Easyriders Car PC Project

To those who have come across this and are thinking "OMG that's such a good idea!!!", get yourself on over to Digital-Car and do some reading - there's loads of install threads there, and some people might even have the same car as you!

CarPCs are really great - I could never go back to just a standard ICE installation now!!
 
Anyone know if you can get a 7" one din touch screen? The ones that pop out like this:

aio-192a.jpg


I want one that can connect to a laptop with usb so you can use the touchscreen to control the laptop in the car. If that makes any sense? All the ones that i can find like the one above have an input for the screen but no way to use its touch screen function.
 
Yeah you can get single-DIN pop-out screens.

I can't link (competitors and all that) but there are links available on Digital-Car, check some of the suppliers listed on the forum.
 
Right just a little update.

The DC-DC power adaptor arrived £19.99 and I have tested it with the laptop

and I now I have temporary power to the laptop in my Car!

The ciggarette end will be chopped of for connection to the battery some how:p

I ordered a docking station off an auction site for £3.99 like this

74P6734-1.jpg


The reason for this is that it will be a lot easier to mod the power switch on

the dockstation rather than the laptop to extend a wire to the front of the

car were I will mount one of these in the centre console to power the laptop

on.It should look OEM

5538.jpg


If i make a mistake I kill the 3.99 docking station and not my lappy! lol:p

Also I can just lift the lappy off the docking station for easy removal if I want

and the laptop has better air circulation underneath on a dockstation than it

would directly on a carpet as its raised up.



The power button on the thinkpads is joined by a ribbon to the keyboard so

to much of a faff to mod.

The Docking station power button is very easy to mod like this:

48088d1203137360-ibm-r50-


All I will do is run two wires from this button to the front under the seats.
 
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Very nice! Am following this with great interest as I've inherited a lappy with a broken screen and this looks like it may still have some life left in it after all...
 
tblocksom said:
Very nice! Am following this with great interest as I've inherited a lappy with a broken screen and this looks like it may still have some life left in it after all...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm getting really into this project...and its nice making use of bits

lying about.:p
 
looking good.

For some reason i couldnt get the roadrunner front end working on mine, i had to go all out and buy the centrafuse. But tbh i cant fault it, the after sales is really good.

Its a good idea using a laptop, i have built mine using pc parts and at times has proved very unreliable, so i am back to the drawing board at the moment with it!

Can you not buy a dash surround from ebay for you to smooth the screen in?

I did it on my mondeo:

DSC00035.jpg


However make sure there are no metal bars behind as you could easily crack it!

DSC02225.jpg



Keeping an eye on this!
 
I think BT is still a bit flaky on these, i did one using the flip out screen posted earlier,the screens are getting better, but still cost way way too much, and one you price it up with a proper car psu, it gets bloody expensive, way cool tho:p
 
Up to now I have spent £170.49

£150 for the screen, £20 for the DC-DC converter and 49p for the power on switch.:p

Not a lot considering the fuctionality and upgradabilty of it it.:)
 
You will find that screen will be rather poor in sunlight:( My total sat at £350, and it annoyed me cos the bluetooth app was just plain poo, plus i couldnt find a decent way to get DAB radio working, so i just bought a JVC AVX 33 dvd player, screen was only 4 inches but it was way way better than the K90 i had.
 
I hope you have some sort of car alarm. When I had my carputer up and running, I was always worried it would get swiped. I didn't exactly have a stealth install really tho.

As far as sunlight goes, try and get a screen that is more than 300nits (cd/m) so that it is bright enough
 
MikeHunt79 said:
I hope you have some sort of car alarm. When I had my carputer up and running, I was always worried it would get swiped. I didn't exactly have a stealth install really tho.

As far as sunlight goes, try and get a screen that is more than 300nits (cd/m) so that it is bright enough
Click to expand...

My Screen is:

Specifications:

Display size: 7" - 16:9 Widescreen
Resolution: 800 x 480 native, supports 640x480~1600x1024
Brightness: 400cd/m2
Contrast Ratio: 350:1
Video Input: 1 x VGA + 2 x Composite
Touchscreen: USB Input

Power Consumption: 10W Max
Mains Adapter and Car Adapter included
Remote control
Stand included
Drivers supplied for Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP, XP Tablet PC edition, Windows CE 2.12/3.0/.net, Redhat and Mandrake.
Monitor Dimensions: 179W x 128H x 27D mm
 
update:


The laptop is going in the boot. It won't fit with the dock station in the glove

compartment.

have been sorting out the mounting mechanism for the screen.

But the wires are semi in place under the seats ready for plugging in:)
 
Update,

I now have the laptop and screen in the car running off the battery with a relay so the

PC will only work when the ignition is on.If the ignition is not on then the laptop will run

off its own battery.This will be handy when getting petrol etc... as the pc will just stay

on when I'm filling up and just run on its own battery.When I return to the car and start

it the laptop will run off the cars battery. :D

I have set the laptop to automatically hibernate when ignition is off after 10 mins in the

bios too.

Ran into a few problems with the audio side of things here's a pic.

101_0076.jpg


My original plan was to use the onboard sound going into a connects2

adaptor in the boot replacing the CD changer unit like you see in the pic.

This is the testing stage so its looks a bit of a mess :p

But I ran into "noise" and "interference" that sounded awful.

This is called a ground loop issue.When I ran the lappy of its own battery

through the connects2 interface the "noise" went away.As soon as I plugged

the lappy into the car battery again the "noise" returned :(

This was no good so I decided on a few things:

Upgrade to shielded RCA cables

Ditch the onboard soundmax audio:p and get an Creative Xmod allowing

virtual surround sound in my car via USB :D

xmod_h.jpg


and lastly get a ground loop isolator.

I was advised to ground the connects2 adaptor and the laptop this didn't

work so I figured moving the sound from the laptop completely would "clean"

the signal.It did.


I now have 24BIT "clean audio" provided by the Xmod and It sounds fantastic.

Pics coming shortly
 
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