Link to the project!

Carputer part 1


Computer:

AMD 1.2GHz Tbird
Asus A7V-M Micro-ATX motherboard
512MB RAM
80GB Harddrive
Radeon VE
Soundblaster Live Value
Creative CIMR RS232 Remote Control

LCD:

Farenheit 7.2" T-7001MHR

Software:

Windows 2000
Girder http://www.girder.nl/
MediaEngine http://www.mediaengine.org


Description:

The computer is going in the trunk. I made a box out of MDF and fashioned it so the computer would fit in as little space as possible. I tore apart the power supply and wired the hot and neutral to a 3 prong plug to go to the invertor. I then grounded the case, power supply, and inverter to a distribution block. I also wired in a 30A SPDT relay to kick the invertor on once the remote line of the headunit goes hot.

As far as the computer wiring went I needed a way to put a power switch and IR receiver up front. I cut my CIMR cable in half and wired each end into a CAT5e jack along with the power switch wire. Each end (the screen and the CPU) have a CAT5e jack so that I only hafta run a standard network cable to the front and the back to enable my remote and power switch. The was of course some wire extending and soldering invloved in this but it wasn't too bad.

Anyway I am waiting on my alpine RCA adapter so hopefully next weekend I will have pics of everything running.

Also if you have an questions on this ongoing project please let me know or visit: http://www.mp3car.com


Modified by 1BlackHatch at 2:29 PM 10/26/2003


Modified by 1BlackHatch at 2:32 PM 10/26/2003


Modified by 1BlackHatch at 2:34 PM 10/26/2003


Modified by 1BlackHatch at 2:36 PM 10/26/2003


Modified by 1BlackHatch at 2:49 PM 10/26/2003


Modified by 1BlackHatch at 2:50 PM 10/26/2003

 

thats crazy!
how much has it cost you,so far?

 

i cant see the pix!! i wanna see

 

Picks arent working

 

we-todd-did-racing appears to be down. Hopefully it'll come up a little later. If not I will host the pics somewhere else.


Have a link to the new project page hosted on brinkster.com.

I have ~$500 in the whole system. Most of it is stuff I had around so I just pieced it together.

The price breakdown is as follows:

motherboard/ram/cpu = $40 (guy thought it was fried )
harddrive = $80
screen = $125 (super deal on ebay)
wiring = $125
inverter = $25 (pawn shop)
sound card = $50
video card = $30
remote = $10 (ebay)
MDF = $5 (leftover from sub enclosure)
carpet = $7
screws = $3
computer case = $20

total = $520

I still wanna buy a RF keyboard/trackball which will cost around $45 and a usb GPS receiver which will be ~$100.


Modified by 1BlackHatch at 2:50 PM 10/26/2003

 

That is cool. Did you consider trying that small form factor motherboard that is out.

My boss made one about a year ago out of my old laptop from work Cheater. He ripped off the casing, and mounted it in an mdf enclosure. He used dragon dictating software, and a usb mouse/mic made by phillips to control it. The keyboard was under the seat of his explorer. Most of the time he got by with dragon and the mic though. It worked well for him, since his explorer had a large space between the center console and the dash.

 

the only thing i'm afraid of is vibration..wonder if i can make some kind of suspension for it..lol

 

Yeah I wanted to go mini-itx with a dc-dc convertor and mount it all in my double din. But I found out that the convertors you can buy on ebay aren't regulated on the 12VDC line. If you're using a laptop HD it would be fine but with a 3.5" it would probably be bad. So opussolutions.com has a DC-DC convertor that is supposedly really good but its like $300 and kinda big. So by the time I bought all that stuff I would have spent ~$1000 and still probably hafta mount the thing in the trunk.

So I just said fawq it and used what I had. Maybe in a year I'll change it. I dunno. I wired it in such a way that it's pretty modular so I could plug in just about anything back there. We'll see I guess.

As far as vibration goes I used industrial grade velcro to mount the HS to the inside of the box. We'll just hafta see how that goes as well.

 

i might do the same and put computer in the truck. problem is the subs hit hard as heck and everything blurrs inside the car. keep us updated! very interesting project. just need mobile internet and you're set! lol

 

Maybe he can use those little dampeners made for record players. If you place them between the "box" and the body, it should give good isolation.

To think of it. Using a laptop hd is the best bet for this type of installation. Laptop hd's are much more rugid in dealing with vibration.

 

after some hard thinking (rarely a case for me..) i decided not to put a computer in car. it'll distract me and tempt me from posting on H-t while driving. besides..its not necessary for me right now. maybe later on..

on the other hand..i'm going to get some B&W 500-series Home audio speakers and probably going to put them in my ride. whohoo! but before that, its going to be in the living room before i get the damn car.

 

Damn man. You need to haggle a civic from someone. You are spending too much on car audio stuff to be carless

 

Yeah I thought about that too. Basically just didn't wanna fork out the money for one. Whenever the 80GB WD blows up it'll be a good reason to buy one.

 

God damn you're nuts.

 

sweet project, can't wait to see the finished product!!

 

Well I just got a GPS receiver from radio shack. Digitraveler GPS for PDA clearanced down to $30! I took one of the PDA chords and soldered a DB9 serial connector on the end and it works! Now I just need some decent mapping software.

Info can be found here:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulleti...17716
http://www.pocketpcpassion.com...veler

Also, I connected my logitech quickcam so I will have video recording capabilites. Now I just need to find a good way to get that logitech software to play "nice" with media engine and my remote control.

 

can some1 tell me whats the point of this whole thing? why woudl you need a computer in your car i just dont see the point.. so you can connect a big tower to a 7'' to 13'' screen and you can remove it so you can go online with it and what not? i prolyl have one small computer.. [url="http://www.overclockers.com/articles773"] http://www.overclockers.com/articles773[/url]/ its a shuttle prolly a pretty well built one for a matter of fact not the actaul one i have but same thing

p4 2.4 ht 800fsb
2 sticks of 512 hyper X 400mhz DDR
WD SE 200 gig 8 meg buffer
sony dvd +- burner
radeon 8x 9700 all in wonder
audigy2 ..

so can some1 tell me the real point of this? am i missing something?

 

Not to sure the point of this either. Still a cool project. I would have used a laptop motherboard along with a laptop harddrive. All of which are made for vibration. If you do some internet searching you can find complete mobile computers (for cars) in the $700-800 price range. I would add WiFi to it so you could access it from your home computer. I can't think of anything I would need a computer for in a car though.

Best of luck on the project.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxxtreme &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I can't think of anything I would need a computer for in a car though.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

To hold 200 gigs of mp3's and ****

I can't think of anything else. GPS and nav would be cool though. DVD drives are cheap.

 

As he said lots of MP3s. I hate swapping discs. My alpine does MP3 cds but it's just not enough! I also want GPS and Nav and a Camera. WiFi is another thing I plan to do soon so I won't need to remove it from the car to synchronize the folders to the ones on my server.

Also, I am a computer programmer and I've wanted one for a long long time and I finally got of my *** and built one. It's just like anything else with cars and mods. What truely is the point? Desire and fulfillment. There is no way that you can argue a need for any of this but if you didn't get to do things you want when you have the opportunity how enjoyable would life be?

As far as the other ways of doing it: I've looked at them all. They just weren't that attractive considering the money I would hafta output to do it. I had most of these parts laying around. You would still face the things that I am doing with a shuttle or any other machine for that matter. You'd still need to power it. You'd still need to ground it well. You'd still need some sort of slick interface. I think that this is a good informational post. I think it justifies itself.

 

Did you guys ever see the "nerds" that took like a 94 car, stuck a computer in it running Linux, custom made some interface boards, and set it up so the whole car ran off of this computer, rather than the factory ECU. It's like a hondata, but their computer controlled everything, and they had access to the code so they could change *anything* they wanted with the car, not just what someone else programs them to have access to. I thought that was pretty phat.

 

Now that just might be too much work. I had considered getting one of those interfaces for OBD2 computers so that I could view what the car is doing from the CPU.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1BlackHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">As he said lots of MP3s. I hate swapping discs. .</TD></TR></TABLE>

you hate swapping dsic? in a regular cdr i can put over 500 mp3's and on a dvdr you can put over 3k worth of mp3's how can you get tired of that many songs.. when i made a mp3 CD for my car it only had 200 songs.. that thing was rediculously too many songs i tried to go throuh it even at a long trip... now just imagine using a dvdrw cd full of mp3 i dotn even think i like over 3 to 4 thousand songs... dont get me wrong this is a cool project and all.. but oh wells .. keep it up who ever is doing this i sggest using a shuttle instead

 

Ok but my head unit doesn't do dvdr. I only do full albums, not singles and I try to only rip and download songs that are 256k which takes up more space. I can only fit ~10-12 albums on a cd which is just not enough.

Basically I cannot fit my 40gig music collection on any one piece of removeable media. I don't want to ever need to find a CD.

 

your headunit cant read dvdr? but can read mp3? thats wierd.. last i checked it didnt matter what the CD is aslong as the format of the songs are correct.. but oh wells..have fun