Arm based Car PC

[Shelnutt2]

I'm currently reworking a Dell E1505. I'm taking the screen for a car pc. I'd like to make this into a nice arm based machine. I'm looking at, http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=659341 . It's 1.2ghz so it should have enough power. I might put linux or android on it. What I'd like is to make it into a gps/maps machine, with voice commands. I might just work with google voice actions, but really I'd like gnome speech or something similar. I'd like to setup to get internet via either bluetooth or wifi with my rooted hero (android 2.2, soon to be android 2.3)

The things I need:
Arm based device
GPU output/ someway to interface with the 15" screen.
storage (flashdrive/cheap hdd/cheap ssd?)
Method to power device based on 12volt circuit.
good quality microphone.
GPS device
Bluetooth/wifi chip.
audio output to stereo.

I have an El Camino, so fitting this all in the car will be difficult, the main issue is going to be the screen. I believe the rest I can work into under/behind the dash in places. I might have to make the screen hideable/stored flat and pulled out then flipped to be vertical.

Any ideas or advice would be much appreciated. I've never done anything such as this before.

 

[Ba!nesy]

For the storage... I dunno how well this will work, but buy a SD card and apparently theres an adaptor you can use to use it with a computer, (like ide or SATA) again not too sure so you'll have to look into that... or most Linux OS's i think can be installed on a USB flash drive.

bluetooth, there are mini bluetooth USB adaptors around... the size of the bluetooth unit is smaller than the USB connection.

 

[pcgamer4life]

For some ideas, you might look at MP3Car. I spent a lot of time there years back when I was going to build my carputer. Unfortunately I got scammed by a guy on eBay I bought my 7" Lilput touch from, and it took me a few months to get my money back. After that, I lost interest.

Good luck to you, though!

 

[Squadfer]

I would also take a look at mp3car.com. Thats where I got a lot of ideas for my car pc thats still working and in my car today . As for the PSU your going to want to get a Smart DC to AC psu. These PSU's automatically shut down the computer if your DC source goes to far above 12v or dips down past 10v IIRC.

A SSD would be ideal for a car, but dont be led into the hype that its the only thing that will work inside a car... I am running a 500gb hdd in my car and its been running fine for 2 years now. Just dont get a HDD that has multiple platters in it, those HDD's definitely dont like the bumps that are seen in a car pc.

You could look into a stripped down version of windows XP as well, by stripped down i mean a good 50% of it removed from the ISO before you burn it to the disk, I used XPlite irrc to accomplish this. Other OS's will work but finding software to work with them for what your doing is still hard to find as there is a very small amount of people that do this, unless you can code your own software.