Carputer

[Frank_Jaeger]

Has anyone ever installed one in their S13?

I'm starting to gather pieces, but I'm wondering where I'm going to fit it. I was thinking the glovebox with some modification, but I'm not sure how that'd turn out.

Right now I've decided on a 7" 800x480 screen, 4GB DDR3 ram, AMD A4-3300 APU, ASRock A75M-ITX motherboard (6.7" x 6.7"), and mini-box M2-ATX PSU.

[ryandriftingfat]

As someone who always wanted a carputer, but was never happy with examples I'd seen / used....

...why not just use an iPad?

[murda-c]

Glovebox, under a seat, or in the trunk maybe?

[blessedhellrider]

buddie of mine ,has a netbook and touch screen in his 07 RAM ,for music . also has nav on it as well. works pretty good.

he has autio and navigation software for automotive applications installed.il try to see if i can get him to give me the info on it.

[Frank_Jaeger]

As someone who always wanted a carputer, but was never happy with examples I'd seen / used....

...why not just use an iPad?
Because, if I was the kind of person to "just use an iPad", I would've gotten an older G35 instead of dumping money into a 240. This represents a culmination of most of my hobbies and interests (programming, computers, my car, and music). It's right up my ally as a DIY project.

Glovebox, under a seat, or in the trunk maybe?
The trunk might be too far. Under the seat might be a plausible solution, although I'd have to get a low profile heatsink and a case. I'll dwell on it a bit more. EDIT: If I added up the amount of time I've spent staring at your signature, I'd be at like 3hours and 47minutes.

buddie of mine ,has a netbook and touch screen in his 07 RAM ,for music . also has nav on it as well. works pretty good.

he has autio and navigation software for automotive applications installed.il try to see if i can get him to give me the info on it.
Yeah man, netbooks work too; I've thought about using one. Although I'm going for something a little more integrated with the car.



I intend on using a barebones Linux distro. I'll write the software for the interface from scratch. I demand voice-recognition music streaming.

[Croustibat]

You want a challenge ? Get a raspberry Pi . As far as i can tell, it can do what you are asking for. that and it is quite cheap.

[Frank_Jaeger]

You want a challenge ? Get a raspberry Pi . As far as i can tell, it can do what you are asking for. that and it is quite cheap.
I might get one just to play around with.

I'm pretty set on the AMD Trinity setup, though. Already have my components matched and everything. I won't just be doing music, and I'd like to have a lot of eye candy. I'll write the software to utilize the APU fully.

I'm getting excited about this. I'm going to resurrect this thread when I get my parts in. Maybe I'll inspire more people to do these :naughtyd:.

[blueshark123]

Because, if I was the kind of person to "just use an iPad", I would've gotten an older G35 instead of dumping money into a 240. This represents a culmination of most of my hobbies and interests (programming, computers, my car, and music). It's right up my ally as a DIY project.




I do not agree with this statement at all, your comparing apples to oranges here.

Why try to make something that will cost more, is harder to do, takes up more space and is probably not as good as a ipad or any cheaper tablet you want.

I would love to wire in a tablet in to my car. I can play music on it, movies and the best part for me I have a obd2 port so i can use my obd2 bluetooth scanner I have that I bought for twenty bucks and that will let me display all the gauges in real time, setup any alerts and i can record it all. It can even tell me of any check engine codes.

Think smarter not harder.:wavey:

[Frank_Jaeger]

I do not agree with this statement at all, your comparing apples to oranges here.
I'm comparing comparing apples and oranges to comparing apples and oranges.

Why try to make something that will cost more, is harder to do, takes up more space and is probably not as good as a ipad or any cheaper tablet you want.
I want an integrated solution to occupy the double-din slot. I want absolute-100% control over the hardware. I want something with more power (read better) than an iPad. I don't want an Apple product. Developing for Apple would crush my soul. The only real gain I'd have going with an iPad would be a higher (pixel density / resolution) screen, which I wouldn't mind, but I can do without it.

I would love to wire in a tablet in to my car. I can play music on it, movies and the best part for me I have a obd2 port so i can use my obd2 bluetooth scanner I have that I bought for twenty bucks and that will let me display all the gauges in real time, setup any alerts and i can record it all. It can even tell me of any check engine codes.
I have about 1,000 bluetooth dongles lying around my room, amongst various other bits of computer hardware. If it ever came to that, I'd be okay.

You should think like I do.:wavey:
No.

[Jybfan04]

I've actually been playing around with a few concepts myself.

I hope to have some pictures real soon of one i've created..

I plan on making an all inclusive kit that will fit in a double din dash..

[blueshark123]

Wow! like I said it does not have to be apple. I actually dont like apple products, but they're other products like a ipad. Go ahead and waste your time thats all im gonna say, I bet you wont end up doing anything, your from florida. If you would have at least known how to search you would have seen that there has been a lot of threads talking about carputers.

[ghoti]

Work smarter not harder.:wavey:
Fixed it for you

[andrew600]

blueshark knows whats up. hey if he doesnt want your advice let him throw way more money into a halfassed project.

[blueshark123]

Thanks ghoti lol that's what I meant and thanks andrew

[Blues13]

You can fit a complete mini-itx enclosure in the standard double din slot. I believe Bybyte makes one to use with a touch screen. Check out the forums on MP3CAR.. There will also be others coming out later this year.

I believe carputers will take off once windows 8 hits.. but Centrafuse seems pretty good too.

Just add an amp for the sound and you should be set.

[Crondy]

[email protected]#$

[airhead]

I thought of doing this like 8 yrs ago before tablets.
IMO your better of getting a small smart phone big enough to fit in the stereo area. Make a custom mount and quick release every time you leave your car;)

Car PC, 12V Vehicle Computers, the makers of VoomPC (http://www.mini-box.com/Car-PC-Automotive-Computing-Solutions)

[Frank_Jaeger]

Wow! like I said it does not have to be apple. I actually dont like apple products, but they're other products like a ipad. Go ahead and waste your time thats all im gonna say, I bet you wont end up doing anything, your from florida. If you would have at least known how to search you would have seen that there has been a lot of threads talking about carputers.
Nice ad hominem bro. I'll leave it to you to find a single resourceful carputer thread on Zilvia. Be careful with your terms, you don't want to pull up irrelevant results (i.e. ECU). Ready! Set! Go!

I've actually been playing around with a few concepts myself.

I hope to have some pictures real soon of one i've created..

I plan on making an all inclusive kit that will fit in a double din dash..
That would be ideal. If you used a nano-itx board you could fit it for sure. If I could fit my mini-itx I'd be stoked. We'll see when it gets here (went with Newegg). I need to clean up the wires in there, it's a mess.

If you're going to construct a business around carputers, now's definitely the time to do it. I might start doing builds / installations locally. I already do computer work on the side.

blueshark knows whats up. hey if he doesnt want your advice let him throw way more money into a halfassed project.
Don't reference me by third person. This is my thread.

If you want to call building a custom-tailored computer with high quality hardware severalfold times more powerful than a prebuilt tablet never intended for this purpose "half-assed," go right on ahead.

Seriously?

You can fit a complete mini-itx enclosure in the standard double din slot. I believe Bybyte makes one to use with a touch screen. Check out the forums on MP3CAR.. There will also be others coming out later this year.

I believe carputers will take off once windows 8 hits.. but Centrafuse seems pretty good too.

Just add an amp for the sound and you should be set.
I've been ignoring Windows 8 up until now, because I've never had any interest in it beyond desktop application (which it seems to fail at). I'm definitely going to be running Linux (which has drivers for my touchscreen), but I might dual-boot later on with Windows 8 if it proves to be worthwhile.

I thought of doing this like 8 yrs ago before tablets.
IMO your better of getting a small smart phone big enough to fit in the stereo area. Make a custom mount and quick release every time you leave your car;)

Car PC, 12V Vehicle Computers, the makers of VoomPC (http://www.mini-box.com/Car-PC-Automotive-Computing-Solutions)
I already have a smartphone (Android based, which I will interface with the carputer). It'd certainly be a lot less work. Unfortunately I'm looking for a more permanent solution. I also don't really want to use Android to achieve my software goals. It's messy.

[Matej]

It would be fancy to get rid of the ECU and just tune/run the car directly through a carputer.

[Frank_Jaeger]

It would be fancy to get rid of the ECU and just tune/run the car directly through a carputer.
That's a little ambitious :ughd:.

[Croustibat]

It would be fancy to get rid of the ECU and just tune/run the car directly through a carputer.

It would be useless and hard to do, because your computer does not have the E/S it takes for that.

It means basically building an USB hi speed board with relays, ADCs and power transistors, which is completely useless as the oem ECU is built exactly for that.

But you could put a nistune in the ECU and connect it to the carputer, and then make the tune. Which would be ridiculous considering the size of the screen (it is already a pain with a 10" screen, a keyboard and a mouse. You dont want to do it on a 7" touchscreen, believe me)



To the OP > if you want a linux solution, try a raspberry pi. That was not sarcasm you know. It does not have that much CPU power, but it has hardware HD decoding and a DVI port amongst other things. And it is an open hardware, unlike all these so called "open" android tablets that are as much open as an ipad.

If you dont care about HD decoding, you could go with any plug computer or hackable device, like a seagate pogoplug, dockstar or goflex. They work directly on 5 / 12V, will not consume too much as they are arm core, and all of them have linux distros . I have 4 dockstars at home, with a debian distro on them, doing http/mail/vpn servers and all. Great things to play with, completely silent, and very small ! :coolugh:

[Frank_Jaeger]

To the OP > if you want a linux solution, try a raspberry pi. That was not sarcasm you know. It does not have that much CPU power, but it has hardware HD decoding and a DVI port amongst other things. And it is an open hardware, unlike all these so called "open" android tablets that are as much open as an ipad.

If you dont care about HD decoding, you could go with any plug computer or hackable device, like a seagate pogoplug, dockstar or goflex. They work directly on 5 / 12V, will not consume too much as they are arm core, and all of them have linux distros . I have 4 dockstars at home, with a debian distro on them, doing http/mail/vpn servers and all. Great things to play with, completely silent, and very small ! :coolugh:
I'll be getting a raspberry pi or two when it isn't backordered by >5 months. I've already dropped the coin on these components. The only thing I'm waiting on now is an adapter to mount the screen in the double din slot (I'm going to contact Broadfield about this), a plate to mount the mobo, and the power supply. This thing is way overkill.

It'll definitely fit behind the double din slot. I'm excited. I'll be adding pictures later.

[DamnedButDetermined]

I am bumping this because I talked to the OP and he said he did have success with this project. I am also looking to install a very simple carputer system into my car that will handle only these functions...
Act as a hard drive to store music files, and if at all possible perform data logging from the DIYPNP engine management I plan on using.
Act as a music player and EQ for the stored music files (output as USB to feed an multi-channel amp)
Act as an AM/FM Radio and have blue tooth capability so I can use Pandora for streaming music from my phone
Display multiple gauge readings that are not already on the gauge cluster IE:boost, oil temp, intake air temp, wideband (not positive on this yet...I may mount that on the steering column for easy monitoring), exhaust gas temp, etc...
Act as a navigation device instead of using my phone

I do not want anything real fancy because it isn't needed. I don't need a full on computer, just a simple device that can process the information and deliver what I have listed above.

So what do you guys think?
Zac

[DamnedButDetermined]

If anyone is interested in this topic I think I found my solution...
Introducing Shadow Dash MS | tunerstudio.com (http://tunerstudio.com/index.php/shadowdashmsmenu)