Car PC anyone?

[Luke]

Well i finally got round to putting all the parts / installing / testing the car PC this evening. So heres a little taster


The Mini-ITX in my custom made case - still needs to be painted, but still gives you an idea


It all up and running using a standard power supply - when in the car it will have a car smart PSU so will turn on and off with the ignition. It will also boot straight to my media front end, but still messing at the moment.


The media front end (Centrafuse). Just got to edit the skin so it highlights yellow instead of silver/blue

Will see some better pics etc when its all done, just thought id give you a little taster

 

[chaos]

Looking good Luke Hope to see it in the flesh sometime this summer

 

[OwenS]

Tastey,

does it run windows?

or is it a Linux Distro?

bought a touch screen laptop a couple of years ago for £150 turned out to be ****, sold it for 100, plan was to mould it in to the dash.

defo looking foreward to seeing this, will it be up'n'running by Brooklands?

Owen

EDIT: if you dont mind me asking, how much did that cost you?

 

[chaos]

does it run windows?

or is it a Linux Distro?

Looks like its running XP...........................

 

[OwenS]

how can you tell... oh right... the middle pic... should have looked at that close up first really...

 

[Luke]

Tastey,

does it run windows?

or is it a Linux Distro?

bought a touch screen laptop a couple of years ago for £150 turned out to be ****, sold it for 100, plan was to mould it in to the dash.

defo looking foreward to seeing this, will it be up'n'running by Brooklands?

Owen

EDIT: if you dont mind me asking, how much did that cost you?

Yea runs windows. I tried to put linux on it first, but it didnt seem to like my motherboard when installing So was kinda stuck with XP.

Its running now, just need to make the custom console for it all to sit in. But Brooklands a saturday and i cant take time off, so you'll have to wait till stanford if you want to see in the flesh

As for price, erm, lots.

 

[Fiat Fan]

looking good, are they expensive or the same price as a normal pc

 

[Luke]

looking good, are they expensive or the same price as a normal pc

Its kind of 50/50, its uses laptop hard-drive and will have laptop DVD drive to keep power down (which makes it more expensive). As the processor is integrated to the motherboard, this pushes the price up (although still not majorly expensive). It uses normal memory, so managed to get that cheap. The 8" touchscreen was quite a big expense, and so was the car smart PSU for what it is.

So all in, you could most likely get a good budget PC for the same amount, was about £500 iirc.

 

[Fiat Fan]

thats not too bad, are you going to use it as a normal pc or is it goin to be just music, i want one now

 

[Luke]

thats not too bad, are you going to use it as a normal pc or is it goin to be just music, i want one now

Its going to be music/DVD/Satnav solution. Eventually it will be OBDII compliant too when i get a compliant ECU.

But essentially it could be used as a normal pc... Has wireless internet etc so i can copy over music etc, or update PC while its sitting on the drive. Spider Solataire is great fun with the touchscreen

 

[OwenS]

a 500 pound solitare game

i'd pay that

whats the processor like?

i was looking at the mini itx's and they cant be fast as from what i can see most of the cases are fanless (and practically silent).

not that this is really an issue as i'm guessing you dont plan on playing any high spec games on it... unless solitare counts


Ooooooohhh OBDII... whats that?

is it like the revmeter and spedometer and stuff?
if so WOWOWOWOWOWWOWOWOW...

 

[Luke]

a 500 pound solitare game

i'd pay that

whats the processor like?

i was looking at the mini itx's and they cant be fast as from what i can see most of the cases are fanless (and practically silent).

not that this is really an issue as i'm guessing you dont plan on playing any high spec games on it... unless solitare counts


Ooooooohhh OBDII... whats that?

is it like the revmeter and spedometer and stuff?
if so WOWOWOWOWOWWOWOWOW...

This has a fan cooled 1.2 ghx processor with has hardware MPEG decoder etc - so plenty powerful enough to run DVDs etc. Im not going to be playing games so nothing too wonderful is needed

OBDII means you can read data from the ECU - so using the correct software yea you can read all sorts of information from the ECU such as Revs, temperatures, mixture, lambda readings, along with fault codes etc. Fingers crossed the punto mk2 16v sporting ECU is OBDII compliant


As an update, ive just been out and measured up the console space needed and marking out the console using some fibreboard and cardboard to make sure it'll all fit nicely. The gaping hole in my dash at present:

 

[Fiat Fan]

This has a fan cooled 1.2 ghx processor with has hardware MPEG decoder etc - so plenty powerful enough to run DVDs etc. Im not going to be playing games so nothing too wonderful is needed

OBDII means you can read data from the ECU - so using the correct software yea you can read all sorts of information from the ECU such as Revs, temperatures, mixture, lambda readings, along with fault codes etc. Fingers crossed the punto mk2 16v sporting ECU is OBDII compliant


As an update, ive just been out and measured up the console space needed and marking out the console using some fibreboard and cardboard to make sure it'll all fit nicely. The gaping hole in my dash at present:
View attachment 13188

wow u will be able to do thinks like that, thats cleaver, im impresses

 

[steve1219]

Looking good,

One question, if you do not mind, what is the volts out on a car smart PSU and price?
Been trying to knock a supply together for a touch screen pc having trouble getting the voltage for the touch screen itself

Steve

 

[Liam]

Very very cool, wonder if I could do something as smart if I got up off my arse!

Keep the thread updated.

Can I ask ay particular reason for using XP, how much RAM are you running, would windows 2K not have been better?

Liam

 

[Giggz]

looking good cant wait 2 see it finished.

 

[Luke]

Very very cool, wonder if I could do something as smart if I got up off my arse!

Keep the thread updated.

Can I ask ay particular reason for using XP, how much RAM are you running, would windows 2K not have been better?

Liam

Only real reason is Bluetooth support. 2k has no bluetooth functionality as far as im aware, plus i got a copy of XP free from my uni so may as well use it Im running 512mb of RAM which is more than sufficient to keep it running. When im finished playing i'll remove all style and set performance over looks - but in the meantime i just cant get on with the basic look

Steve, the car smart PSU supplies a constant even 12v on the dot - regardless if you are cranking the motor or power surges. When in deep suspend, it supplies a dead on constant 5v for the memory voltage rails - so you can leave PC in standby all the time and not worry about much power use (Extrememly usefull as bootup times are nigh on instant ) Price depends on the wattage PSU you want. Im using a 90w, but then im using laptop components and a low-power Mini-ITX motherboard and EDEN processor - so thats more than enough. I think the price for mine was in the £50 range from what i remember. Well worth the money though.

Fingers crossed i'll have it all fabricated by next week, im at work saturday and out at a kitcar show Sunday, so work will have to resume Monday to be finished Thursday/Friday latest. Gonna tackle the electrics tomorrow if its a nice day and get a decent amount of revision done in the early morning

 

[steve1219]

Thanks for the reply, I think it was wishfull thinking on my part that the power supply would provide the supplies I require 5v, 12v, 29v the 5 and 12 are not to hard but the 29v has been a pain found an ic to do it now but can't be arsed to design the printed circuit so pity your supply did not cover the range.

Steve

 

[Luke]

Thanks for the reply, I think it was wishfull thinking on my part that the power supply would provide the supplies I require 5v, 12v, 29v the 5 and 12 are not to hard but the 29v has been a pain found an ic to do it now but can't be arsed to design the printed circuit so pity your supply did not cover the range.

Steve

What do you need that requires 29v?

 

[steve1219]

The touch screen on the computer as its a modified bank cash machine that we are trying to use.

Steve