have been a looker for quite a while here now its time for my turn
if in wrong section sorry, move if necessary

alright I'm gonna have a crack at this but before i do anything i need to do a project portfolio for school as I'm doing this for my major project I'm currently up to the Action plan and evaluation this is where i need Your help what i need from this wonderfully forum is to give me negative and positive (mostly ) comments about what I'm doing and steer me in the rite direction:violin:

the carpc it self will consists of ---will update this spot soon ---
probley run a 7inch touch screen Lilliput
enclose car PC in boot with sound equipment
carpc will only run MP3 and DVD's for now probley get gps etc later on (not sure)
all be run of carpc don't wanna wire up though head deck
heres the car its going in
1986 Holden VL Calais








this is my idea

from this


to this (similar not exact the same lol) have switch's or something under air con switches


and this is what I'm thinking for boot

That looks good mate,


probley run a 7inch touch screen Lilliput - Yer i would run a 7 inch lilliput touch screen, cant go past it, with the vga input and there so easy to use id defintally get one.

enclose car PC in boot with sound equipment - I see where you have it and it looks alright, although there has been disscusion on ethire this forum or mp3car.com about having a pc to close to subs, which may/may not cause the hdd to vibrate causing it to eventually die.

carpc will only run MP3 and DVD's for now probley get gps etc later on (not sure) - Gps isnt hard at all to setup, and relative cost free as well if you know where to look.

all be run of carpc don't wanna wire up though head deck - Yer that is the way to do it, usually though the power from the dcdc convter needs more power than what the stock headunit can supply, So deinfally the best way there.

Now a few other things you must have, with the pc a decent dcdc converter. Pretty much just make install so much easy to do, then you dont have to worry about getting power inverters and stuff for your car etc.
Also what front end where you planing on using? Or where you just thinking of using windows with out one? If you are thinking about using a front end (Defintally reccomend) id look at 2 options, Ethire road runner or centrafuse, i have both but use centrafuse as i think its just better how everything is incorprated into it. Hope this has helped you out a little bit. Good luck with the project!

Thenks for the info mate


still in plainning for all this so still deciding where the PC will actualy go. might go GPS
Was thinking of using roadrunner for the front end as its free and a mate i know has been doing some designing with that program so no problem there

Thenks again

welcome to the forums mate... good luck with your project,... and yeh about the sub and hdd issue, i believe its a no go, too much vibration for the HDD, also you may want to get into buying the parts for your carputer... because most of the parts you cant exactly find in AU, like its very hard, so you may have to order stuff from america... but yeh good luck with your build.

AHH ok probley best if i made some sort of sound prof box and mount it on the left away from everything

yeah was plainning to get alot of stuff of ebay

won't be really doing much till early next year due to i'm only up to the design process and needed to get some external opions for my portfolio

My carputer is in a voompc enclosure. These are quite popular, you'll find them on ebay, mp3car.com.
They come with little rubber feet used to mount the HDD with, which help to dampen (remove) some of the vibration present in a car. It will also come with an intelligent DC-DC power supply which is the easiest and best way to power a carputer.

This is where my carputer got mounted, clean, simple install.

very nice install mate... thats basically what holden4life needs to do with his own little touches.

thats a sweet idea Trav might look into something like that looks good
for the HDD issue's was thinking of running a laptop hard drive via USB cause of the higher Forces that the laptop hardrive can handle

Hey Mate,

Have a read through my CarPC thread, it goes through all the bits and pieces you need for setting up a carPC.

Links here: http://www.mobileelectronics.com.au/forums...showtopic=87818

Ive setup my system somewhat similar to what your planning on, Xenarc touchscreen upfront, CarPC in the boot etc, have a look at my car thread to get an idea of what im taking about: http://www.mobileelectronics.com.au/forums...howtopic=536156

I Think its a great project, seeing as i finished year 12 last year too, it isnt too hard of a feat to accomplish, just be prepared to shell out a bit of cash to get it all setup.

sweet read dude
been a while so i thought i'll update and ask some advice.
the past 5 months i've been reading every possible article there is. i got to a lazy state and didnt do much for a while but now am really keen to get back in it. i now have the front end required programs (roadrunner, winamp etc) wih in the next few weeks i will be buying a screen and full time carpc.

i have decided to go Gps my question now is i searched high and low and only found one decent rite up about gps for Australia . my question is what options do i have for GPS programs in Australia? i hear using destinator 5 and map monkey anyone have any other ideas?