Project: Car PC

[MarkLP]

Well, i've held back from posting this here as I felt it might get shot down and ripped apart but then I thought a few people might be interested so I will post it.

First basic design

19-04-07, 10:58 AM

19-04-07, 06:17 PM

More Pics:

Can't put anything in the bottom left space because of boot space

Empty Boot space

 

[MarkLP]

And some wireeeeeeees

Slots in perfecto!

This shot makes it look rubbish, but wait till its covered in carpet

Looking into the boot

 

[MarkLP]

19-04-07, 11:42 PM

some more tonight:

 

[MarkLP]

21-04-07, 8:27pm

Tested it today in the car.

Looked abit silly though as I had to connect up a 17" monitor aswell lol!

Need:

Car psu - probably M2-ATX DC-DC
Acoustic Carpet
Touchscreen TFT - probably a lilliput 7" or 8" Going with the dash mount just gotta make something up, shouldn't be too difficult though!

 

[MarkLP]

02-05-2007, 02:56 AM

Small update:

Painted the front of the DVD drive

Primer

Silver

Fixed some padding on the mount for the hard drive.

Still waiting for the acoustic carpet to arrive, then can get it looking respectable!

 

[MarkLP]

02-05-2007, 13:11 PM

This arrived this morning

It turned out to be this!

Which is quite a big sheet!

Cut to size

Stapled on but no holes cut out

 

[MarkLP]

Back stapled on

Holes cut out and stapled

Back

Fan Mounted

DVD-RW Drive put back together and mounted

 

[MarkLP]

In the car

Light isn't very good, looks a lot better colour match in real life.

 

[MarkLP]

02-05-07, 11:20 PM

Haven't done much, Just secured the unit in place. It isn't moving around at all now. Once i've got everything fitted ill workout some way of securing the sub aswell, dont like velcro, rips the carpet. The pics make them look rubbish, but they are silver in rl.

Yesterday, 12:41 AM

Bought this 7" TFT

 

[MarkLP]

Today, 01:16 AM

Took out the front middle vents and took it apart ready to mount the tft.

Quite a few parts inside!!

Have to block up the vents so they dont work. So Used some tape and then put some superglue around the edges to seel it.

Left to do:

• Mount everything back on (mobo,hard drive etc) -
• Buy PSU
• Buy Touchscreen TFT - Done
• Fit PSU
• Fit Touchscreen TFT
• Buy USB,VGA extender cables - Done
• Fit All cables from tft to pc and power to amps etc
• Copy rest of music across to hard drive
• Make sure it still works!

Thats up to date as it is at the moment. Should recieve tft and extender cabels I bought sometime next week

Thanks,
Mark

 

[benneh]

Think it should look OK dude. Will the sub (magnet) bother the HD from that distance?. I always wondered about the effects of daily road bumps etc on the HD too, are they generally OK with that?.

Edit: Seem to have posted mid-post .

 

[MarkLP]

Think it should look OK dude. Will the sub (magnet) bother the HD from that distance?. I always wondered about the effects of daily road bumps etc on the HD too, are they generally OK with that?.

Edit: Seem to have posted mid-post .

Just in time

The hard drive should be shielded enough, if not protection can always be added. Theres the shielded side of the HDD, 12mm ply, carpet, carpet, 18mm ply. So should be ok

EDIT/ As for bumps etc.. You can see in one of the posts I have added foam padding. Will add more of this when I go to actually fit it for good

 

[Andybtsn]

Fair play to you, looks like some hard work has gone into and its resulted in a very professional finish.

I'd like one purely for having my HDD handy to listen to all my music etc.

 

[phi1]

Looking good! all you need is a wireless card!!

 

[VBDub]

Its very satisfying when its all finished, mine took about 6 months to plan and install.
I've had it in the car a year now and its ace, so cool to have my complete music collection with me all the time!

 

[snowdog]

Just a question, does your car have airco, and how do you plan to keep the pc within ''normall operating temps'' when its summer and when you get in your car and its like 50 C in there?


Nice so far, would love doing such a project myself, if i had a car and a few spare banknotes...

Subscribed, I may learn something from here .

Also just a question, why a 48x cd player and not a simple dvd-burner since they're so cheap anyway, would be a shame if you couldnt at least play dvd's in it, my opinion anyhow...

Keeep up the good work, going to london for a week on monday but will look forward to reading the progress (or even the results ) after i get back .

 

[MrSix]

Just a question, does your car have airco, and how do you plan to keep the pc within ''normall operating temps'' when its summer and when you get in your car and its like 50 C in there?

As it's in the boot I doubt the ambiant temperature would get that high, however I would have put in a couple of fans myself - One 120mm at the bottom sucking in air and one 80mm at the top exhausting it (you want to create an area of high pressure inside for maximum efficiency of airflow > heat dissapation.

Looks good though! I thought about this, but couldn't really justify it unless I could have a constant wireless connection (A PC without internet for me is like a woman without boobies - useless).

 

[snowdog]

As it's in the boot I doubt the ambiant temperature would get that high, however I would have put in a couple of fans myself - One 120mm at the bottom sucking in air and one 80mm at the top exhausting it (you want to create an area of high pressure inside for maximum efficiency of airflow > heat dissapation.

Looks good though! I thought about this, but couldn't really justify it unless I could have a constant wireless connection (A PC without internet for me is like a woman without boobies - useless).

Internet in car? I would have thought the point of such a thing in your car is havign a massive 200 gig music collection and films and series in your car, and dvd's...
Internet is a nice add-on, but i doubt you will prefer to use the internet in your boot or car instead of the comfort of your home...



BTW to the OP: have you filtered the air intake, against dust/whatever gets in the boot of the car, as would worry me, for example my dads car is full of small food rests, not very good if the fan sends em shooting against the mainboard...

 

[MrSix]

Yeah I suppose you're right, kinda skimmed over the music idea!

 

[ci_newman]

Internet in car? I would have thought the point of such a thing in your car is havign a massive 200 gig music collection and films and series in your car, and dvd's...
Internet is a nice add-on, but i doubt you will prefer to use the internet in your boot or car instead of the comfort of your home...



BTW to the OP: have you filtered the air intake, against dust/whatever gets in the boot of the car, as would worry me, for example my dads car is full of small food rests, not very good if the fan sends em shooting against the mainboard...

But for the true 'home away from home', the Internet would be ideal Not many people like hauling a laptop with them when they go anywhere!