minik1971
Leaving Skid Marks
Well I got inspired by reading Hugh's (matchtheclown) thread about a car pc project. Ever since I have been tinkering with ideas in my mind about how to go about it. Here is what I have so far decided to do.
I had an old pc at home a couple of pc cases, decided to cut the case down as much as I could.
Still too big to fit in a concealed place but for the time being it will go against the back of the back seat, might make a subwoofer box later and include a space for the pc in that.
Power was the next thought so I borrowed an inverter off a friend and tried that but no luck the 140W figure it had on it wasn't enough to run the pc so I ditched that idea. I then sourced a DC-DC converter from Jaycar $99.00 and tried this and that worked with no problems at this stage.
Input and display will be handled by a 10.4" Lcd Touchscreen the exact same as Hugh's, this was done for a couple of reasons firstly it was fairly cheap $334 delivered from Hong Kong and secondly I knew it would fit as Hugh had already done it.
I am thinking of just running a USB hub at the front of the car to plug touchscreen into and then can use this same hub for Bluetooth and wireless as needed.
I have a bluetooth GPS reciever that I will use for navigation.
I will also use usb as the main way of putting new data onto the hard drive.
I will also be using a video card with dual outputs as I plan to run headrest lcd screens and the plan is to have movies on them for the kids and the main screen at the front running other things.
So far the project has cost me $99 for power converter and $334 for LCD screen, I already had the 7" headrest lcd's and the pc is an old one that has been resurected.
The A/C controls have been moved down to the sunglass pocket place and that is as far as I got last night with the project, the screen only got here yesterday.
I will try to post some pics soon.
I started a new post as Hugh and I decided it might be beneficial to post them seperately as a bit of a race to see who is running first and also to give a couple of approaches the the same project idea.
I had an old pc at home a couple of pc cases, decided to cut the case down as much as I could.
Still too big to fit in a concealed place but for the time being it will go against the back of the back seat, might make a subwoofer box later and include a space for the pc in that.
Power was the next thought so I borrowed an inverter off a friend and tried that but no luck the 140W figure it had on it wasn't enough to run the pc so I ditched that idea. I then sourced a DC-DC converter from Jaycar $99.00 and tried this and that worked with no problems at this stage.
Input and display will be handled by a 10.4" Lcd Touchscreen the exact same as Hugh's, this was done for a couple of reasons firstly it was fairly cheap $334 delivered from Hong Kong and secondly I knew it would fit as Hugh had already done it.
I am thinking of just running a USB hub at the front of the car to plug touchscreen into and then can use this same hub for Bluetooth and wireless as needed.
I have a bluetooth GPS reciever that I will use for navigation.
I will also use usb as the main way of putting new data onto the hard drive.
I will also be using a video card with dual outputs as I plan to run headrest lcd screens and the plan is to have movies on them for the kids and the main screen at the front running other things.
So far the project has cost me $99 for power converter and $334 for LCD screen, I already had the 7" headrest lcd's and the pc is an old one that has been resurected.
The A/C controls have been moved down to the sunglass pocket place and that is as far as I got last night with the project, the screen only got here yesterday.
I will try to post some pics soon.
I started a new post as Hugh and I decided it might be beneficial to post them seperately as a bit of a race to see who is running first and also to give a couple of approaches the the same project idea.
