Hey everybody,

Just found this forum and it looks great. I've been in the process of researching and building my carputer for the last 12 months and getting the information I was after was quite a problem.

I searched through MP3Car Forums, and although they are very smart in the field of carputers, asking a question it just about prohibited - it's just crazy! I have also scoured Ford Forums Australia and got a lot of information off them but most of the members are good with cars only (with some exceptions of course)

Finally an Australian forum, talking about carputers, where the members are happy to share their knowledge. It's a dream come true, I wish I had found this site a year ago.

Anyway, here's the piccies

The car - 2005 XR6 Turbo


The box -it doesn't look real flash because I plan to have it inside the spare wheel and it won't be seen


The front end - I'm just using standard window programs because the factory screen only allows 640 x 480 Resolution and most of the front ends ( Road Runner etc ) don't support this resolution.

The display looks much better than this photo

The 'tank' battery


So at the moment I have MP3, DVD, Wireless. I plan to have -
- GPS
- extra screens in the front headrests for the kids
- headphones for the kids (normal audio to car speakers, headphones seperate)
- TV tuner
- OBDII ( really looking forward to custom tuning )

Panda

Looking good mate!

Care to give us a run-down of the system specs? Could help a few of us out (*cough* me )

looking good mate, love the car, and as CoinSlot said, wouldnt mind hearing some specs

looks good mate, as the other have said it would be good to see some specs.
how did you run the audio?

...James

Yeah, ASUS ATX motherboard (should have gone for Mini-ATX though
866MB P3 Processor
256MB SDRAM
200 GB 7200rpm Segate HDD
Arcade VGA Card (256MB I think)
PCI 5.1 Surround Sound Audio Card
PCI D-Link Wireless Card

Panda



The audio runs from the 3.5mm audio out on the Sound Card to the Auxiliary Input on the standard head unit. I bought one of these -



and then made up the cable sorta like this



Panda

sounds good, has your hdd got a 8 or 16mb buffer?

if you dont mind me asking how much did your car pc cost

Not sure at the moment - Segate 200GB IDE 7200rpm - that's about all the specs I know

It wouldn't be any good for video editing etc, but for playing MP3's and MPEG's it does just fine - no need for SATA or the like in a carputer

Panda


To date, about $600. When I'm finished it should be about $1000

I've yet to buy -
- TV Tuner
- OBD hardware and software
- headrest / roof mount monitors
- extra sound card
- headphones

Panda

itd probably be an 8mb then, im sure you wouldve been informed if it was a 16mb. so its stable enough that the bumps and stuff dont affect the playing?

I have an 8MB buffer HDD and theres no problem with bumps.
Id think if bumps were severe enough for your HDD heads to leave the platter then you'd face worse problems than just audio skipping.
Also, considering that a single 4 minute MP3 is usually 4MB (or .wav being 40MB) then you have essentially buffered 2 whole songs (or 72 seconds of .wav) just using an 8MB buffer. Even though Im confident the Pc doesnt buffer the entire song, you get my point. 16MB is not necessary IMO.

Bumps aren't a problem at all, for any application - MP3 / DVD / GPS

Panda

I have changed the Auto-On Circuit on my carputer.

Instead of having an external box like this -


I have made it on a PCB Board -


and slid it into a spare PCI slot -




I've also made up a simple relay so that instead of switching the ICC via a manual button in the front, it the carputer is running, the ICC switches.

I'm getting lazy I guess.

Panda

Pandaman72,

Tell me more about your tank. What sort of circuit are you running? Ive been reading about them on Mp3 but its too messy over there.

Thanks,


Russell.

Something like this



Panda

Hey mate,

I am curious as to how you hooked the video display into the stock unit?
Or is it not a stock unit?

Yes, it is stock. This can only be done with the Premium Audio package though.

Read post #5, it describes how I ran the video from the carputer to the factory screen

Panda

I've been playing around with my carputer and I thought I might post up some pics.

I was never really happy with my first effort at building the case, it did the job but looked cheap. (hell, it was cheap)


I have made a new case, similar but better. This one is slightly higher (120mm instead of 80mm) because I figure there is no point saving space above the carputer, you can't put anything on top of it anyway. This allows me to use a bigger fan 120mm instead of 80mm (106CFM as opposed to 65CFM) and it also means that I don't have to limit myself to low profile PCI cards now.

Please bear in mind, this is just a mock up - I know it needs cleaning up.
Empty Case


Case with M/B


Case with M/B and fan


Case with M/B, fan and PCI cards


Case with M/B, fan, PCI cards and HDD


Case with M/B, fan, PCI cards, HDD and DVD


I wasn't going to have a DVD, but for the sake of ease I decided to put one in, plus I found it cheap on eBay. (only $10 + $6.80 postage - bargain)
This is how I was going to have it before getting the DVD


Anyway, this is the finished product from the top.


There's a bit of room on the top right corner, I might stick another 120mm fan in there. That's it for now, but I'm sure this will change again soon.

Panda

cool

this, is the first time i've posted in the carputer forums.....and.....its quite scary lol

i think i've decided to go for it.....after picking up a 300gig HDD today full of gear...and having it in a shiny black external caddy....it really has got me thinking about the mass storage capacity it presents for music and video etc

anyway, cheers for the pics...i'll get back to scouring

8mb or 16mb of disk cache shouldn't make any difference with road bumps. The data is lifted off the drive and stored into RAM when the file is requested. Depending on how much RAM the PC has and the size of the file being loaded, the entire file will usually be loaded into RAM and buffered from there, not streamed from the hard drive.

ive said it b4 but nice install pandaman, im venturing into the carputers. ill post some pics soon, but custom stainless chassis, with asus socket a m/b, running athlon 2000+ with 1024ddr400, only a Samsung 40gb at the moment, also got a low profile ATI 9550se 128mb agp card, pics will be soon (sorry if hijacking)

Since posting I have had some significant changes - firstly the car has gone.



Our 4th child came along in February so I have had to sell the XR and buy a Honda Oddyssey. Sucks to be me.



Anyway, I've made a start on putting the carputer into the Honda

























Hopefully it will make the Honda more tolerable



Panda

looks really good that velour covering matches in really well with factory seats.. where is screem mounted? well done pandaman

wicked pandama

Yep, I had to search high and low for it, but got the match pretty good in the end





On the side photo you can see that there is a small flat area above the DVD Player - that is where the screen will go.



Panda

You'll be running a VGA touchscreen then?