Project Overhaul

I met with another law enforcement official on 2/2/23 to get his advice on my project. He suggested that a display in the back window of the car might be a better idea than on the mirror for several reasons:

• the officer is focusing on the individual inside of the vehicle - they only look at the mirror if that's their only line of visiblity - they're more likely to see the display if its in the back window
• I don't have to worry about legal considerations with the DMV for building something on the inside of a car
• I can make the screen bigger to clearly display a simple message to the officer
• I don't have to worry about weather-proofing my project

Considering these insights, I decided to go along with his idea and change the display of my project. The biggest challenges now were figuring out how to attach the project to the inside roof of the car and how to attach the motor to the display.

I originally imagined the servo motor to be placed like this where the screen flips downwards from the inside roof of the car.

I considered possibly moving the display with a sliding motion like this and not folding it upwards, but I ended up going with the folding motion because for a lot of cars the display won't be able to move upwards considering the angle between the roof and the trunk.

For the motor itself, I am planning to make a servo-driven hinge mechanism. This Thingiverse page has the STL files from a video with a similar design to what I envisioned as well as a technical drawing. This GrabCAD page has 3D models also containing the servo motor itself.

I am also planning on attaching the device through suction cups to the back window, as I feel this is the easiest and most secure mechanism for holding the display in place.