My carPC project: ongoing thread

[Wombat]

I wanted to make a thread about my ongoing carPC project now that I finally purchased a digital camera (I know, welcome to 1998). First, I'll list some specs:

Jetway mini-itx board with VIA C7 @1.5GHz
1Gb of Kingston RAM (motherboard-limited to 533MHz)
120Gb WD 5400RPM laptop drive
64Mb S3 onboard graphics
7" Lilliput USB touchscreen
M2 Power Supply
VoomPC case (black)

That's all I have so far. I still need to get a USB-powered slim DVD drive, GPS antenna w/software and other odds and ends I want to put on this thing. I also need to start thinking about how my speaker and subwoofer amp are going to connect to the audio-out on the mobo. As you may have read in another thread, I am trying to interface the stock steering wheel controls so that they control the volume in WinXP. I'm still in the process of doing that and I will post updates when I have them.





I also spent a considerable amount of time molding the lilliput touchscreen into the stock radio bezel, but I am still not happy with the results. As you can see in the picture below, I still need to do a lot more work near the buttons. This has proven to be the hardest part mainly because of the curvature of the LCD faceplate. I also need to purchase some flexible interior spray paint that will match the rest of the trim pieces in the car. Tomorrow is supposed to be a warm day so I will probably attempt to complete this portion of the fabrication then.



Hardware
VoomPC/M2-ATX Combo - $144.95 + $12.85 shipping
Jetway J7F4K1G5D Motherboard - $119.95 + free shipping
Lilliput 7" USB LCD Touchscreen - $158.50 + $19.99 shipping
Kingston 1024Mb ValueRAM - $22.75 + free shipping at the time
Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" HDD 120Gb - $69.99 on clearance
Stinger Ground Loop Isolators (x2) - $19.50 + 6.25 shipping

Materials/Fabrication
QuikPlastik Epoxy - $7.00 + $3.49 shipping
Primer filler - Advance Auto Parts (will post price when I find the receipt)
SEM interior colorcoat (satin black) - ~$10

Total: ~$675

[veerfour05]

Looks pretty good man, how hard is this to do, I'm considering doing this in my car when I have some spare change.

[fastfalcon94]

Looks like it will be a nice setup. I did this once but didn't do as good of job. I should have gone mini-itx and DC power supply. Here was my page.

http://www.vtc.edu/users/crd04080/carpc

[Wombat]

Originally Posted by veerfour05

Looks pretty good man, how hard is this to do, I'm considering doing this in my car when I have some spare change.

The building of the actual computer and setting that all up is pretty simple. I've been building my own PCs for years now, so it was a breeze. Molding the LCD screen into the stock radio bezel was a lot more difficult, but it was my first time doing anything of the sort. I think it should come out looking pretty good when I'm all done...like the carPC came from the factory

[Wombat]

65-70 degrees out so I decided to work on the faceplate a little bit and apply some filler primer to take out any of the small imperfections left in the epoxy.



Going to sand with 600 grit, spray it once more with filler primer, then sand with 800 grit and apply some SEM colorcoat interior paint.

[BlackStealth]

Hmm that 7" lilliput screen is a lot different than the 7" lilliput screen I used have. Is that a widescreen version?

Looking good so far.

And that black ampie case is nice. I used to have the 1.3 Ghz version of that same C7 processor and found it a bit too weak for my likings. It got the job done, but I wonder if it could handle my needs today. I love running my Red Camera/Speed trap alert program and I think it may be CPU hungry.

[njrbd]

Very Nice! How are you planning on tapping in to the cars sound?

[Wombat]

Originally Posted by BlackStealth

Hmm that 7" lilliput screen is a lot different than the 7" lilliput screen I used have. Is that a widescreen version?

Looking good so far.

And that black ampie case is nice. I used to have the 1.3 Ghz version of that same C7 processor and found it a bit too weak for my likings. It got the job done, but I wonder if it could handle my needs today. I love running my Red Camera/Speed trap alert program and I think it may be CPU hungry.

That is Lilliput's 2006 model screen, I think. I believe you had a thread on here with pictures of your old Lilliput 7" screen and the buttons were on the bottom. You can no longer buy those unless they're used.

As for computing power, this 1.5GHz has been plenty so far. I have a very light version of WinXP installed on it. It doesn't have internet explorer, windows media player, and all of that other networking BS that you'll never use. Right after the installation, I checked the WINDOWS folder and it was only about 250Mb. My desktop has the full version installed and it's close to 1Gb. The light version also only has about 14 startup processes and my carPC boots into windows a lot quicker than my 2.13Ghz Intel Core2Duo desktop with a 10K RPM HDD and 2Gb of RAM.

Originally Posted by njrbd

Very Nice! How are you planning on tapping in to the cars sound?

This is one of the things I still have not finalized, but I'll share my temporary solution. The stock wiring for my speakers in my car is completely gone and I rewired the whole car for MB Quart components in the front, MB Quart 6x9's in the rear, and an Infinity basslink in the hatch. The speakers are all powered by a 4 channel amplifier (overkill, I know) and the subwoofer has it's own amp built-in. So, what I'll do temporarily is buy one of those 3.5mm to RCA audio cables, connect that to my line-out on my motherboard and the input on my amplifier. I have the option of setting my line-in port on my motherboard as another line-out channel, but I'm going to need this for my Sirius satellite radio. So, for the time being, I'll just live without rear speakers until I can find a good USB soundcard that will suit my needs. I can also change the microphone in port on my motherboard to a center/subwoofer out and connect my sub that way.

[John Monnin]

Can you post what you paid for everything?

I am thinking about building a car pc system but I want to plan & budget it completely before I start.

I saw an article for a home entertainment PC that use a 35gig ram drive for the hard drive to get extremely fast booting. Too expensive for me but I bet they will be pretty cheap in a few years

EDIT: doesn't anyone make a infrared reader for CAR PC tha could be used with the steering wheel converter

http://www.supercar-engineering.com/...WRC/index.html

[Wombat]

Originally Posted by John Monnin

Can you post what you paid for everything?

I am thinking about building a car pc system but I want to plan & budget it completely before I start

Edit: Parts list can now be found on the first post.

Originally Posted by John Monnin

I saw an article for a home entertainment PC that use a 35gig ram drive for the hard drive to get extremely fast booting. Too expensive for me but I bet they will be pretty cheap in a few years

Flash memory...I have a 16Gb iPod that uses it...pretty slick stuff and definitely a space saver.