The other carpc plan, still on a budget.......

[minik1971]

Well thought I'd give you all a bit of an update. I got my "new" video card today so now I have dual video output. Haven't installed headrest lcd's yet. Anyone got any idea on how to remove plastic cover from rear of front seats?? I got sick of the box in the boot and am going on a camping trip soon so need more room. Decided to put pc under boot floor. Ditched the pc box, made a new boot floor. Just need to get some carpet to match factory now. Here is some pics. I even managed to use the original hook to hold floor up. Still haven't cut anything to fit all this in. Have only drilled a couple of screws in to hold new brackets for boot floor.

 

[minik1971]

Well I decided to put a dvd drive in the boot as it is easier for some things. Also think it might be an easy way to play dvds as converting them to divx takes forever! I also have put the lcd headrests in and an inverter. Kids now have Nintendo 64 to play on the longer trips. I can also run multiple desktops with the screens but I am having trouble getting a colour picture on the headrests. I think the signal may be too low for them from the pc. N64 has a good picture. Also have put a usb digital set top box in but not much luck getting a picture with this at the moment, might need to get an external antenna or work out a way of hooking into rear glass antenna/s. Stilll need someone's help finding correct carpet for boot.

 

[minik1971]

Bought a sealed lead acid battery for the boot today, it is only a small one but should allow the car pc to run for and hour or so. Now I can start the car without the pc resetting, also means now I can use sleep mode when out and about. With sleep mode I can resume in 20secs so that is i big step up from cold boot times. Mounted the N64 in the side pocket in boot, fits in there quite nicely.

 

[matchtheclown]

Looking good man. Can you still pull the spare tyre relatively easy?

 

[minik1971]

Yeah fairly easy I would say. Never actually had the spare out. The board has a few more things on it since the pics were taken, now has a dvd rom and a small battery. might be an idea to put a few quick connect joiners in the wiring in case I needed to remove pc for getting spare out. Something to work on a bit later. I think it will be an ongoing project.

 

[minik1971]

Well here are some pics of the current set up.

 

[matchtheclown]

Out pimped with 2 x extra screens. The competition heats up

 

[happymatch]

thats a great set up nigel~ would you consider bit of ventilatopn before you put carpets? about the screens at the headrest, did you buy the ones with the head rest or did you sort of cut the hole and put them in?

 

[minik1971]

I had considered ventilation but it doesn't get as warm where it is now as it did in the cut down case. I have 2 80mm fans that I can install if I need to but so far no need. The headrests were bought already made up, so only needed to space the posts the right width and away I went.

 

[happymatch]

i see. how about multiple card reader? hmmm. am i asking too many questions?? i was talking about your work at work and showed around.. everyone is impressed..

 

[minik1971]

Multiple card reader? For what? Not too many questions just wondering now what the card reader would be used for?

 

[happymatch]

if you have multiple card reader at the fron, near the dash, you do not have to open the boot up update your ripped dvd collections, mp3's and all that. would be interesting.

 

[minik1971]

Ah I see. I should post a new pic of my glovebox. Inside the glovebox is a usb hub for exactly that purpose. I also have my "brick" power inverter in there. I will try to take some more pics tonight and post up. I just bought a 4gb usb stick so I now have plenty of music to transfer each time. I had thought about having my dvd drive in the front too but there is a limit of about 60cm for IDE cables it seems. Hey if anyone has any other little ideas throw them up here would love to add to it if I have forgotten something.

 

[happymatch]

how about web cam and wireless broadband so you can chat to your kids and they can see you when you are driving and all?? mount the cam near the rearview mirror or somewhere and at home, with internet connection, your kids can see you and talk to you. more time with the kids and all. when you are out with your kids, your partner might checkout the kids and can become handy.

 

[matchtheclown]

Rofl jono. I have been meaning to pick up one of those usb wireless things though... but i havnt thought of much use for it to be honest.

 

[minik1971]

Internet radio streaming perhaps?

 

[matchtheclown]

Yeah could do paying for data to get radio when u can get it free seems a little counter productive though.

 

[minik1971]

Well here is a pic of the glove box. You can see the inverter that runs the Nintendo 64 and there is my small usb hub. 4 way unit it has the touchscreen, and a usb woreless keyboard and mouse combo plugged in all the time and two spare usb. In this picture I was transferring more music so my usb stick is plugged in. The switch you can see in the pic is the master switch to turn whole system off but it is a bit useless now that pc is running off auxilary battery in boot.

 

[minik1971]

I managed to reuse the original carpet from my boot floor and it is now covered with the original carpet. I also reused the handle from the factory boot floor. Looks totally factory now. Not sure what else I can add to to the system now, would like to get a usb to obdII cable so I can use that, any other ideas?

 

[MasqUAP]

Hey,

How did you hook up the audio? Direct out from the 2.5mm jacks, or do you use a car amp with high level inputs? What's the audio quality like? Do you get any whine or buzz?

-Dave-