James' Custom S13 Carputer Install

[jrmiller84]

For years I've wanted to install a carputer in my car, but until now the cars I've owned haven't been ones deserving of something so awesome. Since I have recently reached a state where I am happy with my S13, I decided it's time to pursue the carputer project as I upgrade my stereo.

So far, this is what I have accomplished. I probably won't be done for another week or two since most of my parts are coming in at the end of this week.

I decided to mount the computer in the spare tire well in order to displace the amount of space a tower would take up. I mounted the motherboard to a piece of plexiglass that I cut into the shape of the wheel well with a dremel. I picked plexiglass due to the fact it is pretty light (compared to say, MDF) and I can easily thread motherboard mounting hardware into it. Here is a picture of the motherboard and 12v power supply affixed to the plexiglass as well as both being tested with a 12v power source.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0011.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0012.jpg

Since cars pretty much operate on 12v DC current within the cabin, a traditional power supply is not desirable unless you want to use an inverter to convert the 12v DC of the car to 120v AC and back down the 12v DC on the motherboard. This is, obviously, pretty pointless (but some people do pick this route).

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0010.jpg

I picked the above M2-ATX-HV power supply (sorry for the blur) for a few reasons. The first reason is that it operates off of the cars 12v DC power supply and effectively becomes a voltage regulator (since all motherboards operate on 12v DC) to protect the computer components from voltage drops during cranking or any irregularities during operation of the vehicle. Also, this allows me to have the computer turn on and off when I turn the car on and off.

The computer itself isn't a monster. I am using an older Socket A Gigabyte motherboard with an AMD that operates at 1.5 Ghz. You want to limit the amount of power used by the computer so picking out a new Quadcore system with a shitton of component cards and hard drives is a bad idea since it will drain your car of power. This PC will only have a video card and a PCMCIA daughter card in it for the use of an EVDO modem for internet in the future.

I am also pursuing quite a bit of custom interior work to make this install look the best it possibly can. I am utilizing a Xenarc 700TS 7" touchscreen monitor for my main input mechanism which will be molded into the S13's stock stereo bezel. The two DIN slots are almost perfect for a 7" monitor as you can see below.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCN0841.jpg


http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCN0842.jpg

Currently I have been dremelling the stereo bezel to mate with the OEM Xenarc bezel. After I have the dremelling done, I will be epoxying the two together. The reason I have decided to epoxy the xenarc bezel to the S13 bezel is that the Xenarc LCD has buttons on the front I need to use. Grafting the two together will allow me to make sure everything is usable and also has the added benefit of using the Xenarc mounting hardware in the back to make sure the LCD is held in place perfectly.

Tomorrow I will have the two bonded together and I'll post an update. I will then begin adding filler to the bezel to fix anywhere I messed up and give the bezel a nice new shine once I paint it.

Also, I will be fabricating a custom fiberglass subwoofer enclosure for the Polk 10" subwoofer that I have purchased. In addition, I will be utilizing a Profile amp and a Polk MMC6500 component set, both of which should be here at the end of the week.

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/products/2003/107/h107MM2104-f-1.jpeg

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/products/2004/489/h489AP1040-f_dg.jpeg

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/products/2004/107/h107MMC6500p.jpg



Lastly, I will be fabricating a new floorboard for the trunk to cover up the carputer, provide ventilation to the computer, and give a mounting point for the amp. It will be slightly decorative with a window to the PC and an incline towards the backseat that the amp will mount to. The details on the new floorboard are tentative since it's a pretty ambitious project but I feel it will give the system a nice touch.

Check back for updates tomorrow :rawk:

[AznDrftr.]

that would be freakin awesome. i was thinkin about doing this, but was too lazy to get all the stuff for it. looks great. that din is great for that screeen too. Oh yea.

[jrmiller84]

Yeah, I was surprised to see how well it fit.

I'll give everyone a rundown of some of the awesome stuff you can do with a setup like this tomorrow. :bigok:

[CKAMC]

three q's

why a regular atx motherboard? a micro would save a lot of space IMO

what resolution does the monitor out put at?

what os are you going to run?

again imo(in my opinion) you could run a micro atx am2 with a 45nm dual core chip, run on-board video because I am guessing the monitor wont create that much strain, have space to run a good sound card and be able to run a wired network to a wireless edvo/3g router that can be mounted where ever you want.

just don't forget when you build the enclosure to do a lot of filtering, why? because its not like every month your going to remember to clean it out are you?

good luck with the build, and if your bios supports it, don't forget it run cool and quiet.

[brndck]

wow, +1 for a cool idea. i like seeing people try new stuff.

[jrmiller84]

three q's

why a regular atx motherboard? a micro would save a lot of space IMO

what resolution does the monitor out put at?

what os are you going to run?

I'm running a regular ATX motherboard simply because I wasn't using it for anything. It was an extra system I had laying around that had specs good enough to run the software. I will definitely be looking into upgrading in the future but at this point it will do me just fine.

The newer models of my monitor run at 1600x1200 so mine runs at either that resolution or below. I won't be using it at that high of a resolution because most of the available front end programs run at either 1024x768 or 800x600 so that's as high as I'll need to go. I'll be running XP Pro because that is what is supported by most front end programs.

I plan on using the Roadrunner front end for the first few weeks before I switch to Streetdeck.

[DaPCWiz]

good to see another 240 owner with a carpc. I don't have pics of my case or anything.. Maybe 'ill get around to taking pics one day.

I think this is the closest thing to a shot of the carpc I have:

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/tooearly/4.jpg

I tried out street deck... wasn't too big of a fan. I wrote my own skin for road runner and I'm still tweaking it, like 3 years later. I like the flexibility of constantly being able to add whatever features I want :)

I actually used a microATX board, and mounted it in a plexi case in the dead space behind the carpet in the trunk.

edit: here is an old ass shot of my setup from like 2 years ago. It's changed a bit since then. Damn I need to take new pics lol.

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/9/web/2325000-2325999/2325110_37_full.jpg

[jrmiller84]

^^ Looks very nice. Did you mold the bezel yourself?

I've been giving a few of the RR skins a try and I'm not sure how much I like a lot of them. I may wind up taking your route as well.

As for streetdeck, I like a few of the features that are available but a lot of the other front ends support the same features it does. We'll see how well RR meets my needs once it's in the car.

[DaPCWiz]

stock bezel, lol. Just made a custom mount and customized the screen's housing a tiny bit to line up with the stock bezel. I gotta clean up my car and I'll take better pics soon. Mp3car.com meet this weekend, so I gotta clean up before that :)

[Xandy Boosts]

I need to restart my carpc project. Looks good. What media player are you guys using? After I reformatted my PC, I lost all the software I was gonna use.

[DaPCWiz]

Road Runner integrates with Winamp & Media Player Classic.

oh and Winamp 2.95 > *
Winamp 3 & 5 are Slloooowww compared to 2.95.

[JRas]

how do you plan on intaking air to the PC?

also securing the video card may be a good idea as it's just pushed into the slot

good luck

[jrmiller84]

I secured the video card already using the frame from the old tower. I haven't taken a picture of it yet though.

I will be handling air intake using an exhaust and intake fan on the new floorboard I will be constructing. It will have a plexiglass window that looks down into the PC which the fans will mount on to. Should work pretty well and look nice to boot.

[DaPCWiz]

The carputers are low power so temperature isn't as big an issue as you'd think.

Some people actually underclock the CPUs so they produce less heat.

As for mine, I have a an intake fan thru a hole in the plexi, and then an exhaust fan that is routed to the stock trunk ventilation plastic piece and sends hot air out the back of the car.

edit: Jras... I guess you live in AZ so it would be more of an issue there on hot days, but strategic fan placement on a lower power system should work even in hot weather - altho I have heard of people ducting a/c to their carpc.

[jrmiller84]

^ I considered doing that but I'm worried about moisture getting in there and ruining things over time.

[DaPCWiz]

^ I considered doing that but I'm worried about moisture getting in there and ruining things over time.

I didn't modify the stock ventilation, its like that regardless. Just have a fan pointed in its direction. Been running it in that place for like a year thru summer and winter... no issues. I might PM you some pics once I take them, don't really want to post that setup on a public forum.

I used to run the carpc on the "hump" between the trunk and rear seats that S14s have, but then I decided to move it to a less conspicuous location / wanted to keep my spare tire / get more trunk space.

after running a carpc for like 3 years, I've learned that computers are alot more tolerant of abuse than you think. I have coilovers, drive 100 miles a day, and drive like an a-hole over crappy pot hole filled NJ roads, and everything runs great :)

so far I had one hdd die on me - I bought it 3 years ago for $30 used. can't complain haha. Replaced it with some other hdd I had lying around.

[Quail]

Threads like this are inspirational! Wish I had the time and know-how to do something like this!

[yokotas13]

They make complete setups for liek 600 with scr3eens

thats the way im gonna go if i do it lol

[DaPCWiz]

Threads like this are inspirational! Wish I had the time and know-how to do something like this!

you should check out mp3car.com. That and a buddy of mine who had it got me into it. I've gotten tons of people into it. I've installed carPCs in preludes, civics, maximas, heck I'm even doing a G35 soon.

[acheron]

hmm..comp in the car? ...seems like a goood idea..

post pics and good luck with it..

[freepunk]

Nice work. Looking forward to to seeing the trunk area.

Had a C7 mobo in an ampie in my car before I ripped it out for my swap. Used roadrunner with the DigitalFX front end and it ran fairly smooth. Probably my favorite out of all of the front ends.

People who are looking into doing a carpc plan on spending at least double what you budgeted lol. At least that was the case for me.

[DaPCWiz]

^^ that seems to happen with EVERY modification I do to the car. :2f2f:

[jrmiller84]

^^ That's definitely true, happened when I swapped my motor. That's another reason I am estimating it will take two weeks because I know somethings going to go wrong... hah

Right now I'm waiting on the epoxy on the bezel to cure, it's still pretty tacky. It's kind of cool here right now so it's taking a bit longer to cure. I'm probably just going to wait overnight before I start trying to clean it up.

[unicoladron]

hey dude,
outside the realm of nissan, the carputer install is very popular. i myself was looking at doing it and did alot of research. my main concerns were having the computer boot up as fast as possible, and being as stable as possible, and being able to mount it in small spaces. regular hard drives won't cut it so you will have to go with some type of flash drive, now SSD (solid state disks) are more available then they were when i was looking into this.

i suggest you use this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208064

if you use a regular hard drive and hit a bump, it will most likely freeze/crash.

the power supply choice you made is exactly what i was going to use, but i myself was looking at microATX solutions for space friendly installs.

you should definitely look into a small wireless keyboard and some type of embedded linux os that is quick and easy to use. there's os's like pen drive linux and dam small linux that are perferct for this.

[hellion240sx]

this is awesome. hmmm should i just upgrade the home computer and get a carputer as well. or should i just get a bad ass home computer.....

[undesiredshoe]

Get a phone with high speed internet and bluetooth it with your carputer setup

[DaPCWiz]

Get a phone with high speed internet and bluetooth it with your carputer setup

I do that in my car. Bluetooth internet via cell phone & faster internet via 802.11. Its not bad. Well... I'm in the process of setting it up. I've done all the prelim work and tested it out... runs great. Just need to update some code for my skin. :)

Can't wait to see this S13 setup. I just recently started redoing my setup - so seeing other people interested is exciting haha

[undesiredshoe]

I do that in my car. Bluetooth internet via cell phone & faster internet via 802.11. Its not bad. Well... I'm in the process of setting it up. I've done all the prelim work and tested it out... runs great. Just need to update some code for my skin. :)

Can't wait to see this S13 setup. I just recently started redoing my setup - so seeing other people interested is exciting haha

You should make a screensaver that looks like cd deck and empty din space for that sleeper status

[DaPCWiz]

You should make a screensaver that looks like cd deck and empty din space for that sleeper status

LOL. +1 for original idea hahahah.

[DarkPhoenix]

Great thread. I have some of the stuff for my carputer install, (lilliput 7 in touchscreen), and other stuff I can get from work (systems admin). This was going into my Talon, but since I got rid of that, I am doing mine in my 240.

How are you handling the boot issue? Are you going to have it go into standby, or full shutdown when the car is off?

[jrmiller84]

if you use a regular hard drive and hit a bump, it will most likely freeze/crash.

the power supply choice you made is exactly what i was going to use, but i myself was looking at microATX solutions for space friendly installs.

you should definitely look into a small wireless keyboard and some type of embedded linux os that is quick and easy to use. there's os's like pen drive linux and dam small linux that are perferct for this.


By using linux, 3/4 of the front end choices would not be available to me. I'm all for free supporting the open source community (I dual boot linux/xp and host my website locally on a linux box), but there are extremely limited choices in front ends at this point so choosing the OS that will give me the best selection is paramount.

Also, from the research I've done it seems that typical HD's are a bit more rugged than you might think. I will be adding multiple levels of vibration protection to the HD to protect it so I'm not particularly worried. In fact, I'm probably going a little overboard protecting it.

[jrmiller84]

Great thread. I have some of the stuff for my carputer install, (lilliput 7 in touchscreen), and other stuff I can get from work (systems admin). This was going into my Talon, but since I got rid of that, I am doing mine in my 240.

How are you handling the boot issue? Are you going to have it go into standby, or full shutdown when the car is off?

It will go into standby so that only power is needed to keep the session in memory (RAM) while it's off. If the car isn't restarted within in 2 hours it will turn off completely. Also, the power supply constantly monitors the batteries power, if it drops more than 1 volt, it will turn the computer off completely. To handle startup/shutdown, the power supply is connected to the ignition circuit and can tell when you turn on/off the car and turn on/off the computer.

[s13vert]

i love linux! but yea you're limited unless you are so savvy you can make your own program with pretty GUI and everything. yea i agree HDD's are pretty durable these days, i've dropped my portable hdd's 5247601270176412 times and they are good to go still. +1 for being techy tuner!

[DaPCWiz]

Great thread. I have some of the stuff for my carputer install, (lilliput 7 in touchscreen), and other stuff I can get from work (systems admin). This was going into my Talon, but since I got rid of that, I am doing mine in my 240.

How are you handling the boot issue? Are you going to have it go into standby, or full shutdown when the car is off?

Looks like jrmiller is using standby. I'm have it shutdown with the car. Honestly, it boots up fast enough that by the time I've backed out of my driveway in the morning the pc is already up and playing music. (it remembers where it left off)



By using linux, 3/4 of the front end choices would not be available to me. I'm all for free supporting the open source community (I dual boot linux/xp and host my website locally on a linux box), but there are extremely limited choices in front ends at this point so choosing the OS that will give me the best selection is paramount.

Also, from the research I've done it seems that typical HD's are a bit more rugged than you might think. I will be adding multiple levels of vibration protection to the HD to protect it so I'm not particularly worried. In fact, I'm probably going a little overboard protecting it.


Harddrives are absolutely alot more rugged than you think. You must remember to mount the drive vertically. This makes the plane of shock parallel to the platters - so worst case on a super hard bump the head could miss a read, reset, and keep going. If you mount the drive horizontally, worst case - you hit a hard bump, the head hits the drive and you have a problem. Also - the more cache on the drive the better.

Of course you COOOOOULD go solid state, but the capacity just isn't there yet at a reasonable price point. My old carpc setup had 80 GB and now i have 250 GB. No way I could afford that in solid state...

[s13vert]

do you guys download music to your car wirelessly? that would be a neat set up to park the car close enough to your wifi and just drag and drop music to your car's HDD>

dapcwiz....solid state would be sexy.....

[sideways88]

hey just wondering are u guys using touch screen monitors?

if so where u guys getting your monitors. this would work so perfect with my little laptop i have lol.

[CKAMC]

I can't keep myself away from this thread being a computer junkie...

yeah solid state is way too much $$$

just use laptop hdd's since they are smaller overall and over-engineered for movement. Next just use rubber mounts and or make a custom cage to reduce the vibration to the hdd.

some of you have forgotten there is usb porns and e-sata ports, with this one can be able to run a cable to lets say the glove box and there hook up a portable device (ipod, external hard drive, ect) for file swapping.

I read into this quite a bit a long while back and found some interesting things:
you can run a separate battery with a capacitor, create a application or homebrew to monitor power supply along with car status (on or off).

when you go to shut off the car the software can act just like a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and start to shut down the system without you having to do shit.

lol or you can just buy a small UPS that has software and have the same thing happen.

cooling wise a completely passive setup is idea(no fans for the cpu cooler or on the graphics unit)l and amd really makes the most affordable when it comes to power/heat usage.

I read one guy piping cold air from his ac system to his intake of his setup.

amd's cool and quiet is great bios feature as during idle it can cut down the cpu in half. bios can also be setup to boot on startup via wake-on-lan feature.

to me the screen is too small, 7" running at 1024x768... not my cup of tea. Along with using the least amount of visitable/usable space in the car (I want to throw a lot of other stuff on my trunk/back seat as an example).

alternatives are:
Smartphone hooked up to a street deck via audio/video input(smart phone is great as it has both bluetooth, wifi, and with 8GB+ flash cards)
UMPC (ultra mobile pc) connected the same way(more video support along with a larger screen and better audio out put, able to run dual screen as well)
tablet pc (setup a mounting place, the ability to have a large, flat, touch screen display that can quickly be turned into a regular laptop with support to street decks)

this shit can become endless.....

gives everyone another reason to be distracted while behind the wheel :rofl:

[yokotas13]

http://www.vic-ltd.com/products.html
im still tryign to figure out why people build shit thats the same price or cheaper to just fucking buy

newbs

[importdude]

nice job on the s14,

you should get the consult cable
that would be good to monitor things

[CKAMC]

http://www.vic-ltd.com/products.html
im still tryign to figure out why people build shit thats the same price or cheaper to just fucking buy

newbs

512 of ram seems a bit weak on their new top model.....

xp needs at least 1GB minimum to run well.

[Wabash9000]

my question about car pc's is booting. do you shut down the computer when you turn off the car? do you just let it drain your battery? do you have to wait for it to boot back up everytime?

I almost think for carputer puroposes an old laptop would be the perfect canidate. it takes a 12 volt input, would run off battery when the car is off, can program windows to put it on sleep mode automatically 1 minute after power is lost. it just seems like the best way to do it.

[sideways88]

512 of ram seems a bit weak on their new top model.....

xp needs at least 1GB minimum to run well.


u dont need 1 gig to make xp run well. my laptop im on right now runs 512 and it runs great. and for a computer thats going into a car 512 would be perfect. its not like your going to be tons of stuff with it at the same time. cause u should be driving and no on the zilvia forums lol.

[JRas]

cooling wise a completely passive setup is idea(no fans for the cpu cooler or on the graphics unit)l and amd really makes the most affordable when it comes to power/heat usage.

amd's cool and quiet is great bios feature as during idle it can cut down the cpu in half. bios can also be setup to boot on startup via wake-on-lan feature.


A passive setup would be awesome but if this is in his trunk he doesn't really have to worry about the noise

I don't think his processor supports the cool and quiet feature

http://www.vic-ltd.com/products.html
im still tryign to figure out why people build shit thats the same price or cheaper to just fucking buy

newbs

he had this stuff lying around

and the hardware used in those is pretty weak
NAVISURFER-120 (http://www.vic-ltd.com/navisurfer-120.html)System Specifications
Processor: 1400 MHz (Celeron)
Hard Drive: 120 GB
Memory: 512 MB
Video Output: Onboard

[PhAtXSuMo]

cant wait for updates!

[CKAMC]

A passive setup would be awesome but if this is in his trunk he doesn't really have to worry about the noise


noise isn't what I am thinking about, its some of these cpu coolers out on the market that the brackets for the fan aren't sturdy and when they get bumped around a lot they start get off balance and start to rub the heatsink unit to the point of death or annoyance (and at that point they are annoyingly loud)

[smelly240]

screw that xp piss... run ubuntu.

[DaPCWiz]

http://www.vic-ltd.com/products.html
im still tryign to figure out why people build shit thats the same price or cheaper to just fucking buy

newbs

hmmm $30 motherboard + $20 cpu + ram you have lying around + hdd you have lying around + $10 worth of plexiglass + $90 psu + misc components = pc for less than $250. Shit is pretty cheap at the processing power you need for a carpc. If that unit you are showing is $600... that's a rip off.

Anyother question? Why are you building a vip car yourself when you could just go out an pickup a BMW 740? :keke:

nice job on the s14,

you should get the consult cable
that would be good to monitor things

Thanks. I looked into consult and OBDII. I have the ODBII stuff and its cool... there is more fun software for it. I may pickup consult as well one day, but the info OBDII gives back is useful enough to me.

512 of ram seems a bit weak on their new top model.....

xp needs at least 1GB minimum to run well.

Nah, not for the stuff you are doing on a carpc. I play music / movies / video games / surf online / GPS navi with mine. My first carPC was a penitum 3 w/ 256 mb. Now I'm running an athlon XP 1.4 GHz w/ 768 (I think?). Both setups were pretty acceptable in performance.

screw that xp piss... run ubuntu.

I agree that linux rocks, but jrmiller already covered why this isn't a practical option.

[Warning]

Awesome! Can't wait to see it finished.

[jrmiller84]

http://www.vic-ltd.com/products.html
im still tryign to figure out why people build shit thats the same price or cheaper to just fucking buy

newbs

The only part of the carputer I have paid for is a replacement CPU for like 18$ (original was fried from my father tossing it around) and the LCD which was less than 200$ (normally over 300$). Everything else I already had with the exception of the stereo equipment.

my question about car pc's is booting. do you shut down the computer when you turn off the car? do you just let it drain your battery? do you have to wait for it to boot back up everytime?

I almost think for carputer puroposes an old laptop would be the perfect canidate. it takes a 12 volt input, would run off battery when the car is off, can program windows to put it on sleep mode automatically 1 minute after power is lost. it just seems like the best way to do it.

You can either do that (shut the pc down completely) or you can put the computer into standby. Standby saves your session in memory for a quick reboot but it does drain battery power since it's powering the RAM modules to keep the session alive. I'm going to start off with the PSU keeping the computer session alive for two hours and if either a.) the 2 hours expires or b.) the battery voltage drops more than one volt, it will perform a hard shut down and turn off the pc completely so that I don't have to worry about my battery dieing.

I was going to go the laptop route originally but I use my laptop so often that it would have been annoying having to go out to my car and undock it every time I need to use it (ie, every day). Also, it's tough to get laptops to power on automatically since everything is pretty much soldered straight onto the PCB in a laptop. At least with a full form-factor pc, all you need is a momentary switch (or PSU that will do it for you) hooked up to the power switch jumpers and placed somewhere convenient in your car. With laptops you also need to use an inverter, which I'm not too fond of.

hmmm $30 motherboard + $20 cpu + ram you have lying around + hdd you have lying around + $10 worth of plexiglass + $90 psu + misc components = pc for less than $250. Shit is pretty cheap at the processing power you need for a carpc. If that unit you are showing is $600... that's a rip off.

There's also no mention of the type of hardware used in that system, unless I'm blind. I've used the hardware I'm putting into my car for a couple years now so I know it's stable.

do you guys download music to your car wirelessly? that would be a neat set up to park the car close enough to your wifi and just drag and drop music to your car's HDD>

dapcwiz....solid state would be sexy.....

I will be syncing my music over the internet and through a thumb drive. I will be purchasing an EVDO PCMCIA card from a wireless carrier to get EVDO service on the carputer. To start with I will just be manually syncing my media using the thumb drive but I am about to start developing software to do that over the internet unless I find a package that's already capable of doing what I want to do. I will be hosting all of my media files on my home web server so that it's always up and ripping any new music to that server so that it's available immediately in the car.

I will also be using the internet and GPS receiver in tandem to upload the coordinates of the car to my home web server should anyone decide they want to take my car for a joy ride. :bigok:

[s13vert]

I will be syncing my music over the internet and through a thumb drive. I will be purchasing an EVDO PCMCIA card from a wireless carrier to get EVDO service on the carputer. To start with I will just be manually syncing my media using the thumb drive but I am about to start developing software to do that over the internet unless I find a package that's already capable of doing what I want to do. I will be hosting all of my media files on my home web server so that it's always up and ripping any new music to that server so that it's available immediately in the car.

I will also be using the internet and GPS receiver in tandem to upload the coordinates of the car to my home web server should anyone decide they want to take my car for a joy ride. :bigok:




hey that's pretty cool. you probably use linux for your server? i use linux ipcop for my firewall and i love it....but my server i use windows 03' and used windows MMS server to stream my music and videos over the internet, it was pretty simple to set up.

what exactly do you need the software to do? seems to me you could have an http(s) or ftp server and just load the new files when you get into the car. or do you want something that would automatically do that?

to me it seems the simplest way would be to connect to your wifi so you can see it on your network.....no no ooo idea! you could set up a VPN with your car pc over the internet and do something like that....

do you also run stuff on the carputer that monitors car functions?

[jrmiller84]

what exactly do you need the software to do? seems to me you could have an http(s) or ftp server and just load the new files when you get into the car. or do you want something that would automatically do that?

to me it seems the simplest way would be to connect to your wifi so you can see it on your network.....no no ooo idea! you could set up a VPN with your car pc over the internet and do something like that....

do you also run stuff on the carputer that monitors car functions?

VPN is an interesting idea, but at the same time the real problem is that I only want to grab media that I haven't downloaded yet so as to make the downloading sessions as short as possible. With that in mind I will need an algorithm that will only give me any media that's been added since my last sync, I've developed this logic before on an old application that I used to maintain so it's pretty simple.

Most likely it will be a combination of a web service on the server that I can hit to see what new files are available and based on that, it will provide me with the path to the new files within the server.

[ROUGE180]

Wow.. this is really cool. I've thought about this myself but that's in the future. I hope it turns out well. Mad skills.. I wish I spoke computer. I mean I'm pretty good but I have not building skills. Can't wait for updates.

[s13pignose]

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/tooearly/4.jpghttp://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/9/web/2325000-2325999/2325110_37_full.jpg

Man I wish I had that in my s14...side note is the first pic of your car? If so what type of steering wheel is that...I no oem but whats with the grip. I like that. Is it just a cover...I need something cause the previous owner of my car must have had a dog because the back of the wheel is chewed up:loco: I want something to cover it, so I don't rub the vinyl off anymore

[DaPCWiz]

Man I wish I had that in my s14...side note is the first pic of your car? If so what type of steering wheel is that...I no oem but whats with the grip. I like that. Is it just a cover...I need something cause the previous owner of my car must have had a dog because the back of the wheel is chewed up:loco: I want something to cover it, so I don't rub the vinyl off anymore

It's actually a leather stitch on wheel cover I picked up on my last trip to India. Everyone uses them over there. I got it for dirt cheap. - I believe www.wheelskins.com sells a similar product.

[jrmiller84]

So after 24 hours of curing the epoxy that was supposed to cure in four hours, it's still just as wet as it was an hour after drying.

I'm looking for some other alternatives now. Some people rough up the plastic and fiberglass them together but even then I don't know if it will hold very well without cracking and separating from the abs. I may just bite the bullet and glass my own stereo bezel since it wouldn't be that hard, just slightly more time consuming.

I'm trying to find something called Plastic Weld that people have been talking about but I can't seem to locate it anywhere in town.

Anyone have any other ideas?

[DaPCWiz]

So after 24 hours of curing the epoxy that was supposed to cure in four hours, it's still just as wet as it was an hour after drying.

I'm looking for some other alternatives now. Some people rough up the plastic and fiberglass them together but even then I don't know if it will hold very well without cracking and separating from the abs. I may just bite the bullet and glass my own stereo bezel since it wouldn't be that hard, just slightly more time consuming.

I'm trying to find something called Plastic Weld that people have been talking about but I can't seem to locate it anywhere in town.

Anyone have any other ideas?

are you sure you mixed the epoxy right? When I've worked with epoxy you can usualyl notice a difference in consistency within an hour.

I tried that plastic weld stuff once. OMG. The smell was so strong and obnoxious I coudln't deal with it. Had to throw it out. Shit made me sick lol.

[jrmiller84]

It definitely did change consistencies within the hour, but it was still runny and I could separate the bezel and lcd bezel easily after 24 hours. I have a feeling it was the mixture.

[98koukile]

jb weld is the shit sandpaper a little on both then 50/50 mix

[DaPCWiz]

jb weld is the shit sandpaper a little on both then 50/50 mix

to be honest - from my experiance JB Weld doesn't hold plastic all that well. I've seen it hold metal and other stuff really well, but never good success with plastic. Maybe that's just me tho...

[jrmiller84]

I don't know that I trust JB weld either. It's definitely not the first thing I think of when I think of interior work.

[DaPCWiz]

I don't know that I trust JB weld either. It's definitely not the first thing I think of when I think of interior work.

the way I mounted my screen - I took the stock cubby that sits under the radio and I cut the front part of it off, so that the screen would sit snug between it and the bezel. Then I took the pivotable L bracket thing that came with the screen. I mounted the bottom part with screws to the modified cubby (which is mounted to the oem nissan brackets with screws as it is from factory) and then the L thing connects to the back of the screen. Tightened everything and bam it sits there nice.

[yokotas13]

512 of ram seems a bit weak on their new top model.....

xp needs at least 1GB minimum to run well.
run well?
all your doing is playing on the internet and watching movies....wtf

[yokotas13]

hmmm $30 motherboard + $20 cpu + ram you have lying around + hdd you have lying around + $10 worth of plexiglass + $90 psu + misc components = pc for less than $250. Shit is pretty cheap at the processing power you need for a carpc. If that unit you are showing is $600... that's a rip off.

Anyother question? Why are you building a vip car yourself when you could just go out an pickup a BMW 740? :keke:


becuase a BMW isnt vip :keke:
silly newbs

your spending money to save time
That is complete drop it the fuck in and run power wires, RCAS and speaker wire to a 4 channel.
this faisco, is gaudy, time intensive, and not quite as easy

my time is worth money to me. and ill spend money to save time

[DaPCWiz]

becuase a BMW isnt vip :keke:
silly newbs

your spending money to save time
That is complete drop it the fuck in and run power wires, RCAS and speaker wire to a 4 channel.
this faisco, is gaudy, time intensive, and not quite as easy

my time is worth money to me. and ill spend money to save time

Last time I checked... $250 was LESS than $600. Not sure about you. Personally i'd much rather use hardware that I know works and that I can tweak, rather than junk some cheap ass company threw in a box for me and overpriced. Thank you.

It's alot more fun to do it yourself. Prebuilt boxes are fail.

go get your prebuilt box that you spent double the money I did on, and then when your pc can't do half the shit mine does.... go cry in the corner. thanks.

no hard feelings bro, but you are just wrong. I'm sorry you think building a computer is hard, cuz it's a joke - I've been doing it since i was 9. Now lets let this thread be about what its supposed to and not silly misconceptions and name calling.

[yokotas13]

I know its not
But mounting everything, runnign wires, tweeking, all int eh confines of a car, when its cold as fuc out (well for me)
Is dumb. PLus the flip out touchscreen, so not everyone knows what you have, not having to worry about a remote tower, everythign in one package, worth it.

However, i did try and piece togetehr a car PC with all mini components, and COST alone from about 4 or 5 diferent places was around 500-600 without the screen. So, that being said, Yeah, my weekend and half a week, and time searching, and time troubleshooting why the fuck my stuff didnt work, is worth 400.0

PS. Run linux

and if your computer can do twice what mine can, cool. My laptop can do twice what my desktop can. BUT a carputer isnt for games. its for media, and internet. doesnt take much to do that...

[DaPCWiz]

I know its not
But mounting everything, runnign wires, tweeking, all int eh confines of a car, when its cold as fuc out (well for me)
Is dumb. PLus the flip out touchscreen, so not everyone knows what you have, not having to worry about a remote tower, everythign in one package, worth it.

However, i did try and piece togetehr a car PC with all mini components, and COST alone from about 4 or 5 diferent places was around 500-600 without the screen. So, that being said, Yeah, my weekend and half a week, and time searching, and time troubleshooting why the fuck my stuff didnt work, is worth 400.0

PS. Run linux

and if your computer can do twice what mine can, cool. My laptop can do twice what my desktop can. BUT a carputer isnt for games. its for media, and internet. doesnt take much to do that...

Sorry you feel that way. Enjoy doing things the way you like to, I'm not getting in your way. I dont' agree with your processes and it isn't half as hard are you make it seem. Additionally I think flip out screens are really cheap looking, but that's just me. I guess if you need the security aspect go for it.

[jrmiller84]

Simple fact of the matter is I would not pay $600 to buy a computer system that is crappier than one I can piece together for free by using parts I already own.

I understand that time is of concern for most people, but this is something I've been researching and waiting for almost five years now to do. I don't mind putting the time into it to make sure it is what I want it to be in the end.

Show me a Linux front end that is developed enough to do everything I want, has an active community behind it for skins and addons, and performs well and I'll use it. I'm not anti-linux, I use it every day. As I've said many times in this thread already, the front end software that has the best features isn't Linux based. I would be even more limited in my choices from an already limited niche of software products even for XP. While carputers have come a long way, they still aren't to a point where software is extremely available. Hell, I'm writing custom software right now to make it do what I want it to do.

Enough arguing. If this gets locked because of said arguing, my progress is also documented at http://www.jamesoft.net.

[SlideWell]

if i want a computer in my car ill just bring my macbook pro with me and sign up for clearwire or some shit. either way, i think what this guy is doing is cool. and 512ram sucks ass, so i can totally understand why he might be choosing the route of his own build.

[yokotas13]

Im not really arguing, and i apologize if it seems i am. Im just providing an alternate means for a carputer.

I think its cool, i have been wanting to do it for about a year now, but i just dont have the time. thats why an already build setup is good for me.
However, if you go to outerh sites, you can upgrade the components, and stil get a badass somputer setup already build in a case for aroun 600 without a screen though.
im sure you can do it cheaper, but its just simpler.

[ryguy]

I remember a guy putting a carputer in a Z31 a while back, it operated the HVAC, audio, and the windows.

[yokotas13]

oh, thats cool.
i wonder how he did that one

[jrmiller84]

I don't think I'll be taking it that far. The HVAC and window controls are efficient enough for me. :bow:

There's a kit out there that comes with everything you need to control servos for your HVAC. Plugs into your RS232 port and is controlled by some simple software.

[yokotas13]

that is insane!
i didnt know stuff like that was out there.
but yeah, my windown buttons arent that hard to get to

[Vision Garage]

wiz, how were you able to set up the radio and GPS on your carputer?

[Prime]

It definitely did change consistencies within the hour, but it was still runny and I could separate the bezel and lcd bezel easily after 24 hours. I have a feeling it was the mixture.

Interestingly enough, I work at a plastics shop (which shall remain nameless). I know that most of the parts in the S13 are a weird phenolic blend, not too familiar with the S14. If it is ABS, any basic epoxy will work if you sand with about 120~400 grit paper. Plastic Weld is ok, use Devcon if you can find it easily. And, all epoxies are ridiculously sensitive to mix ratio. Mess it up by even 5% and it may not cure completely. Also, heat is your friend for a complete cure. 60F minimum, 75 optimum. No humidity. Do it in an AC'd room if possible.

Hope I could help a bit, sorry to threadjack.

[DaPCWiz]

wiz, how were you able to set up the radio and GPS on your carputer?

I used to have a radio tuner card... radio shark by griffin. But I stopped listening to radio so I chucked it. I used a usglobalsat gps reciever w/ iguidance 4.0 as my gps software. I might get satellite radio eventually, but I'm lazy.

[yokotas13]

is there a GPS software that allows JP ma[s and stuff?

[DaPCWiz]

iGuidance covers north america and europe. I'm not familiar with any GPS software for Japan. I'm sure there is some that exists. Maybe Destinator?

[HyperTek]

dam this would be awesome for my fc!!!! throw a miniatx in the storage compartment.

[unicoladron]

By using linux, 3/4 of the front end choices would not be available to me. I'm all for free supporting the open source community (I dual boot linux/xp and host my website locally on a linux box), but there are extremely limited choices in front ends at this point so choosing the OS that will give me the best selection is paramount.

Also, from the research I've done it seems that typical HD's are a bit more rugged than you might think. I will be adding multiple levels of vibration protection to the HD to protect it so I'm not particularly worried. In fact, I'm probably going a little overboard protecting it.

I see where you're coming from, but i believe we have a mis-understanding. when you say newer hard drives have better shock protection, what exactly are you referring to? that was a good point about mounting it vertically so the platters don't get jarred by the read/write heads, but at least get yourself a laptop hard drive, which have a little better shock protection than a normal desktop hd. i honestly don't know how a regular desktop 3.5" HD would be able to withstand a pothole....i'm really just trying to save you frustration.

the reason i originally focused all this energy on the HD was because my asinine friend attempted this, but really poorly. he "padded" a seagate barracuda (which are the best HDs imo) in foam. the slightest bump fucked everything up.

when i was researching this ~1 year ago, that was my biggest concern and flash (solid state) seemed to be the only way.

i am excited to see how it turns out. also there are awesome usb GPS options out there now too, for relatively cheap.

[unicoladron]

is there a GPS software that allows JP ma[s and stuff?

lol..now that's a good question. stateside, there are tons of options. i used Microsoft streets and trips during my "beta" testing but again, there's so many options.

[unicoladron]

lol sorry to keep posting, but this is bringing back memories. jrmiller, you should check out mp3car.com, i used alot of their resources during my trials. this bezel came out really nice.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/584709-post11.html

[jrmiller84]

^ I've been reading it for quite a while, I don't post but I read a lot.

From what I've read on mp3car.com about head crash, 99% of people say it doesn't matter as long as you protect the drive some, which I will be doing.

[Xandy Boosts]

I need to get back on this. I have a bunch of leftover hardware. A socket A board with 1.8ghz amd processor. Just found my right angle agp adapter with extender to mount my video card parallel to motherboard.

Just want to know where you guys are mounting your carpc. I'd rather keep my wheel well, I happen to get lots of flats for some reason. My rear seats have amps screwed into them for now. I don't know where else I can go with this.

In the meantime, I'm doing my alarm install this weekend, I might just route all the wires I need for now, so by the time I get my pc in, I can just solder n go.

[JRas]

^
under the dash and incorporate the ac system to provide airflow to the PC

thinking about it more AC -> PC -> out center console vents

[ryguy]

^
under the dash and incorporate the ac system to provide airflow to the PC

thinking about it more AC -> PC -> out center console vents

Hmmmm, not a bad idea, except for those of us who use our heat in the winter.

[Xandy Boosts]

Oh I use heat. Well I came up with some ideas, I'll post pics when I start it.

[s13vert]

is heat seriously a major issue guys? i mean youre not playing any major games on them are you? as long as there's a in and out ventilation and a fan on the heat sink you should be ok. google has an ongoing test to see how heat effects HDD performance, and trust me they got plenty HDD's, and they claim heat doesn't effect the life and funtion of them. http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.html

honestly i wouldnt pipe a/c vents to them because a cars system doesnt always take out all the moisture, and the drain can get plugged easy and water can collect and leak inside the car. my friends 03' accord had this happen and it destroyed his ECU. 1500 later he got a new ecu and was back on the road.

[Vision Garage]

Can you post more pictures of the setup? Wondering i you have a keyboard connected to the setup to type in locations and what not and wondering how the whole carputer boots up. Windows first, then you have to manually open Road runner? Also, you program road runner to open up iguidance? How seamless is the transition?

[2iv0 sx]

GPS/Navigation tooo?

I don't know squat when it comes to piecing PC together. At first, I was looking into those double din in dash DVD/Navi system but $500+... =X

Xandy, holler at me went your done. I'll be watching you make yours. :keke:

[JRas]

is heat seriously a major issue guys? i mean youre not playing any major games on them are you? as long as there's a in and out ventilation and a fan on the heat sink you should be ok. google has an ongoing test to see how heat effects HDD performance, and trust me they got plenty HDD's, and they claim heat doesn't effect the life and funtion of them. http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.html

honestly i wouldnt pipe a/c vents to them because a cars system doesnt always take out all the moisture, and the drain can get plugged easy and water can collect and leak inside the car. my friends 03' accord had this happen and it destroyed his ECU. 1500 later he got a new ecu and was back on the road.

it's not an issue for his setup as it's older hardware = tends to use low voltage = less heat output but it's much cooler to do things better

googles claim seems unlikely, but I checked out the data from the pdf file seems they have data to backup there claim still makes me think

I guess the AC leak is possible but I doubt it's a common problem enough to prevent from doing it .. I mean shit I could get hit by a car if I cross the street does that mean I shouldn't do it? because there was one rare occurance where someone was struck by a car

[mothon]

Wow this stuff is pretty cool, probably my next purchase....I was bout to dump 700 into a kenwood double din with navi... This would be 10x better. Only problem is i don't know anything about putting a computer together. Guess ill have to start doin my research.

[JRas]

Wow this stuff is pretty cool, probably my next purchase....I was bout to dump 700 into a kenwood double din with navi... This would be 10x better. Only problem is i don't know anything about putting a computer together. Guess ill have to start doin my research.

apple mac mini / apple tv

here is one of the mac mini
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tK8BpNwDH3w&feature=related

needa stop visting this thread :P

[2iv0 sx]

Wow this stuff is pretty cool, probably my next purchase....I was bout to dump 700 into a kenwood double din with navi... This would be 10x better. Only problem is i don't know anything about putting a computer together. Guess ill have to start doin my research.
Exactly what I just said...

Internet in the car is just crazy.

[unicoladron]

I need to get back on this. I have a bunch of leftover hardware. A socket A board with 1.8ghz amd processor. Just found my right angle agp adapter with extender to mount my video card parallel to motherboard.

Just want to know where you guys are mounting your carpc. I'd rather keep my wheel well, I happen to get lots of flats for some reason. My rear seats have amps screwed into them for now. I don't know where else I can go with this.

In the meantime, I'm doing my alarm install this weekend, I might just route all the wires I need for now, so by the time I get my pc in, I can just solder n go.

you might want to look into a microatx board. you can mount it (with some type of enclosure of course) under your seats, behind your dash, or in your glove box. there's a surprising amount of room behind where your radio normally goes.

[jrmiller84]

Can you post more pictures of the setup? Wondering i you have a keyboard connected to the setup to type in locations and what not and wondering how the whole carputer boots up. Windows first, then you have to manually open Road runner? Also, you program road runner to open up iguidance? How seamless is the transition?

I believe the software I'll be using has a built in on-screen keyboard. Many of the front end programs also support gestures where you can just draw the letter on the screen with your finger and it will recognize what letter you drew and input it into the text field. Also, they use gestures to allow you to navigate the program. For example, drawing an 'M' on the screen would take you to your music, drawing an 'N' would take you to the navigation program, and so on. I plan on picking up a wireless mini keyboard in the future, something I can just throw under the seat easily but initially it won't be needed. I'll probably pick up something like this (http://store.mp3car.com/SpecResearch_RF_Wireless_Mini_Keyboard_p/com-050.htm) that is wireless and has an integrated mouse.

I'll have more pictures later this afternoon, I'm doing a lot of work to it after work. I've had finals for my Spring A classes this week so I've been strapped for time, but that's all over now.

GPS/Navigation tooo?

Yes, navigation is handled by third party software like iguidance, mapmonkey, or streets and trips. The front ends integrate the GPS data into the interface for a seemless experience. I've already picked up a Deluogps USB GPS receiver that has up to 3 meters of accuracy. I will be mounting this on the interior of the hatch on the rear glass near the top center since GPS receivers work better with a clear view of the sky.

apple mac mini / apple tv

here is one of the mac mini
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tK8BpNwDH3w&feature=related

needa stop visting this thread :P

Yeah, I've seen that guys video before. This is a pretty good demo of the software I'll be using initially. It's called Roadrunner and is free. I believe it may be open source as well. I apologize for this guys horrible taste in music and his monotonous voice.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VUBdMU7F1SQ

Here's a good preview of the software I'll be purchasing in a couple of weeks called Streetdeck.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=89PEAXJSq3A

[Xandy Boosts]

Yea I'm gonna try mounting my atx board in a small enclosure I'm gonna make kinda like how those dvd drives are mounted in cars. If it takes up too much space ill grab me a micro atx socket a board. Socket a boards are dirt cheap too so I'm not worried.
Rcee I got you man lol.

[cyb]

You should probably look into using rsync for your files and music. It is a cross platform tiny little program that is included with all the major linux distributions. That being said, don't get me wrong. I'm not a Linux fan boy myself. There are rsync utilities for windows. I have one on the machine I am using right now that backs up my PC to a server at work. The beauty of Rsync is how it backs things up. The first "backup" will take quite a bit of time. After that, you can schedule it (Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks) to backup whenever you want it to. Say weekly at 6:30am? (When your car is warming up in the driveway.) Well, once that first backup is out of the way, it only checks for what has been added or changed. Say you added two 4 meg Mp3s to your music directory. At 802.11g's 54mbps- or 20mbit - real world here - you're not talking that much time. Since you're going that far, why not just sync all the important stuff on your desktop (work, home, whatever) to the car and "justify" all this expense to yourself as a precautionary off-site backup. A really cool off-site backup. :rawk:

That being said, the possibilities are about as endless as the amount of wires you are willing to tolerate.

Ideas: Standalone engine tuning (AEM, Hondata, AshZ's, etc.)
GPS/Nav: Probably been beaten to death already
Night Vision - Think high res webcam & array of infared LEDs mounted in front bumper = nightvision.

[jrmiller84]

^ Believe me, I've thought about it, haha. I've got all kinds of ideas running through my mind.

I'll check out Rsync, haven't heard of it. I'd love to use another app to do the work rather than have myself reinvent the wheel. I think the only app I'll wind up writing myself is the GPS location logging that will relay to my home webserver. I'm going to attempt to start on that tonight. I've got a laundry list of stuff to take care of for it. Starting tonight through this weekend you guys will see tons of updates coming through.


Just a heads up to everyone, tonight I am starting fabrication on the new trunk floorboard. Should have a good number of pictures showing the fabrication technique I'm using to create my contours and how I'm getting the general shape. I also received the amp today and the speakers should be here tomorrow. :rawk:

[unicoladron]

You should probably look into using rsync for your files and music. It is a cross platform tiny little program that is included with all the major linux distributions. That being said, don't get me wrong. I'm not a Linux fan boy myself. There are rsync utilities for windows. I have one on the machine I am using right now that backs up my PC to a server at work. The beauty of Rsync is how it backs things up. The first "backup" will take quite a bit of time. After that, you can schedule it (Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks) to backup whenever you want it to. Say weekly at 6:30am? (When your car is warming up in the driveway.) Well, once that first backup is out of the way, it only checks for what has been added or changed. Say you added two 4 meg Mp3s to your music directory. At 802.11g's 54mbps- or 20mbit - real world here - you're not talking that much time. Since you're going that far, why not just sync all the important stuff on your desktop (work, home, whatever) to the car and "justify" all this expense to yourself as a precautionary off-site backup. A really cool off-site backup. :rawk:

That being said, the possibilities are about as endless as the amount of wires you are willing to tolerate.

Ideas: Standalone engine tuning (AEM, Hondata, AshZ's, etc.)
GPS/Nav: Probably been beaten to death already
Night Vision - Think high res webcam & array of infared LEDs mounted in front bumper = nightvision.

This isn't mission critical data we're talking here. all of the files going on his carputer are probably on another PC in his home.

with carPcs there is a tradeoff for performance because you want' minimal power consumption and heat. he's using an older slower processor. the goal is to have as little services/processes running in the background as possible, so the pc is responsive. no need to have backups running imo, but a good thought.

[jrmiller84]

^ Not backups, but a check every few minutes for new data is desirable for me. This type of process isn't labor intensive so it won't provide a drag. This computer isn't really that old to where one extra light weight service is going to slow it down considerably. I mean, I used to play WoW on this PC with absolutely no problem and good frame rates quite a while ago. With that in mind I think it can handle playing mp3s, videos, and a small amount of internet traffic.

[unicoladron]

^ Not backups, but a check every few minutes for new data is desirable for me. This type of process isn't labor intensive so it won't provide a drag. This computer isn't really that old to where one extra light weight service is going to slow it down considerably. I mean, I used to play WoW on this PC with absolutely no problem and good frame rates quite a while ago. With that in mind I think it can handle playing mp3s, videos, and a small amount of internet traffic.

hmmm maybe i misunderstood, but i'm such a performance whore i looked at it the wrong way. lol...you should play wow on your carputer.

[Vision Garage]

Im sorry, but this has to be one of the most BADASS threads in recent months to hit ZILVIA. Please Posi rep Miller and Wiz!!!

[DaPCWiz]

aight aight... that comment convinced me to take some pics for you guys... :)


http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/exposed.jpg
car pc install, its a bit messy but everything is mounted nicely, cooling setup is planned, and it gets covered.

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/covered.jpg
what it looks like normally :)

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/cap_amp.jpg
capacitor and amp for my speakers / sub

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/wireless.jpg
wireless card for 802.11 -- I'll eventually stealth it more than that

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/usbhub.jpg
usb hub in my glove box for easy access. also bluetooth adapter for mobile internet. I still need to clean up this part of the install. For now I can just close the glove box :)

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/interior.jpg
the money shot. Screen install + custom switch box + logitech nulooq controller


shots of the gui:

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/mainss.jpg
main screen, proportions are for carpc screen, so they look slightly distorted on a normal monitor

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/mp3ss.jpg
mp3 player

http://www.dapcwiz.com/misc/carpc/emulatorss.jpg
emulated games, yay!

[Vision Garage]

wiz, can you PLEASE make a video of the startup of your carputer? Like when you barely turn it on. Does it go straight to road runner or boots windows first? Also, how do you connect your car speakers to the comp? Splice wires? And how does sound quality change using the carputer rather than a typical CD?

[DaPCWiz]

wiz, can you PLEASE make a video of the startup of your carputer? Like when you barely turn it on. Does it go straight to road runner or boots windows first? Also, how do you connect your car speakers to the comp? Splice wires? And how does sound quality change using the carputer rather than a typical CD?

I used to have it setup with a custom boot screen and stuff, but I recently put in a new hard drive... so I haven't had a chance to redo that. Its just a normal windows bootup right now. I can take a vid tho.

I have an external usb sound card that has RCA outputs. Spliced audio wires are ftl... you lose quality like that lol. So the sound card outputs thru rca to the amp. Sound quality is awesome. I run all my MP3s 192 kbps or better, sounds crystal clear.

[Wabash9000]

any chance you can post that skin? it truely is badass.

[DaPCWiz]

any chance you can post that skin? it truely is badass.

It's still in progress-ish... lol I'll post it up once I've done a lil more work on it. I've been using it for 3 years with it half working.. haha I"m so lazy.

[SW20Racer]

hey just wondering are u guys using touch screen monitors?

if so where u guys getting your monitors. this would work so perfect with my little laptop i have lol.

you mean that asus eee you have in the for sale section? the one i've pm'ed you about countless times? is it even for sale still? if not you need to have a mod lock up that thread so i can stop getting my damn hopes up.

[yokotas13]

http://www.linutop.com/linutop2/index.en.html
damn diggity BAM
foudn this today
http://www.linutop.com/pdf/Linutop2_Data_Sheet.pdf

add extermal harddrive and software, call it a day
http://www.linutop.com/images/linutop2-fronts.jpg
http://www.linutop.com/images/linutop2-backs.jpg

just throwing more options for hte non PC savvy guys!

[Xandy Boosts]

haha I need to tear out my carpet in trunk. I knew there was room down there but not THAT MUCH room.

[wannabe_drifter]

DaPCWiz: Stunt race FX !!! that is totally awesome ! Loved that game, hahah nice!

btw: awesome work for the computers... makes me wanna think again before buying next radio ... I've always wanted a hard drive in my car instead of CDs...

[jayrvintayen]

wow, great thread.
now i have something to do with my old dimension 2400 mobo thats been laying around.
i think its micro atx with onboard video/sound? i dont remember anymore.
thanks for the inspiration!

[Wabash9000]

http://www.linutop.com/linutop2/index.en.html
damn diggity BAM
foudn this today
http://www.linutop.com/pdf/Linutop2_Data_Sheet.pdf

add extermal harddrive and software, call it a day
http://www.linutop.com/images/linutop2-fronts.jpg
http://www.linutop.com/images/linutop2-backs.jpg

just throwing more options for hte non PC savvy guys!
that looks nice but it's a crippled system, only has 1gb interally, and still costs $411 USD. I can get an acer laptop with windows xp for $350 brand new and just leave it closed in the trunk and have a better computer.

[yokotas13]

just pointing out options.
thats all

[jrmiller84]

So I promised updates but I didn't get done until almost 4 AM so it was way too late then to start posting.

I almost have the stereo bezel complete. I found this stuff called Plastic Weld (I believe someone mentioned it here after I bought it) in the paint section of Walmart. Stuff works fucking wonders. Within 10 minutes it was almost rock hard and the bezel wasn't going anywhere. Here it is after I put the plastic weld on it.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0016.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0017.jpg


So it looks like crap in those two pictures because that's before I started doing any sanding. After I took those pictures I sanded most of the excess plastic weld off and sanded the entire bezel. Then I applied some Dynatron (basically bondo) to the bezel to fill in the gaps between the stereo bezel and the Xenarc bezel. It looks awesome now and is almost ready for some paint. Everything is nice and smooth and you cant see the Xenarc bezel anymore. I'll take pictures of it later on today before and after I paint it.

I did take it out to my car to get an idea of how it would looks. I had to just set it in place rather than really trying to get it into the slot since my CD player is still installed but regardless, you can see how awesome it's going to look. Sorry for the blur in the dark one but I wanted to show how bright the LCD is from outside.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0020.jpghttp://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0021.jpg
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0022.jpg
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0023.jpg

I also started work on the new trunk floorboard. I purchased some fleece and cut a stencil using the stock trunk carpet. I then coated the fleece in fiberglass resin so that it would hold it's shape afterwards. I'm going to be adding a layer of fiberglass sometime this coming week but I need to focus on the subwoofer enclosure first. Hopefully I can start that sometime soon.

More pictures later today. :bigok:

[didderson]

Dude I love what you're doing. I never thought of installing a pc in my car but thats a sweet idea. I like how you ran the USB lines and the monitor man. +1 for the pics of this cool build!

[bizzyj83]

Very cooool..
If you could hook this up to your alarm and have it notify you in case of a break in or an attempted theft..
that would be fuckin badass!

[jrmiller84]

Like I mentioned, the car will be uploading GPS coordinates in case someone decides to steal the car. I'm going to be constructing a portal that will allow me to plot the cars position using Google maps.

I've heard of people using the carputer to turn off the car if some type of security protocol isn't passed.

If I did it, it would be biometric. The car would turn on and boot and wait for your fingerprint. If it's not entered within a certain time frame, the car would shut down and be disabled from starting again.

I think this may be a little over the top, although that's the only way I know how to do things. :keke:

[Sir]

i see all these systems and they're huge. have you guys considered going with something like ITX boards, they're like 170cmx170cm?

[jrmiller84]

Yes, and I would have gone with one had I not already owned a decent ATX board and components. In the future I would like to take it out of the trunk and situate the computer behind the stereo bezel since there is ample space for an ITX board.

[Wabash9000]

Like I mentioned, the car will be uploading GPS coordinates in case someone decides to steal the car. I'm going to be constructing a portal that will allow me to plot the cars position using Google maps.

I've heard of people using the carputer to turn off the car if some type of security protocol isn't passed.

If I did it, it would be biometric. The car would turn on and boot and wait for your fingerprint. If it's not entered within a certain time frame, the car would shut down and be disabled from starting again.

I think this may be a little over the top, although that's the only way I know how to do things. :keke:
I was thinking that you could get a usb rfid reader kit from thinkgeek and put it under your seat or in your seat and then keep a rfid card in your wallet and then only allow the car to start when the rfid card is present in the seat. Make it so that it only applys to start up though so that you can get out of the car to let it warm up in the winter(although I assume you don't have that problem seeing as how you are working on your car in febuary.
edit:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/907a/

[jrmiller84]

I didn't realize thinkgeek had an rfid kit, that's awesome. This type of system would be ideal if I ever wanted to go this far because I could give my fiance a card and keep one on me and it will recognize who is in the car and react appropriately with voice commands or loading certain skins to the front end.

Nice find :)

[Wabash9000]

I didn't realize thinkgeek had an rfid kit, that's awesome. This type of system would be ideal if I ever wanted to go this far because I could give my fiance a card and keep one on me and it will recognize who is in the car and react appropriately with voice commands or loading certain skins to the front end.

Nice find :)
or because every rfid chip has an unique signiture you could just use the different rfid codes to load the different skins and commands.

[DaPCWiz]

i see all these systems and they're huge. have you guys considered going with something like ITX boards, they're like 170cmx170cm?

My setup is alot smaller than it looks, there really isn't that much space behind the carpet, lol. I have built ITX setups before for my "customers". MicroATX is just alot cheaper that's all :)

Ideally you could use a Mini, Nano, or even Pico ITX board, and a laptop hdd... and one of the smaller power supplies. You could have something really really small. But ::shrug:: not a huge issue for me. Where it sits now, it doesn't get in the way of anything.


Another good "wasted" space spot in our cars is behind the panels to the left and right of the rear seats. Accessibility for servicing it there is annoying tho.

[Wabash9000]

I think I am going to do this to my s14 sometime soon. I have always thought about how the double din was a good combo for a touchscreen but I never relized that they were so inexpensive. I think I am going to use my old old old old computer. It's a p4 1.7ghz with integrated graphics and 1gb of memory on a micro-atx board. Then I'm goinig to build a lexan case and put it in the same spot that dapcwiz has. All I need is a 4 channel amp, a sound card, a harddrive, the power supply, and the screen.

[DaPCWiz]

jrmiller - you might want to check out the skin "carwings" on mp3 car. This guy designed it to look /work like the oem nissan guis on their new navi systems. Its pretty neat and works well.

I may "borrow" some of the elements from his skin for mine :)

[jrmiller84]

I saw that one once before and I really liked it. Here's a link to it (http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/rr-skins/115749-carwings-v1-0-released.html) for anyone interested in how it looks.

There are a few other ones I've been eyeballing like Freedom Ultimate (http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/rr-skins/97957-freedom-ultimate-worklog.html). If I get the new processor tonight (since my old one burned out) I'm going to start customizing the display and getting everything ready for the final install.

[jrmiller84]

On my lunch break I did some more bondoing and sanding to the bezel. First with 80 grit to get all the excess bondo off where I fixed some imperfections and then the whole bezel with 400 grit. I'm going to go try to find some 800 grit or somewhere around there for the final sand tonight before I paint it.

Here are some pictures. I have to dremel out the holes again. I can still see where they go from the back so they're not lost, don't worry. At this point everything is flush even if you can't tell from the pictures.


http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0025.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/DSCF0024.jpg

[DaPCWiz]

On my lunch break I did some more bondoing and sanding to the bezel. First with 80 grit to get all the excess bondo off where I fixed some imperfections and then the whole bezel with 400 grit. I'm going to go try to find some 800 grit or somewhere around there for the final sand tonight before I paint it.

Here are some pictures. I have to dremel out the holes again. I can still see where they go from the back so they're not lost, don't worry. At this point everything is flush even if you can't tell from the pictures.


mmm good stuff. I know the process well. Did that for my buddy's maxima. We had to use a bit more bondo tho.

I personally don't need the buttons, that's why I haven't set it up so I can access them. Screen seems to work fine on its own... and has for like 3 years so its all good :)

I actually had to take my screen apart (dynamix 706) and rebuild it upside down to clear the ashtray / power outlet. I lost the button panel somehow while doing that... so I don't even have the option of putting it in... lol. If I was you I'd just run one single hole for the IR sensor, so that you can just use the remote instead of having a bunch of buttons up there... but that's just my personal choice.

[unicoladron]

looking goooood! that bezel fits in there perfectly dude, almost like magic. another of my main concerns was the 1024x768 (or does xenarc go higher?) resolution from the drivers seat. how hard is it to see? i have 20/20 vision and have high res monitors at work and home so i'm pretty sure it won't be a problem, but the 7" screen hmmm.

[jrmiller84]

The monitor didn't come with an IR port or remote sadly. I want the buttons just in case I need to turn the monitor off for some reason or if I want to switch the inputs if I ever get a backup camera or something like that.

[Wabash9000]

The monitor didn't come with an IR port or remote sadly. I want the buttons just in case I need to turn the monitor off for some reason or if I want to switch the inputs if I ever get a backup camera or something like that.
that monitor is supposed to automatically swich inputs if the right backup monitor is used. 'ballin

[DaPCWiz]

that monitor is supposed to automatically swich inputs if the right backup monitor is used. 'ballin

yeah that's what I thought... mine doesn't... but Xenarc should. I have a power cut switch for when I get pulled over, lol. I've used it a few times. :eek3:

video in driver's view is illegal. And not that I'm watching video while driving... but a cop could easily try to use that against me, so keeping it off is an easy way to avoid that problem. They always nail me for stupid things. ugh.

[jrmiller84]

yeah that's what I thought... mine doesn't... but Xenarc should. I have a power cut switch for when I get pulled over, lol. I've used it a few times. :eek3:

video in driver's view is illegal. And not that I'm watching video while driving... but a cop could easily try to use that against me, so keeping it off is an easy way to avoid that problem. They always nail me for stupid things. ugh.

Yeah, the video capability isn't really for me anyways so I won't be doing that. That's more for my passenger and it'll be pretty rare that they watch videos anyways.

I'll mostly have my music library, visualizations, and GPS up.

[LB.Motoring]

How are you running GPS?


That street program is badasss!

[jrmiller84]

How are you running GPS?

I purchased a Deluogps USB GPS receiver (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16858232001) that will be used with thrid party GPS software, probably Map Monkey or Streets and Trips.

Once I have the internet set up in the car and Streetdeck, Streetdeck will download satellite imagery on top of it's own GPS maps so I'll be able to physically see my surroundings on the map, pretty fucking sick.

[LB.Motoring]

Will streetdeck work with a touchscreen?

I couldnt imagine working well with a mouse while driving, but using your finger or at least a stylis might be Awesome!

[jrmiller84]

Yeah definitely, you would have to use a touchscreen. The screen I'm using is a touchscreen. It has a USB and PS2 connection that outputs a mouse click any time you touch the screen.

It's the only way to go in my opinion. Using a mouse or keyboard while driving is just asking for an accident.

[LB.Motoring]

Yeah,

damn that would be sweet,

I have a large compartment in my 5 series bmw that was org designed for the stock amp etc.

that I took out, and running a 5" flip up dvd, it has rca inputs, but Im afraid it might look shitty vs. vga input..


Oh, it wont work anyways....

It needs that touchscreen output....

Dang one of these days I will have to sell my indash and try out a carputer!

[Xandy Boosts]

I purchased a Deluogps USB GPS receiver (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16858232001) that will be used with thrid party GPS software, probably Map Monkey or Streets and Trips.

Once I have the internet set up in the car and Streetdeck, Streetdeck will download satellite imagery on top of it's own GPS maps so I'll be able to physically see my surroundings on the map, pretty fucking sick.

So you don't really need internet for GPS right, just for Streetdeck?

[jrmiller84]

So you don't really need internet for GPS right, just for Streetdeck?

Just if you want satellite imagery. That's actually not my main reason for wanting internet though. I want to be able to keep everything up to date in the car without having to wardrive and find a wireless hotspot.

[Blurryeyes]

damn you james, because of this thread I just spent 200 bucks on a mini itx board with processor and a tft monitor.

Compulsive buyer + awesome project write up on zilvia = me with a hole in my pcket.

[Matej]

I have four laptops laying around, I've been thinking about about taking one of them apart and fabbing up something like this, this thread gives me inspiration. The laptop hardware should be really easy to hide, it would pretty much only be a matter of hooking it up to a smaller screen.

[Wabash9000]

I have four laptops laying around, I've been thinking about about taking one of them apart and fabbing up something like this, this thread gives me inspiration. The laptop hardware should be really easy to hide, it would pretty much only be a matter of hooking it up to a smaller screen.
you wouldn't even need to take them apart provided that they had a usb port and a vga output. Just mount it vertically in the trunk and run the cables.

[jrmiller84]

The problem is getting laptops to power on automatically when the car turns on.

I haven't done much research into how it's done but I vaguely remember one guy actually had to modify his power button so that he could have an external switch to mount near the front of his car.

Tampering with laptop PCB's and components is too risky for me.

[Wabash9000]

I know in OS X if you plug in the laptop while it is connected to a monitor and in sleep mode it will wake up. So if you have a mac notebook all you need to do is put a relay on the powercord that attaches to the swiched circuit from the stock radio and then set it to goto sleep after 1 min of no activity when it is on battery, and indefinate otherwise.

[Xandy Boosts]

damn you james, because of this thread I just spent 200 bucks on a mini itx board with processor and a tft monitor.

Compulsive buyer + awesome project write up on zilvia = me with a hole in my pcket.

You got a board, processor, and touch screen for $200 dollars? whoa where, link to monitor.

[pbcstylez]

link me too pls

[Blurryeyes]

You got a board, processor, and touch screen for $200 dollars? whoa where, link to monitor.

Not touch screen, just a regular TFT monitor with RCA plug.
I got that stuff from my local egay site, www.mercadolibre.com (http://www.mercadolibre.com) remember that I'm in Mexico. I couldn't find any touchscreen in my area that would fit into the deck and I decided to go with a trackball/handle mouse that I had stored up in the attic.

Also, does anyone know if there is the posibility of running some sort of engine management tool from this carputer?, something along the lines of a megasquirt board.

[yokotas13]

anyone wanna build me a pc...its too hard ot get all the parts i need here lol

[Wabash9000]

premade not good enough for you?

[yokotas13]

honestly?
Id rather support a fellow zilvian than a comapny :)

but yes, premade is good enough, but if someone wants to make some cash, ill help them.

[Xandy Boosts]

build? or help you order parts then ship it to japan?

building the computer is so simpo!
the enclosure will be the hard part of the build, getting it to fit right in your car.

[5t341tH]

anyone wanna build me a pc...its too hard ot get all the parts i need here lol
building as in putting one together? its ez, i can help u with it no problem.

[eulalia]

just curious is there any way you can run some kind of system off your ecu?

and desplay gauges (use your carputer as your car gauges isntead of having gauges?

sorry im carputer illiterate

[Wabash9000]

you can do anything you want with computers. The only thing that matters is how much time you are willing to put to it or how much you are willing to pay someone to do it.

[98koukile]

Could you fit these components into the center storage? I think I'd rather put it there or in the glovebox/behind the screen

[ryguy]

anyone wanna build me a pc...its too hard ot get all the parts i need here lol

I always thought Japan was like the Mecca of cheap avaliable computer parts.

[mothon]

Ya well i guess a computer can do whatever u want it to, if you have the knowledge.... i think it would be cool to also run a small screen in in place of the factory hvac controls. From this screen you could run some digital gauges and somehow control the hvac system the the carputer.

[xawax]

nice work and thank for posting to the OP... this is the system I was looking at for the longest time now...you could cut some slits in the plastic heater/AC ducting behind the stereo to aim A/C air right at the thing in case you encounter a super hot day/have a dark car/live in the southwest...

nice self contained unit that is designed for automotive enviornment from the start...only problem is the price..:(

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lilliput-In-Dash-Car-PC-DVD-VGA-Touch-Screen-Monitor_W0QQitemZ300058182907QQihZ020QQcategoryZ79 835QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l12 47QQcmdZViewItem

[yokotas13]

I always thought Japan was like the Mecca of cheap avaliable computer parts.
sure, if you want to go on a train for 4 hours, or drive for 5 to go to akihabara and not know for sure where anything is.

ask me to find a specific car part, i can find it
ask me to find an airsoft part, i can find it
computer? not so much.

Question
is there a way to get differetn FM ranges?
Japan has a lower range than theh US

[ryguy]

I'm sure they have tuner cards for Japanese ranges. Hell, my head unit can switch regions, so maybe the tuner card can too.

[yokotas13]

fuck i wish mine could.

[jrmiller84]

Just so you guys know, I've been working pretty hard on this. Working all weekend but ran into a bunch of problems.

First problem was that after testing my computer setup on the DC-DC power supply, I couldn't get the system to stay on. It would constantly restart after receiving power. You may remember me mentioning that the processor was fried earlier on. I attributed the restarting problem to the processor and when I got the new one it didn't fix the problem. After a couple hours of investigation this weekend I think I have the problem narrowed down to the testing power supply I was using (the power supply I'm using to test my DC-DC power supply, confusing, I know). It is basically a converter that you plug into a 120v wall outlet and it gives you a negative and positive 12v lead. I bought this to use to test the carputer before I put it in the vehicle but it turns out that I don't believe it can support the amperage pull that the computer system is using.

After I figured this out I was faced with the problem of finding a way to give the system reliable 12v power to get everything set up before putting it in the car. To resolve this I did something kind of risky. I modified one of the 12v rails in my desktop computer to work with my carputer setup. Basically, I have my desktop computer powering my carputer off of one of the 12v rails you would use for say, a hard drive or cd-rom. Once I did that, the computer fired right up and I haven't had a problem since. I'm hoping that the same is true for when I actually get it into the car.

But as for what I have accomplished, I almost have the component set in the car now. The speaker fitment was nice (didn't interfere with the windows coming down) until I started to put the door panel back on. The speakers are too big for the stock holes in the panel so I had to modify the panel and use the grills that came with the speakers. I hate the grills but they'll have to do for now less I risk kicking a hole in them by accident.

I also have the bezel finished with the LCD mounted in it. It looks fucking awesome. I may go back some day and add some more bondo since there are some imperfections, but really... it looks sick. I wound up just bondoing over the button holes because with the added thickness from the bondo to make everything smooth, the buttons were not accessible as they were set too far in. I went through a procedure of filling with bondo, sanding the excess down with 80 grit, sanding the gouges from the 80 grit out with 400 grit, and finishing with 1000 grit probably... 5-6 times. It took a lot of work but I'm happy with it.

I'll have some progress to post later on tonight assuming I don't run into any more problems.

[DaPCWiz]

Just so you guys know, I've been working pretty hard on this. Working all weekend but ran into a bunch of problems.

First problem was that after testing my computer setup on the DC-DC power supply, I couldn't get the system to stay on. It would constantly restart after receiving power. You may remember me mentioning that the processor was fried earlier on. I attributed the restarting problem to the processor and when I got the new one it didn't fix the problem. After a couple hours of investigation this weekend I think I have the problem narrowed down to the testing power supply I was using (the power supply I'm using to test my DC-DC power supply, confusing, I know). It is basically a converter that you plug into a 120v wall outlet and it gives you a negative and positive 12v lead. I bought this to use to test the carputer before I put it in the vehicle but it turns out that I don't believe it can support the amperage pull that the computer system is using.

After I figured this out I was faced with the problem of finding a way to give the system reliable 12v power to get everything set up before putting it in the car. To resolve this I did something kind of risky. I modified one of the 12v rails in my desktop computer to work with my carputer setup. Basically, I have my desktop computer powering my carputer off of one of the 12v rails you would use for say, a hard drive or cd-rom. Once I did that, the computer fired right up and I haven't had a problem since. I'm hoping that the same is true for when I actually get it into the car.

But as for what I have accomplished, I almost have the component set in the car now. The speaker fitment was nice (didn't interfere with the windows coming down) until I started to put the door panel back on. The speakers are too big for the stock holes in the panel so I had to modify the panel and use the grills that came with the speakers. I hate the grills but they'll have to do for now less I risk kicking a hole in them by accident.

I also have the bezel finished with the LCD mounted in it. It looks fucking awesome. I may go back some day and add some more bondo since there are some imperfections, but really... it looks sick. I wound up just bondoing over the button holes because with the added thickness from the bondo to make everything smooth, the buttons were not accessible as they were set too far in. I went through a procedure of filling with bondo, sanding the excess down with 80 grit, sanding the gouges from the 80 grit out with 400 grit, and finishing with 1000 grit probably... 5-6 times. It took a lot of work but I'm happy with it.

I'll have some progress to post later on tonight assuming I don't run into any more problems.

you shoudl try lower gauge wire to your dc psu. IIRC I'm running 10 or 12 gauge.

[Blurryeyes]

Any news with this project? I have been following very closely since day 1

[Wabash9000]

yes updates!!!!! I hope to be doing this come summer time.

[Wabash9000]

updates???????????

[DaPCWiz]

My setup is still working :keke:

I'm actually doing a carPC install in a 2008 Impreza 2.5i soon.

I wonder how James is doing with his setup.... :aw:

[jrmiller84]

It's doing well.

I haven't posted updates because my camera decided to take a shit on me shortly after my last post here. As soon as I find someones to borrow, I'll throw some pictures up here.

Some updates without pictures are in order then I guess.

I wound up ditching a couple of things in the project, one being the motherboard I was using. The one I had bit the dust when one of the fastening clips for the CMOS battery decided to break, which meant it wasn't going to hold any boot information between boots.

So with that in mind, I bought a JetWay J7F3E-P motherboard....

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/13-153-052-02.jpg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153052)

The nice thing about this mobo is that it measures only 6.7x6.7 inches and fits in the dash behind the LCD perfectly. It runs plenty fast for a carputer application, definitely an awesome buy I would recommend to anyone wanting to do this, plus it only cost $100.00 and comes with the processor.

In other news, currently the system isn't being used even though it's working fine. Reason being that for some reason the copy of Windows I installed isn't activating. It's a valid copy of Win XP I've used for some time on the HD that's in the carputer but I'm guessing they caught on to all of the hardware upgrades I've done... :keke:


I'm going to be eating my words from earlier here, but I am actually going to be running Linux on it in the coming weeks. Reason being that I am hard at work on my own front end software. When the carputer was up and running (and activated), Roadrunner drove me nuts and I started to feel that $200 for Streetdeck was a bit excessive, hell that's more than XP Pro itself. I'm writing my own since I feel there's a lot of potential out there that many of the front end developers aren't jumping on. Plus as I mentioned earlier, there aren't any good front end programs for Linux so perhaps I can make this the first. I need a good development project to keep me busy when I'm not at school or work anyways. Currently I have the main architecture set up for the project and should have an extremely crude version working by the end of the week. I'll give details as to the features I'm implementing in the coming weeks when some of the stuff starts coming to fruition.

I'll get pictures as soon as I can grab a camera.

[Wabash9000]

you might try downloading the beta 2 of linux ice. You can run a live cd from this one and it seems fairly nice. ultra simple also. would run like a champ on any system. Also the install is tiny so you could running it off a 2gb cf for reliability over a hd for the os.

[onepuff]

Here's my install. Previously had it in my integra. I''m now using a Wii remote to control most of the functions. Running Nissan Datascan through Parallels.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show-off-your-project/93351-1995-240sx-mac-mini-lilliput-7-a.html

[Wabash9000]

how'd you use a wiimote? sounds interesting...

[onepuff]

I use a program called Remote Buddy. It's only for Mac OSX. It is a great program though. You can use a wi remote, the iPhone and a few other remotes to control almost anything. It has menus for a bunch of programs like iTunes and you can make your own menus for any program. You can map keystrokes to a button on the remote and control the program. I have it setup to startup nissan datascan with only a few button presses.

[jinesz32]

this is freakin awesome!

[yokotas13]

yayyyyyyyyyy i finished my car PC last night
toshiba laptop with a Lilliput screen all wired in and ish

works great so far

i gotta figure out how to make it boot faster though

[jinesz32]

neat, how much do you guys spend average on a carpc?
i'm thinking of building one!

[DaPCWiz]

neat, how much do you guys spend average on a carpc?
i'm thinking of building one!

just did an install from the ground up in my buddy's impreza. came out somewhere between $700-$800.

[jinesz32]

mm i see. thats not bad, but i think i want to put my money somewhere else for now. :D maybe in the future because this is so damn neat!

[BustedS13]

love carputers, definitely want to put one in my next daily.

you need a "danger to manifold" screensaver

[jrmiller84]

love carputers, definitely want to put one in my next daily.

you need a "danger to manifold" screensaver


I had that as my wallpaper for a while. I also had a wallpaper of the flux capacitor from back to the future. :keke:

[C. Anderson]

Any updates on this?

[WangonwWarrior]

Yeah ive been following this thread. I NEED UPDATES

[jrmiller84]

It's been a fucking long time and I've had a lot going on so this project got pushed off for a while (I kinda... got married (http://www.flickr.com/photos/s13james/tags/wedding/), haha). I figured I'd post something since I just finished this past weekend to see if anyone was still interested...

I've had a lot of trouble getting a stable system going. For a while I was writing my own Linux front end software using SDL but it was consuming so much time and was so far from a slightly working product that it just seemed more worth my time to just purchase a pre-made front end solution that settle for a shotty one that I put together in my spare time. I settled on Centrafuse since it's the front end with the most support now (Streetdeck was severed from mp3car.com and there were rumors of shit support and no updates from them).

I wound up settling on the following parts:


Jetway J7F3E Mini-ITX motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153052)
APEX MI-008 Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091), mounted in trunk
Xenarc 700 TSV 7" touchscreen monitor
M1-ATX 12v to 12v Regulating Power Supply
1 GB Patriot RAM (the max the board will support, sadly...)
320 GB SATA Hard drive, mounted vertically to prevent head crash

So what have I done...

I took the bezel of the Xenarc monitor off and, using plastic epoxy, bonded it to the stock 240 stereo bezel so that I would have the mounting holes still in the back of the Xenarc bezel. Then I took bondo and lots of sandpaper, filled in all of the gaps, and sanded it with 120 grit (to get rid of the excess bondo), 800 grit, 1000 grit, and finally 2000 grit to smooth it out. Then I primered and painted it with interior paint. I did this probably three or four times until I had the finish I wanted with a barely any imperfections.

Then I mounted the monitor in the car and ran the power and touchscreen signal wires to the computer, which is secured in the trunk. I took the stock Xenarc power brick that you can plug into the wall and cut the cord from it. I then took the cord and soldered it into wires from a Molex connector (computer hard drive connector) so that I could power the monitor from the computers power supply, which is "cleaner" since it's regulated by the power supply than running it anywhere else in the car. I was getting bad artifacting/scan lines when it was run through anywhere else.

I mounted the Wifi and GPS on top of the back shelf in the hatch. This gave the GPS the line of sight it needs to get a quick signal.

And now for what you really care about, rather than my rambling. Here are the (few) pictures I have taken so far. I'll try to get some of my now cluttered trunk (computer, subwoofer, and battery...)

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/DSCN1426.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/carputer_day.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/carputer_night.jpg

[onepuff]

Nice job dude! Glad to see you finally got it all together. Looks great. So you plan on getting Consult up and running? Nissan Data Scan is a great tool to have.

[Bushido]

sweet. how much did the project cost all said and done?

[jrmiller84]

sweet. how much did the project cost all said and done?

With the computer parts, subwoofer, component set, monitor, and the front end software probably somewhere in the area of a grand. If you already have a stereo it won't cost you quite as much. I still had the stock speakers in there (from '89, hah) so they needed to be replaced.

[mothon]

How long does it take for the system to boot up?

[Wabash9000]

Any info on boot times would be great. Standby? I was thinking a laptop would be a great carputer because when the car gets shut off it can go into standby mode and then run off the laptop battery until that dies and then it can go into standby mode.
Also I was thinking with a low power system like an atom based on you could keep the system fresh by mounting a small solar cell somewhere.

[jrmiller84]

How long does it take for the system to boot up?

Any info on boot times would be great. Standby? I was thinking a laptop would be a great carputer because when the car gets shut off it can go into standby mode and then run off the laptop battery until that dies and then it can go into standby mode.
Also I was thinking with a low power system like an atom based on you could keep the system fresh by mounting a small solar cell somewhere.

Right now I'm completely shutting down and starting up every time and it takes around a minute to a minute and a half. It's not terribly bad. It's usually just long enough for me to be pulling out of my apartment complex ready to go. I'm going to try switching to hibernate or standby sometime soon to increase boot times after I get all the other kinks worked out.

I was going to use a laptop as well since I have a spare one, but the issue with laptops is how you will get it to power on and off automatically with the car. With a standard computer motherboard/power supply combo, you can wire the power supply directly into the power button pins on the motherboard so that when the power supply sees the switched 12v line become active, it simulates a button press on those pins. There is no such facility on a laptop motherboard since the power switch is typically soldered into the PCB of the laptop. You would wind up de-soldering the button from the PCB and soldering in your own switch, which can be dangerous.

Then there is the issue of how you will power the laptop. If you're lucky, the power brick that came with it is converting from 120V AC to 12V DC, in which case you could regulate one of the cars power lines. If that isn't the case, you'll wind up either trying to find a way to convert the cars power to whatever power needs the laptop has or you'll have to use one of those huge DC to AC converters in your car that gives you a wall outlet to plug the brick into, which totally sucks if you ask me.

Anyways, that's why I decided to go to the regular Mini-ITX computer route.

[xawax]

this is great to see! just seen your post in the pic thread and "i jizzed in my pants." no really, i've been working the kinks out of my carputer for the last few months. nothing out there beats a computer in the car. i mean i have navi, downloaded movies, mp3s, phone integration, bluetooth, inornet(wifi), old-school coin-op emulators, and much much more.

i also love that i can put 5.1 dolby in there if i want later. the crappiest modern computer sound card is better than most car deck processors. its nice having the ultimate eq and getting the sound just how you like.

really, after this, i'm sure i'll never go back to just and ordinary deck.

great job dude, nice to see another 240 w/ carputer

[jrmiller84]

Something else you guys might like...

Bought this off of mp3car.com. It's a replacement for the cigarette lighter that turns it into a USB port. Just have to run it to the trunk this afternoon and I'll be able to listen to my iPod/iPhone and charge them via the carputer. I could also hook up any number of peripherals that I don't need connected all the time (Wifi, bluetooth, usb memory sticks, etc).

Here it is closed (I need to straighten it out later tonight)http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/CigaretteUSB.jpg

And here it is open

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j83/jrmiller84/Project%20240/Carputer%20Project/CigaretteUSB2.jpg

[Blurryeyes]

I use an usb Hub with an extension cord and that gives me 4 ports, $5 for both parts. I love cheap computer parts

[jrmiller84]

I was doing that initially, but I got tired of having to go into the glove box and dealing with the wires from it every time I wanted to connect/disconnect something. I wanted something a little sleeker, especially since I am usually only using one of these peripheral devices at a time. The rest are connected to the actual mobo's USB connections.

Plus, if you connect too many devices (which can be the case with carputers since everything uses usb), you'll pull too much juice from the hub and at least one device will fall off. You can get a powered USB hub but then you have to wire it up with power, which I'm too lazy for right now and I already have a wire mess under my backseat from this thing...

It looks like I killed a Sentinal and stuffed him under the seat.

[Bushido]

does your carputer have wifi? how do you transfer files onto it?

[jrmiller84]

does your carputer have wifi? how do you transfer files onto it?

Yes, it does have wifi. Since I just got it set up recently, I just threw all of my media on there before I installed it. In the future, I'll probably just pull it down over wifi when I'm at home. I could potentially pull the media down at a public wifi site over the internet using a Dynamic dns solution at home so I can reach my media.

I've considered getting an 3G card for it so that I'd have internet everywhere, but I don't really think that's worth it in terms of safety and cost. No one should be using the internet while they're driving. :cops:

[Blurryeyes]

does your carputer have wifi? how do you transfer files onto it?
if you are talking about moving files from the desktop at home to the carputer using an usb HD it's always an option.

[jrmiller84]

if you are talking about moving files from the desktop at home to the carputer using an usb HD it's always an option.

Yeah, if it's a small number of files I'll probably just throw them on a usb key and have Centrafuse sync them to the HD. It would be a lot quicker.

[Blurryeyes]

BTW James, F U. After reading this thread last year I became obsessed with having a carputer on the S13 and have been changing setups all year last year, I currently have the car's interior gutted just to mount a bigger display, lots of cutting and fabbing on the dash.

[jrmiller84]

It's been a love, hate relationship for me too, believe me...

[Blurryeyes]

I kid. I love my carputer, I even have nissan datascan, that way I know which sensor craps out on me in real time.

[jrmiller84]

I kid. I love my carputer, I even have nissan datascan, that way I know which sensor craps out on me in real time.

I haven't done much research on nissan datascan. I assume this uses OBDII to work? It's almost impossible to find OBDI cables since, from what I understand, OBDI wasn't standardized very well(or at all). I'm not sure how I would do it with the SR20 ECU, especially since most of the wiring write ups omit how to wire up the OBD port.

EDIT: Looks like you need a Consult cable (http://www.blazt.biz/information/cars.php), rather? Interestinggg...

[Blurryeyes]

since I have the KA and my car it's a 92 it's OBD, calum from sr20 forums made a simple consult interface and posted the diagrams and parts needed to make one, not very pretty but very functional