Custom carputer installation

[jnorion]

So I have been slowly working on this for about four months now, and finally got the screen mounted properly this weekend. I figured it was time to post some pictures and stuff.

I built just about the entire thing out of spare pieces I had lying around.

The computer:
1GHz Pentium III processor
384MB RAM
20GB hard drive (temporary)
64MB AGP video card
Aureal Vortex 4 channel sound card
TM-868 off-brand 8" touch screen

Sound:
MB Quart 6.5" components in front
Kenwood 320W 4-channel amp
Obcon 10" subwoofer in trunk
Jensen 300W 2-channel amp, bridged


Pictures

The car (slightly outdated):



The computer is a full-size ATX mounted in a custom wood case (again, I used parts I had lying around, this is not a perfect design by any means):



It sits in the corner of the trunk:



Power to the computer and inverter is controlled by switches in the dash until I can finish a startup/shutdown controller:



To mount the screen, I molded the casing from the screen into the stock radio bezel using epoxy putty and bondo:




And here it is mounted in the car:




Right now I'm using Roadrunner as a front end because I like to be able to customize it and it seems pretty stable, although I've been having annoying problems with the computer a lot so far (in the last two days, I guess it's not that bad ).

There's a ton more to come, but it's a slow process because I'm poor.

[Splinter]

Eerily familliar

I've gone through 3 harddrives so far.

I suggest you come up with a method of soft mounting.

[jnorion]

lol, yes, but my screen is bigger than yours and therefore a huge pain in the ass. I had to cut the radio mounts out with a dremel to fit the damn thing in there, and even then it still hits the bottom of the cupholder and isn't sitting quite right.

[Splinter]

Did you get the transflective screen?

Im going to be upgrading to one of those before my car goes back on the road.

[jnorion]

No, I got the cheap ebay piece of shit. It reflects everything. It's bright enough that it doesn't matter though, so for the moment I'm happy with it. I hope it lasts.

link to auction

[jnorion]

I've gone through 3 harddrives so far.

I suggest you come up with a method of soft mounting.

Oops, I missed this one. I have a sort of soft mounting, not sure how well it's going to work yet...



The hard drive is zip-tied down to some foam rubber... it's got about half an inch of play. It's not perfect, but it keeps really big bumps from hurting too much.

[Legacy777]

Use laptop hard drives. They're more resillant to bumps and such.

[Splinter]

I had a 100gb laptop drive just kick the bucket

Im switching to iPod drives.

30g sustained vibration resistance.

[jnorion]

Use laptop hard drives. They're more resillant to bumps and such.

Also more expensive. I'm poor right now so I'm using what I have around. I'll upgrade to that eventually.

[Saskatoon Subaru]

this is all very interesting but if a may ask my stupid question, what do you use it for, and how do you do anything with it when the computer is in the trunk.

[Splinter]

The screen in the dash is a touchscreen. You use an interface like Roadrunner to play music, watch movies, GPS navigation, Internet access

etc

[Saskatoon Subaru]

that maybe something i look into, but how do you go about, hooking up the audio stuff such as amp's speakers, subs

[Splinter]

With my setup I just ran RCA jacks from my computer's soundcard to the amp. No different than if it were a headunit.

You HAVE to be competant with computers, electronics, mechanics AND fabrication for a project like this to come through and not look like shit.

I still have to battle with mine on a daily basis.

[jnorion]

It's really pretty much the same as any other car stereo system, except for the original source. I already had an external amplifier for my cabin speakers and another for my sub, and my old CD player was plugged into those just using RCA cables. I just unplugged the CD player and plugged a mini-stereo-to-RCA cable from the sound card of the computer to the input on the amp. Then I set the gains on my amp as normal and now everything is controlled through the computer.

If you want more information or ideas check out mp3car.com. It's the main source for all this stuff.

[jnorion]

I still have to battle with mine on a daily basis.

I am battling with mine constantly also... there's always something to tweak or upgrade.

[Saskatoon Subaru]

so everything for music is run though a program called roadruner, or is that just for music, and video?

[jnorion]

Roadrunner is a graphical front end for everything. It runs winamp in the background for music (and I think video but I haven't enabled that yet). It can embed basically any program you want, such as internet explorer or firefox, a GPS navigation program, Google Earth, MS Word, a calculator or organizer or something, basically anything. It's skinnable, so you can customize it to fit your car or your particular needs in the way of computer programs.

Seriously, take a look at mp3car. Here's a link to their FAQ section, it'll keep you occupied for hours if you're interested, and it can explain in much more detail than I can.

link to FAQs

[Saskatoon Subaru]

alright i'll check it out

[Saskatoon Subaru]

ok, im really looking into doing this for my car, i've read throw the mp3car.com forums, but theres alot there. could anyone tell me the best way to start this, like type of comp, power supplies, those sort of things, thanks