Designing control panel for mostly computerized HO 5x9

[k4kfh]

I'm in the process of planning my control panel for my HO 5x9. (I'm also a bit of a newbie here so excuse me if I break any rules ) I have most of the electronics of the layout done already, including the track power wiring, turnouts controlled by Digitrax decoders, an Atlas turntable I "beat into submission" to work with DCC, and a Digitrax Zephyr as the core of it all. It's all connected to a PC running JMRI as well, which is what I use to control the turnouts, and I use my phone/tablet as a throttle most of the time.

The laptop I'm using is already 11 years old (Linux is magical for reviving old machines, but it's not going to last forever sadly) so I don't want to build the entire control panel around that. Instead, I'd like to build it with a mount for a standard VESA monitor (for anyone who's not a geek, VESA is a standard mounting system for computer monitors and some TVs) and a space for a keyboard/mouse, plus all the other stuff (a few power toggles, a mount for my Zephyr, the usual odds and ends).

My question is this: How would you go about building the monitor/keyboard mount area? I know there are products that are "ready to go" out of the box that do this, but every one of those I found on Amazon was far out of my price range. I'd like to keep this below $100, not counting some lumber because we have some on hand already.

Any ideas?

 

[number9]

I think you need to describe what you want out of this part below. I mean, you have a computer (I would build a mini-itx based machine with no fans and SSDs, that way you won't have to mess with it for a long time and you can mount it somewhere out of the way), and you have a monitor, so I am assuming you want some kind of mount. How do you want this mounted? What I mean is, do you want like an industrial type HID/monitor in the fascia board and your keyboard/mouse to slide out from under that? Do you just want a drawer with a smaller monitor and keyboard and mouse all in the drawer (if yes, look into purchasing an old KVM monitor, they are usually already installed in rails with a built in keyboard and mouse, and then you could just modify that to place it under your benchwork).

I think if you can describe where you want the monitor/keyboard/mouse and what you want it to look like, the answer will fall out of that as to what you need to purchase/build.

I

My question is this: How would you go about building the monitor/keyboard mount area? I know there are products that are "ready to go" out of the box that do this, but every one of those I found on Amazon was far out of my price range. I'd like to keep this below $100, not counting some lumber because we have some on hand already.

Any ideas?