablet, I rip DVDs and re-encode them using a free piece of software called handbrake. Takes a bit to figure it out, but not too bad. The encoded video files get put onto the SDcard, and I use VLC to play them on the Fire tablet. VLC is nice because the volume and brightness are adjusted by dragging up or down on either the left side or right side of the screen. So if it's too loud, I can reach back and turn it down without looking or finding a button. Same for the brightness at night. Put a mount in each car and you can swap the screen from one to the other easy.
Aside from having to rip DVDs and re-encode them, the only downside is it has to be charged. It does run 10+ hours without charging though, and you can obviously charge and run it at the same time if it's getting low on battery.
Thanks for the reply! I'm new to this and have a bit of trouble searching for questions I have that have already been answered. I'm excited because the rockville monitors I ordered have an hdmi input (
) so that should give me a little flexibility in terms of what the kids watch back there. I went ahead and ordered a cheap switch off of amazon that should be here tomorrow (
) . It might come in handy if the truck ever has to sit for an extended period of time--though I can see people accidentally kicking the switch and shutting everything off. It's my first time installing headrest monitors so hopefully I don't screw it up!
On a side note, I witnessed an accident yesterday and a trailer gate flew off and hit my fender/headlight/windshield--so I'm in the market for some new headlights now lol. I laugh now but it was actually a little scary.
Got the Rockville monitors installed and tapped into the car lighter port like you all suggested. I installed a little rocker switch so I can turn them off completely if it’s gonna be off for awhile or easily reset them if they’re acting up. I need to vacuum the mess but it came out pretty good! Thanks for your help! I have fabric interior but they still match pretty well! Managed to tuck all of the wires into the little console.
I’m an idiot and wired them backwards... after I fixed that, they worked great...I wish my head unit had an hdmi input like the headrests... something about going from an Apple av adapter to an rca adapter that distorts the image I think... the pq is actually way better on them than my head unit... especially with that hdmi input
Originally Posted by bicsintegra
Any problem with the monitors I’m thinking of getting these soon
04-15-2019, 01:47 PM
rockville power source
