How to Build a Center Console for my truck | Overland Edition

[Music] hey guys welcome to the channel thank you for hanging out with me my name is michael you're gonna learn how to design and build a custom center console why would you want to do that well number of things this is the original factory center console and it's got a it's got a lot to be desired it has no cup holders no usb ports no charging pads it's just not very modern and also i'm going over to the redarc manager 30 battery management system for my dual battery setup and solar things of that nature and the red vision and i need a place for that and this rig just isn't that big so this space is far too valuable not to optimize in an adventure vehicle now if you don't have an adventure vehicle of course we want you to start considering how you might build one and what's right for you because we'd love to see you out there on the trail this is going to be a series probably three videos okay i'm lying maybe it'll be more but i'm gonna go for three videos and in this first video we're gonna build the perfect cardboard prototype because you guys don't want to just start building design it first and then put it in your rig in cardboard make sure it's the perfect design change it before you start building i'm going to show you exactly how to do that all right so let's get started now remember we're a community of over 30 000 adventure travelers worldwide and growing quickly and you can connect with us with our free app overlandbound one so go and pick it up and connect with the community we'd love to answer your questions let's get started we gotta measure the interior how are we gonna do that we're gonna scan the inside of our vehicle with our phone so if you have a late model phone one of the best advancements is ladar laser radar technology it allows you to scan a 3d object to a high degree of accuracy now i know these are expensive phones the late model ones are but if you have one use it if you're like me and you make more mistakes than sound decisions it will prevent you from making a bunch of mistakes because you'll have a 3d model of the interior of your vehicle to work with in your 3d application and then you just build your console right there now the alternative is to just get out your ruler and paper and take a bunch of dimensions a bunch of notes and then mock that up in 3d so you have a space to work with but this makes it simple and i used a app called 3d scanner app for ios so that's how we got that and we'll take that model and bring that into a 3d application called blender to design your console you could do it a number of different ways with cardboard and cutting out paper and drawing it on paper and that will work just fine but consider doing it in 3d because you can do rapid iteration you can change things a lot before you start building and with the 3d model of the interior you know it's going to fit just right you can try out different things and it's a lot easier to do it in that environment if you don't know a 3d application well you can learn a 3d application they're not that tough though you will be putting some hours into it the model that i built for the console took about 24 hours to model so it's a lot of work but it's worth it because the end result is gonna be decent so blender is an absolutely free 3d modeling animation rendering application no tricks no upsell no get pro it is just free so you can get that right now some other options might be autocad or one that i like is fusion 360. you can learn it i would recommend doing it because once you create a 3d model you can use that to print out templates and do all kinds of cool stuff and you have it always archived you can change it later so that's what i did now you guys see that upgraded head unit i take your recommendations part of what our software does is mapping and navigation we're introducing carplay and android connect and all the things so to continue testing on and off the grid i absolutely need an upgraded stereo let me know what your suggestions are in the comments now we have a 3d model of the center console alright so now you got a 3d model but there's a major missing step you also have an issue here's the deal we're going to make a perfect cardboard prototype but how do i get the 3d model into usable templates so that i can cut out cardboard at the right scale now you would think it would be as easy as printing it's not so if you're going from a package like autocad to a plotter no problem this is not going to be an issue for you but like most if you only have a eight and a half by 11 little printer next to your desk then there's a way that i found to do this there are probably many ways however here's the deal i found a company called pi engineering and they make scale model railroad equipment and software and there's an application called rail driver and it's 19 and it's the only package out there that i found you can create an image take a snapshot of a screen capture of your model on your desktop and as long as you know some dimensions print it out at that exact scale dividing it up equally among eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper this is the killer app it's only 19 bucks and it's worth every penny to make sure that your printouts and your templates are exactly to scale with this solution i was able to create templates that are accurate within about a sixteenth of an inch now the next step we got a lot of cutting out to do we're gonna cut out those temp templates that i printed and it's a lot of cardboard hot glue measuring and cutting now during the whole process i kept in mind i only really need between a sixteenth of an inch eighth of an inch maybe a quarter of an inch in some area accuracy that's going to greatly affect how much time you spend creating your cardboard model so i whipped through it and constructed the 3d model just having it in 3d i learned a heck of a lot now i've got about three hours into this over a couple of days i don't want to speed things up and then make you guys think oh it's easy because when you're doing this process of course i want you guys to know how much time it's gonna actually take you so about three hours or so but we're at the last little bit i've i've already learned a lot just by having this in 3d you know i can see how the pieces fit together and i can see the scale at like some of these drawers is that actually useful space anyway it just really helps plenty accurate for me to be able to mock this up and then we're going to put it in the 80 i'll sit behind the driver's seat with the with the with the prototype in there and we'll see how it looks alright so let's finish it up [Music] so [Music] all right there you have it so you can see how much bigger this is than this uh it's quite a bit especially on the back um it protrudes back a lot further i knew it would but the test of whether it's going to work or not is when we get it in the rig let's do it gonna fit i don't know okay so you guys saw when i was putting it together it's modular so we're going to put it in in modular fashion that goes there the second piece the second piece it's important that i have quick access to the electronics it covers the electronics but it basically splits the whole thing into the final piece boom just like that [Music] oh right okay it fits uh that works fine for the elbow rest that is fine this actually feels pretty good one thing it's really tight where the emergency brake is good notes we're going to be making some adjustments all right that was super helpful that is exactly why we design and build a prototype first i have two changes to make i know at least a half inch on this side where the emergency brake is when you sit in the driver's seat putting on the emergency brake i want this to feel factory not like i gotta work my hand in there to open up the emergency brake so i'm gonna make that change then i didn't take into consideration the lumbar support again prototyping two more videos i'm going to take this to parnell and we're going to talk about how to build it and then we'll have a final assembly but this one is how to make your prototype and i hope that was really useful like and subscribe if you want to see those videos also you can comment connect with me either in the comments or download the overland bound one app and give me your ideas i'll respond about you know now that you've seen it in the rig what are some of your ideas uh what would you change what would you make different all right you guys thanks for hanging out with me really appreciate it until next time outfit and explore

Channel: Overland Bound

Views: 13,876

Rating: 4.9473686 out of 5

Keywords: HOW TO BUILD a CENTER CONSOLE for my truck, diy, console, center console, custom, custom center console, how to build a center console, overlanding, redarc, 4x4, camping, offroad, overland, 4wd, prototyping, design, model, blender, cad, Tutorial, Whats my OFF ROAD SET UP 2021, redarc dual battery system, redarc manager 30, center console build, center console restoration

Id: fIRZ6MYdZmI

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021