Hey sorry if response is a little late, got busy with school and other project but will have almost entire august to myself and will definitely finish whats been started. Ill answer your questions as follows:
1) Just as a heads up i do electronic repairs for living so every step was planned out before i started, but without experience you might end up spending more time figuring things out. But as of fabrication you would have to have to have basic soldering skills, you dont actually have to solder anything to the iPad itself only the wires, even cheap 10$ solder from radio shack will do. And you will have to have basic understanding how ipad hardware works, and how everything is connected in it.
2) Ive had it mounted for over a month now, and been driving my car daily, and driving to ny from buffalo almost every weekend, and so far so good. There is no rattle and nothing got disconnected, because all the insides are reinforced with zipties, really good quality adhesives, and the structure of the mount itself makes every part go where it supposed to. Only modification that i have done was that i built a box from plexiglass around motherboard and installed small fan from macbook, i just had one laying around but any laptop fan will work just fine, and i powered it directly from the power outlet from under the glovebox, but honestly i feel like if you have tints and ac running you dont need to do this. iPad prevents itself from overheating.
3) Total actually comes out really cheap. Only thing, you might end up buying few thing online because local stores dont carry them, but as i already mentioned I had most things needed before i started. But here is the brake down of prices.
1. iPad itself- whichever model you buy I would highly suggest buying it from walmart with accidental damage warranty which is 30$ extra in case something goes wrong you can always get a brand new one to work with. Even though I already had one, still bought another one just for the car.
2. Tools, you would need dremel with extra bits (50$), solder and soldering stuff~ 15$.
3. adhesive you can buy some at you phone repair shop ~5$, zipties~ 2$, lightning cable ( only buy a real one only from apple) 30$, if you want to glue glass to the lcd so picture is brighter on sunny days you would need LOCA and UV gel nail polish curing booth together is 60$, This part is actually where you need experience because you are running a risk of messing up the LCD screen.
Laptop fan 5$, wires and controller for the fan another 5$, flex extensions for cameras 20$
4. The surface frame that goes around the iPad ive made one myself the one on the pictures above costed me 10$ in material, but ive contacted a shop that can make me a nice looking one out of fiberglass and painted to match interior on wrapped in any material 275$. This is the part where if you have experience in fabrication you will save a lot. For the actual frame that holds the ipad i used stock cubby compartment and cut it with dremel here and there to fit everything in perfectly.
So assuming that you have ipad and tools everything will run under 100$, and depends on the surface frame how you want to make it look and who makes it price will vary. Honestly the sufrace frame is strictly for the looks it has no function at all and can easily be clipped on and off, you can even end up making few different once
But if you have any questions and in case you will actually end up doing one yourself im willing to help.
