blue_rolla

sticky - woot :P

knitting

thanks guys, i feel so special i have received chrome award :P i paid about $950 for the whole computer, screen, gps unit, fm radio (which i STILL cant get to work :(), and a night vision camera... and then i paid $20 for my keyboard, and $30 for my wifi card, and $20 for my USB hub, and another $50 or so for all the extension cables, and about $100000000 in time making the friggen thing work... THEN i blew up a power supply, which cost me another $120 to get from america... so i've spent about $1100-1200 on this computer... it's all very fiddly and ive broken a fwe things and fixed them with alot of trial and error... the screen is mounted inside the stock head unit case... i wanted to make a casing that would bolt into the car, and i could think of any way to do that, so i just totally removed every component from the stock HU and using a few bolts, i managed to get the screen solid in the car.. that was lots of fun <_< if i ever go down the 1/4 mile this thing is staying with me... it would be interesting to see what sort of readings i get on the OBD-II... it weighs very little too.. maybe 2-3 kgs, if that... one day ill upgrade my alternator and put a second battery in and get an xbox in the car too :D a long with a few extra screens... first things first though, i need a 5.1 sound card...

bloody hell i missed king AGAIN... its sooo my turn next!! but go michael! silver membership all the way!

junkie

Some of you know about my carputer, but for those who don't: I have been toying with the idea of installing some sort of multimedia centre in my car for some time. I researched all your typical touchscreen foldout dvd units, but none of them included all the features i ideally wanted in a car. And so when i started carrying my laptop around in the car and using it for music when my headunit was out of action, i thought about putting a PC in the car with a little touchscreen. I came across a book called "geek my ride" and found a few websites. This practice of installing a carPC in a car is becoming quite popular in the US, and i decided to give it a shot. The screen is a little rough, but i'm working on making up a fiberglass bezel to make it look stock, or at least like it it supposed to be there. Here's a whole lot of pics of my install and an explanation of the pics: 1. Carputer This is the actual case of the carputer. Inside the case is a miniITX MII-100000 motherboard and a 1ghz processor (i think). 512mb RAM. 40gb laptop hard drive. Slot-Load DVD Drive. and a 150w m2-atx car power supply, with startup and shutdown controllers which get my PC going and shut it down when i turn the car on. All this is being run through a 7" lin-itx vga touchscreen. 2. Front-End program To run windows on a 7" screen, means everything is very small. its extremely hard to read the tiny words and push the tiny buttons when you're driving in traffic. So the need for a front-end program with touchscreen friendly buttons comes along. Here's a few pics under different sub-headings for the different uses: 2a. Media This is the media centre for the carputer. You can play music in mp3 and wma format, view photo albums (but its pretty crap), and watch video clips. Its all very well set-up to make it easy to change tracks while you're driving. 2b. GPS This was one of my main reasons for buying a carputer over your typical dvd unit. most of the units i checked out didnt have gps built in, or they had a unit you could buy for like a thousand bucks. I have a holux USB GPS unit mounted on my parcel shelf, just behind the rear window. I get pretty good satellite coverage there - usually about 6 full lock satellites in sydney. 2c. Phone Control You can connect your mobile to the carputer through bluetooth and this program allows you to receive and take phonecalls trhough the PC as long as you have a mic. or you can use a bluetooth headset. SMS messages come up on the screen too. 2d. OBD-II This is one of my favourite things about this carputer. You can get a USB unit to plug into your OBD-II socket in the car, and upload data in real time to the carputer. As you can see in the picture, you can get all sorts or speeds, pressures and temperatures from all over the place. As well as diagnose engine codes for when a problem arises. There are plenty of guages and skins you can get from the internet too for OBD-II interface, so that will be fun to play with for a while. 2e. Mixer All of the audio controls (except volume) are in this "mixer" section of the program. 2d. Internet With the use of a wireless card, the carputer can connect to any wireless network in range of the car. Have a look at the pic - TOCAU IN THE CAR!!! 3. Peripherals So far, I haven't bought too many plug ins for the carputer, but theres an unlimited amount of things i can buy... I am going to mount my USB hub where it is in that pic, nice and clean. You can see my mini keyboard there too. Its about 20cm wide and less than 1cm thick. Ok that took me ages to write - so let me know what you think and let me know any suggestions of what i should add to it to make it the ultimate car multimedia system!!!

yeah don't stress out steve - you're doing your best and we all appreciate the work you put into keeping these forums up and running smoothly... i've found that even when my internet is playing up and i cant get to many sites, tocau ALWAYS works! and im very grateful! go steve!! and if you really want to support him, BECOME A SILVER MEMBER!!

aawwww if i could run it, id get myself a copy of bf2... might get it on xbox 360 if i end up buying one...

peace

head down to ***** smith's and buy one of their uniden radios... the prices vary depending on the range and clarity of the sound that comes out of them.. i have the cheapest and they work alright, but i sometimes i wish i'd gotten the more pricey as they are crystal clear... the cheapest single radio is 50 bucks i think, but you can get this twin pack for 60 bucks... and there is talk of a meet before the end of the month up the O.P - not too sure yet

haha so how long you expected to be whoring on here for?

well thats really great!

what the hell? what do you guys do all day? 38 pages? it was like 25 pages yesterday!

seed

specially if i take the wrong turnoff again and we gotta try make a right turn :P

I saw that black stivo with the plates KH-**** (pete's mate)... friggen flew past me on james ruse drive, so i popped into their lane and gave em a bit of a run... then we both turned onto pennant hills road and they tore off again! rush much?

actually I woulnt mind this .. heheheh coz i'll probably head up earlier into terrigal .. meet at gosford maccas around 8 pm .. then op and then finish at thornleigh maccas ??? actually .. does anybody want to do this in the next week or so ... I wanna go for a drive sooner than the end of the month !! yeah! totally yeah! ill do any night except for this friday and next friday.. and maybe a couple of other nights i cant do, but if you wanna name a time, ill see if i can make it... the only thing with meeting at gosford maccas at 8pm is that most of our regulars wont wanna come up to gosford to meet... many people go home after the meet at villawood... i still think meet at villawood at 8pm for an hour or so, and we can meet you up at gosford maccas if you want, and then we all take O.P home, and finish up at thornleigh maccas for some sensational late night burgers!! WOOT!! ... but the cruise from showground to villawood just won't be the same without your sedan!

man this thread is just getting too weird for me...

i got my stickers a couple of days ago - mounted the mini ones in that triangle behind my rear windows, and my big one on my windscreen... they are sweet cos they are removable and relocatable :) the added space in your PM folder is one of the best things about the silver membership

insurance :(

i dont know but i wish these people would **** off

i've actually felt so bad sitting in one of those lanes that i've turned left and then chucked a quick u-turn a bit down the street and come back up to turn left (which luckily went grean just as i got there) yes, im a pansy.