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Custom 8" Tablet Mount - Need Ideas

NightmareMoon

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I've got this nice Galaxy Tab A 8" Tablet and a good RAM dock for it, but I need some ideas for how to securely mount it to the interior of the car. The tablet w/ dock and a 6" RAM extension arm is nearly 2 lbs, so its pretty heavy and mounting it to anything with flex to it isn't working out.

I'm planning on using this Tablet for telemetry data when autocrossing or tracking the car, so I really need a good hard place in the cabin to do a hard-mount. Its going to see hard bumps at high speed and near constant G forces in excess of 1g.

Tried one of the RAM sticky ball mounts and it lasted oh, maybe 5-8 minutes at speed on the track before the G forces won over the sticky tape and it flopped into the passenger footwell.

Where's a good place to find a hard piece of metal rigidly connected to the car which I can bolt into to get a ball mount securely in place, ideally near the infotainment area, center console or dash? Seems like everything near the driver is plastic or padded. Where's some hard metal under there that I can use to securely mount a RAM ball mount?

My fallback is going to be a piece of wood to mount the tablet dock which I can shape and velcro in place over top of the Ford navigation unit, but I'm not thrilled about rocking the velcro on my dash 24/7.
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EFI

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2 magnetic mounts directly on the dashboard here will hold it more than securely and not block any of your vision.

I use a single swivel magnet for my 6.4" phone on the left side pictured and it holds the phone just fine. Two on each end of an 8" tablet will be solid.

red is magnet, white is how the tablet would sit

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jacknifetoaswan

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If you can weld, I'd use the passenger seat base bolt as a securing point, then fab up a bracket to hold it kinda next to the center console, like where the passenger's left knee would go. You could weld a plate onto the bracket, then use double sided tape on the back of the tablet to connect to the plate.

JR
 
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NightmareMoon

NightmareMoon

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If you can weld, I'd use the passenger seat base bolt as a securing point, then fab up a bracket to hold it kinda next to the center console, like where the passenger's left knee would go. You could weld a plate onto the bracket, then use double sided tape on the back of the tablet to connect to the plate.

JR
I like the magnet idea above.. better than velcro... if its a strong enough. IDK if I'd trust it on some of the bumpier local tracks with just magnet holding 1.5lbs of $$$ electronics.

This passenger seat base idea occurred to me too. Fab up a bracket that slips in under the front left passenger seat bolt and comes up just high enough to locate a RAM ball joint. I don't weld but I have a friend who's pretty handy at melting metal together.
 

EFI

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I like the magnet idea above.. better than velcro... if its a strong enough. IDK if I'd trust it on some of the bumpier local tracks with just magnet holding 1.5lbs of $$$ electronics.

This passenger seat base idea occurred to me too. Fab up a bracket that slips in under the front left passenger seat bolt and comes up just high enough to locate a RAM ball joint. I don't weld but I have a friend who's pretty handy at melting metal together.
I like the magnet idea above.. better than velcro... if its a strong enough. IDK if I'd trust it on some of the bumpier local tracks with just magnet holding 1.5lbs of $$$ electronics.

This passenger seat base idea occurred to me too. Fab up a bracket that slips in under the front left passenger seat bolt and comes up just high enough to locate a RAM ball joint. I don't weld but I have a friend who's pretty handy at melting metal together.
You'd be surprised how strong the magnet hold is. I would have to use 2 hands and really pull on it to get it to unhook. No way would it fall off just driving around if it took that much force to take it kff
 

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NightmareMoon

NightmareMoon

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You'd be surprised how strong the magnet hold is. I would have to use 2 hands and really pull on it to get it to unhook. No way would it fall off just driving around if it took that much force to take it kff
If it stuck at all I'd be surprised. My strongest (small) magnet gets nothing off that part of the dash.
 

EFI

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If it stuck at all I'd be surprised. My strongest (small) magnet gets nothing off that part of the dash.
I currently use one of these on my 6.4" phone right now and previously tried 2 of them for the tablet. They hold perfectly on the dash itself, and the magnet is strong enough where like I said I had to yank on the tablet to uncouple it from the magnets.
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Gearz

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I use the same size tablet for the same purpose and found the ProClip mount works extremely well.

20200512_093936.jpg
20200512_093949.jpg

You can see how well it holds in this video:
 
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NightmareMoon

NightmareMoon

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I use the same size tablet for the same purpose and found the ProClip mount works extremely well.

20200512_093936.jpg
20200512_093949.jpg

You can see how well it holds in this video:
Looks like its pretty secure
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