Volvo 480 Club Europe

Ever since i heard of carpc's i wanted one in my 460 Turbo and later in my 480 Turbo.
Anyway after carefull planning and looking up info i finaly orderd the last bits for the project.

This is just a topic where i'll post updates for the project hope i can finish it this year

The plan is ofcourse to get a PC info my car, wired up to my amp and ditching my cheap radio. Ofcourse i would like to be able to play music on it, dvd and such are just a nice extra.
As the turbo gauges have to go (:cryhard:) i would like to make a digital version of them to display on my screen to replace them.

So if any of you chaps have idea's for this thing i'd gladly hear them.

Orderd so far

- VIA EPIA M10000 MINI ITX MB+VIA C3 1GHZ (256MB/20GB)
- M1-ATX 90W Automotive Intelligent PSU
- 7" Lilliput Touchscreen

edit by coyote1980: moved from styling to In-Car-Entertainment. Please post in the correct category!

Hi all


forze i also want a pc incar but with my funds its out for now:(

i build my pc`s as many do these days(cheaper)and i have a fair amount of experiance in motherboard/graphics/memory/ etc etc if you get it running ok give us some nice piccys:)

i was thinking of scrubbing my xbox and giving it a new OS for use in the car but im not sure because having usb would be a bonus and im not sure the xbox has?(pretty sure it dont)

what i want is 2x 7inch monitors in the back(one for each seat playing same movie etc)and a dvd radio(motorised screen unit)in the front
but at the mo im starting small and one day it will be mine

good luck mate:)maybe worth getting some supressors for your new stuff at the same time(unless its not neede but im sure you will get tons of help on here ):)

sg

billy5000 wrote: i was thinking of scrubbing my xbox and giving it a new OS for use in the car but im not sure because having usb would be a bonus and im not sure the xbox has?(pretty sure it dont)

It has.
The connecters for the controllers are some kind of 'enhanced' usb with 5 pins instead of four.
You can simply bild an adaptor for those.
(google will help)

Hauke

ForZe wrote:
This is just a topic where i'll post updates for the project hope i can finish it this year

good luck! its a lot of work

more than 2 weeks over..
come on guys any news? keep us informed

Yeh ive recieved all the hardware i needed, got the whole setup done now.
Everything is booted up and playing music within 30 secs.

Next step is to make a custom housing for the carpc, thinking about the same solution as you used (old cd-changer housing). Or make a new one, the size of the box the epia came in looks excelent.

Still wondering what is the best thing to do, either put the pc in the dashboard or under the passengerseat.

Once that is done i can focus on moulding the screen into the dashboard, i do want a system so i can hide the screen. Any tips are more then welcome!

massive threads on this if anyone wants tips/pointers etc.....
murf and JT and laserowl are the kiddies i believe....
while ago, but use the search.....
rgrds
rob

Still wondering what is the best thing to do, either put the pc in the dashboard or under the passengerseat

there are many pros and contras for each position
dashboard:
+ short distance to the screen and the controls
+ easy to remove
- very high temperatures in the summer (i had to upgrade the cpu cooler for a "real" one couse the epia overheats when the temperatures otside are more than 30°

under the seat:
+ glovebox remains free
- possibly water leakages?

you can also put the pc between the rear seats - more space and cooler temperatures

one more problem i found out is that the harddisk can freeze at low temp (mine wont work at -12°c )

as for the screen position: there are many in-dash screens available and they become cheaper, you will just have to find one which opens downwards

The space between the passenger isnt a bad idea actually.
Will have to take a look into that, as for the screen i already have a simple lilliput touchscreen and a second hand dashboard i can mess about with.

Luckly it hardly freezes -12 degrees overhere, you dont have a liquid bearing disk drive i hope ? tought i read on mp3car.com hard drives should even survive -20 degrees.

Will keep ya updated

To reply late to the XBox idea...

XBox game ports are USB + 12v? for the rumble packs. Convertors are now readily available for a pittance or can be hacked together if you know how to solder.

If you rip off the OS and dump Gentoox on instead, you have a very reasonable Linux machine that can run any amount of music/videos you could want. the HDD can be upgraded to any size IDE.
The memory is low but can be upgraded if you only ever want to run Linux on the machine.

The install is fairly easy if you don't mind loosing the game-playing ability, but can get a headache if you still want to "dual-boot" to a standard XBox (The trick is to have a larger HDD and a switchable modchip, so one bank boots Linux, the other boots a Modded xbox OS if you have no qualms in running them.) I've had mine working in the car and dual booting, but my mains invertor is fried and my screen needs some time dedicated to installing it nicely.
www.xboxscene.com
and www.gentoox.org
are the places for much, much more reading and I can help if you pm me any time.

I picked up an old sony vaio micro notebook. It's bigger then a palmtop, but smaller then a notebook, and doesn't come with much in the way of hardware, but most importantly it does come with a pcmcia slot and a USB port. I got a 12v to 19v converter from maplin (about £20) to power it. I also got a universal 800ma switchable powersupply, which powers a USB2 hub. The notebook has an svideo out so I modified the output to make it composite, and piped this into a standard 8" TFT screen. at the moment I'm using a small USB optical mouse, but in the longterm I will get a small trackerball for the dash. I also have a USB2 portable IDE Caddy, with a DVD rewriter installed and admittedly at the moment I'm having probs finding the dosh for a decent 28v transformer so I'm using the mains one on an inverter. I've also recently upgraded my phone to a Nokia 6680 which comes with a USB cable. Much playing and tweaking and I now get a very satisfactory 480kbit/s download and I have talked Orange into giving me 3Gb a month data limit.

All in all I'm a happy bunny.

but in the longterm I will get a small trackerball for the dash

try to find a canon trackball - its small and easy to use

i've managed to put the parts of it in the dashboard - pretty usefull since the touchscreen doesn't work at the moment