snoopdan

i was just wondering, are you going to add a FM radio card to your pc? I didnt notice it in your lineup and was just wondering. Not as if you are running out of a/v entertainment. just was nosey about it.


snoopdan

scott_fx

While purchasing parts for this project I thought about how often i listen to the radio and realize that it's been months since the last time i did so I opted not to integrate the radio at this point. Further down the road I may get xm or if i wanted fm I could quickly install a tv/fm tuner card and wire to my antenna.

dvarapala

I, too, have a Car PC in the works. I bought one of these cases to house an EPIA MII 10000 Mini-ITX motherboard. Still hoping to find an LCD touch screen that will fit into the C5 dash opening without major surgery...

scott_fx

I think you can get a 6.5 inch to fit in the 1.5 din opening. but if you want a 7" screen you'll either have to hack apart the center console or the case that the lcd comes in. I wouldn't call it major surgery, it's more fun then anything. I have pictures of how i am going about doing this and since you're in cali i could show you the final product when it's done.

scott_fx

I have the case built, well the shell of the case. I had to raise it a bit off the floor and lose some of the 'stealth' of the system. When i had originally purchased the mother board i didn't have the car to look at and got a motherboard that was too tall. Anyways; I had a few requirements from this case that i accomplished:
1) plenty of open air space for circulation
2) min 4 fans. (cpu fan, intake fan, exhaust fan, thermally controlled 'circulator' fan)
3) fit in the rear storage compartment (it sticks up a few inches but follows the form of the cover.

The case still needs a few things though. I have a special suprise for the case lid which i'll save for the final install pictures. I need to create a slot for the motherboard and a brace for the huge heatsink/fan. Also, i need to make an i/o panel. This will actually be inside the case to hide the ugly computer cables. and lastly it looks like i have to break down and purchase the power supply (hmmm possibly another fan for that).

Tomorrow i promised my g/f that i wouldnt work on the car pc project (she's been great so far about it) but i will be tweaking the OS some more on thursday. hopefully I will get the volume **** encoder tomorrow and the trim pieces (that will finish off the monitor and the dvd-rom drive) will be ready by then and i can send it off to get it textured Friday morning.

snoopdan

I had a question. Has anyone considered the SBC type motherboards for this application? Ive done a ton of stuff with these little guys at my old job, and just was kinda surprised no one even mentioned it. You know those LCD displays that is in the drive thru lanes at McDonalds and Burger King that show you your order? Those things are just SBC controllers with an LCD screen on them. Hell, I used to play networked Quake on it in my office all the time. The motherboard is about 3"x3" in size total, and has no hard drive (has a ram cache of 2 gigs), has sound car, LCD output, 5.1 surround, IDE connections, FD connections, 100baseT, blah blah...all the normal goodies as a regular mini ATX, just WAY smaller.

THey make even smaller versions of this, about the size of a stick of gum, but the overall processor horsepower is less, and of course, the connections for USB, LCD, ETC are waaay smaller. just wondering if anyone condisered one of these guys


snoopdan

scott_fx

This is a cool board but the reason i went with my micro atx board is because of a the expandability and value. If i had known that it wasn't going to fit in the rear storage compartment I probably would have gone with something like that or; more likely, a mini atx board becuase of the power supply that you can get for the atx boards.

scott_fx

i threw away the case I talked about in an earlier post and decided not to be an idiot and mount the pc in the amp rack that i'm making. The mock up looks cool, i still have the two side compartments to store fix a flat and jacking pucks :-D and it looks a lot cleaner.

now i come to you guys for more advice, what should i cover the amp rack in? i have come across some oem-looking that could work. I was thinking of vinyl but the two people i've asked so far said they think it'll look better in carpet to match the rest of the trunk.

What do you guys think? keep in mind there will be a plexi window for the x-overs and the pc.

Mallory

I am thinking about adding a computer to my car and because of size constraints this will be teh computer I will be mounting..

Computer

I don't think there is a smaller computer out there and it runs super cool..


On a side note for the people who made modifications to thier center console. How did you create the lower bar and what did you use to fill in the hole and attach the bar?

E

scott_fx

first... you over cut the bar (so it notches into the sides) then trim it up till it fits below. from the front side, tape off the notches where the the bar was and also tape off the gaps where the new bar is and then use 2 part metal epoxy (poxy weld). After you do this, sand that to get the general shap and then use bodo or rage gold to fill in the gaps. let dry and sand to shape. use spot/glazing putty to fill in the little holes after that.


now.. for the mac. it's cool but the support wont be there for the car pc community. you are much better off sticking with pc because of the abundant and cheap usb parts for it and the already developed software.

The mac isn't the smallest computer out there. check out via epia motherboards http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_...therboardId=81

They can be had fanless for ultra quiet opperation.

they have some boards (mini-atx form factor) that people have put inside din-sized cases.

Another advantage of the epia boards is the car-pc specific power supplies which will have a seamless integration into the car. It will boot up when you start the car, and shut down when you pull the key.

Mallory

thanks for the mod info. I will have to play with this on some scrap before I try the real thing..

The iMac mini is smaller than the item you listed.. That Mother board is well over 7" and teh whloe mini is 6.5".. I do agree on the on/off software though. THe USSB devices don't make a difference because they will work on the Mac.

I am still thinking about using the Mac and ordering it with built in Bluetooth and going all wireless.. Get a mini bluetooth KB and mont it in the center console. That would be sweet. No wires.. (at least for controls.

E

scott_fx

did you check out snoopdan's suggestion? those boards are really small. the mini-atx boards are small enough to fit into a din size cases
or put in the rear storage compartment close to the amp.

unless you are a die hard mac fan (they are great computers) i wouldn't use one. the trend is pc based and most of the car-specific hardware is geared for the micro and mini atx form factor (psu's and shutdown controllers).

If you need any help designing it i'll be more then happy to share my experience. keep me in the loop

`s

scott_fx

Thought you'd find this helpful:
It's a forum for mac car pc's:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=71

Mallory

That site is great. I am going to pass this allong to the engineers and see what they can build for me. Probibly nothing but at least I can ask them.

E

Onyx

I've been working on a carpc for my '92 for a while too, it's great to see others' ideas and plans! I'm at the stage of replacing by bose system with aftermarket. I'm finding out I don't know squat about car audio I'm also toying with the idea of using the stock bose headunit to control the software on the pc. The head unit just sends signals to the radio box (CDM) when a button is pressed, so why couldn't it send those signals to the pc (or a simple conversion board) where they're interpreted as keypresses? Do you guys think it's possible?

In RE: to adding FM reception to your car pc, check this project out:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=358137

A small group is working on a high quality USB tuner. The ones available commercially are really bad quality aparently.

scott_fx

Cool...yet another geek

Thanks for the link, i'll have to look into that more!

as far as using the head unit to control the computer, it's possible but would be pretty hard. you'd have to read the signals taht the h/u is sendig to the cd changer and convert them; via vb... actually...itd be pretty hard getting something that would be able to read the signal and at the same time you have to send a signal to your h/u that will keep it in aux mode. The easier/mechanical way to do this though is keep the h/u, gut it, put the pc in there and then hijack the leads on the buttons and then wire those to a keyboard emulator. Then all you have to do is map the keystrokes to the hot keys in centrafuse (everything in that program is hot-keyable) You'll have to get one of the rotary encoders i mentioned for volume and map that to the volume function via visual basic. Hmmm.. this would be fun to do! I just got my keyboard emulator in the mail and it's a nice piece. Now i'm waiting for the chips so i can make my touch sensative control panel.



on a side note, the amp rack/pc case/partition board is coming along great. Hopefully i'll be done with the construction this weekend


and you've come to the right place to learn about your stereo, there are many very knowledgable people on here, I've learned a lot from them.

scott_fx

This guy has installed the motherboard inside a double din radio and used some of buttons and *****:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=39199

snoopdan

Price is alot of the problem, when I was doing R&D stuff for embedded microprocessors for LCD display systems, the small technology was there to do just about anything we wanted, it was just the price of the equipent to implement the designs that would hold back a normal consumer. Ive had TONS of Pc/104 single board computer developer versions, but they cost $900 a pop, and still may not be what you want. Even if we DID spec out what we were looking for first, not all the advertised features of the motherboards could hang with the software on them. Luckily its getting cheaper, smaller, and more effiecient every day. I tried to show some of the embedded boards for pc's such as the pc on a stick (SBC board the size of a 168 pin simm), but its hard to cover all of the new boards out there. Alot of companies dont even publiclly post their SBC models....I know the company I worked for didnt. I dont know if Id go for mac stuff, Mac's have there place and all, but not in a car (except for maybe an Ipod ). Scott is right, pc based stuff is just so cheap and available. And if your a linux nut, even better. I myself have been interested in some of the Linux cell phones. Id love to play with one *sigh*.

Heh, mac's remind me of this one programmer I hired to do PC stuff, he would get SOOOO mad if you talked smack about Mac's...so of course I did it all the time. And to top it off, he was a real religous guy, who never cursed or anything. So id get on his PC and change his desktop background to "anti-mac" advertisement backgrounds and you'd hear him cussing me from down the hall. heh.

snoopdan

scott_fx

just another update, having only sundays and weeknights after 10:30 to work on this it's going slow; but steady progress is being made. I finished the amp rack sunday (except for the plexi windows) but it needs finishing work and carpeting. The Radio surround modification is almost done but i'm waiting for the touch sensitive chips so i can test their sensitivity. Mike Ung (the stripe guy) is going to cut out the vinyl decals so i'll have back lit (with el-tape) buttons on the touch panel. When i get those two things i can assemble them and then quickly mold that finishing piece into the surround and it's ready for paint.

depending on if i get the parts this week i may be able to finish the fabrication this weekend. The following sunday I may be able to do the install :-D.

The install will be of the car pc and the door speakers. I'll still have the sub box to build and then the rearview mirror's 'ghost display' to wire up and install.

Anyone want to build me a sub box? :-D

Oh, and there have been changes to the orig audio component set up. Instead of jl and pioneer i went with cdt and image dynamics.

m1k3

I was about to say.... that xenarc looks like it would fit if it were removed from its housing. It's just a hair over 1.5" too tall for the 1.5 din slot according to the reading I've done.

I soooooooo want to do this, but I'm not about to hack my dash to do it. It seems to me that removing it from its housing would be the way to go. Have you measured the height of just the screen?

Cool thread btw.