$50 Center Console Power Inverter Install

yeah, I made it myself. I've been thinking about selling them.. would people be interested.

I'm thinking of building one and putting it up on eBay and starting bidding at my material cost (cheap) and see where it goes for it what it would sell for.

I don't think this is for an in cab inverter. It just gives you 400 watts any time in the bed.

 

Any chance we can get a couple pics of your console organizer out of the center console?

I may be interested, and I bet a lot of guys on here would be.

 

If you decide to sell them let me know! Im local and would like to see you install it so i can get a little familiar with wiring!

 

I bet people would be interested. If you decide to do a write up for it, let me know. Thanks.

 

sure. Maybe in a little while. It's made out of clear acrylic. I used 1in right angles and bolts to connect all the joints and it gives it an industrial look. It has that center space with a double hinged door on top. Basically I keep medicine, garage door opener, emergency cash, etc in there. Then I close the for over it, and set my phone and wallet on there while I drive. It can hold the owners manuel / other small book in the area closest to driver. It has the spot to hold pens / pencils. And one spot to hold my tire pressure gauge / gum / led flash light. And one side, it holds (my inverter) or anything else one would want. I kept binoculars there for a while. It's probably one of my favorite parts of the truck.

I wouldn't sell them with the inverter. Although they would make it easy for you to drop an inverter in. I could send you an explanation of how to do the wiring and get the inverter.

How much do you think I could sell one of these guys for. The right angles, bolts, and acrylic aren't super cheap. I guess if I could get a few people to say they'd buy them, I could buy in bigger boxes of parts.

Theres a bit of a trick to getting it into the center console, but I would post pix of how to do it. A special angle. I'd imagine most people on here could figure it out on their own though.


** It's raining the hardest it's rained here all year. I'll get pictures as soon as the rain slows down.

 

With price, I always consider material cost + how long it takes you to make. So say just for example it takes you 2 hours to make, so how much do you want to make an hour. Maybe 10 or 20. Hopefully you get what I'm saying. That's how I price things I make by hand.

 

yeah. I'll have to go check around to remember exactly what the material cost is. Those acrylic sheets get much cheaper /sq foot if you buy big ones. So building more of these would bring cost down. I'll factor in what I want to make an hour. It's finals right now, but maybe by tomorrow, I could have a price estimate up on here to see how many people would want to buy them.

 

Sorry. It's a crappy night picture with a cell phone camera.

This is a picture of the center console with the double hinged top of that secession of the divider. This is really the part that makes it so useful.

I'm planning on building one tomorrow after school. So I can measure material cost and how long it takes me. Then I'll put it for sale on here. Who ever PM's me first will get it. After that, I'll set a price for it. And get orders from people over a couple day period. I will also get better pictures of it tomorrow. Who ever wants one. Just check this thread tomorrow evening. If you don't get the first one, I'll make the others soon after.

 

Once you get more pics and a material cost, make a feeler thread to see how many are interested. Then get a list going and you can get all the material at once in a larger quantity.

One thing. maybe you can get slighlty shorter bolts for the inside pieces so they dont stick out quite as far inside? Just slighty.

Ill probably take the first one once you figure out a cost. These things are sweet

 

Alright, You'll get the first one as long as you think the price is fair.

Any other tips?

The reason I want to build one before I figure out how many people want one, is that I want to make it really nice. Mine could use a few slight improvements ( such as the shorter bolts. ) I'd like to take the pix of one that I've built as best as I can. Plus I'm almost sure I have most the materials in my garage already to build one more.

I'll do a walk through of home depot tomorrow and figure out what cost would be. Or some estimate.

Check your PM's tomorrow evening. Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow afternoon to build one.

 

if you scroll down he shows that he installed outlets in the back of the console using the stock inverter.

 

Yeah I mean the bolts don't stick out a ton, but they could be like 1/4" shorter at least, then you won't get stuff hung up. Also, I can't tell if the lid overhangs over the edge or not, but if not you should make some kind of little handle or something to grab the lid and pull it up. Something pretty simple.

Come back with a price and you will see a little more interest from these guys

 

I can throw some sort of handle on there if you want. But in my experience it's better without it because that leaves that space nice and flat to set things on ( wallet / phone ). It's really easy to pick the top up.

I'm gonna go start making it now. I'm not sure if I'll finish this afternoon or not though.

 

Yeah thats true. Do you just cut the plexi with a dremel? I have never used plexi before at all, been wanting to try it out.

 

dremel or jig saw. I'm going out there to build it right now. Got my measuring stick in hand.

 

Good man. How did it go?

 

Subd

 

I'll get pix up and an explanation done in a few min. Sorry it took an extra day. I've had a ton going on with finals.

 

Same here haha I am already tired of them.

 

Okay. So heres the deal. These boxes are not easy to build. I think I'd have to sell it for 60 dollars. So I'm not sure how many people will be interested at that price. It's about 20 bucks in materials, plus about 4 hours time. So 60 bucks is minimal. I guess as I built them more often they'd get quicker, but right now, I need to spend at least 4 hours to do them correctly.

That being said. Heres the pictures.

The hole on the far side of the box is for my inverter switch. If someone does want to buy this, I'll build them a new one, because I decided I really like this one and so I put that hole in it for the inverter switch. If someone wanted to do the inverter mod pictured in the OP, I can sell them the box with the cut right there.

So if people want to buy one for 60 plus shipping. I'll build them for you. I'll also be willing to sell the one that's pictured in my OP. I'd sell that for 20 plus shipping. Only difference is that, the cuts aren't as clean on it. Forster46 gets first dibs because he's been quite loyal to this thread.