My Car PC.

[FyreDaug]

This is a project I am undertaking. And originally I was going to use a 12V power supply from www.powerstream.com, but I figured that was going to be too much money and a waste compared to getting a cheap ~300W PSU and a power invertor. So my idea right now is since I work a computer recycling program I am going to try to get one of our P400 64mb ram onboard video IBM machines. And throw in an audigy or audigy 2 card.

The computer I WANT to build (assuming I can get my old xp2100+ pally back from a friend) is:

Motherboard: ASRock K7S41GX 741GX 400Mhz On-board Video AGP8X 2PCI 2DDR 6xUSB2.0 5.1-Audio LAN $65.00
Memory: 256MB PC2700 DDR 333mhz $55.00
Hard Drive: Western Digital 20GB 7200RPM Refurbished $49.00
DC to AC: Eliminator Power Inverters, 800 W $99.99
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Live 5.1 (OEM) $39.00
PSU: 350W ATX Power Supply $28.00
KB: Logitech Internet Navigator Keyboard $39.99
Mouse: Cicero Mini Optical Mouse - Blue $19.99
Total-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------$395.97

I wont have a monitor right now, eventually I will get a 10" XGA lcd screen off ebay. But funds are limited enough right now.

The good things: I'm excellent with electronics, I will chop up my logitech keyboard since it has play/pause/rew/ff/mute/volume and make a little controller with buttons and run the wires back to where the keyboard is hooked up to the computer. So I can get someone to hook up steering wheel controls and attach my button mod to it.

I plan to run it without a monitor. I will just assume it will boot right into windows all the time (I'll configre everything at home) and put keyboard shortcuts on the computer. So control+alt+shift+1 will load up a playlist etc.

It's kind of hard to explain what I want to do, but I'm sure you all know how a car PC works. The idea I want to do is have the computer hidden in the trunk spare tire spot or something and have NO deck (The soontoget monitor will be mounted in there. Throw in another audigy 2 PCI card and have front out go to an amp, rear out to an amp and power my car like that. I know there are some things I'm missing but I've wanted to do this for a while now.

For shock protection I can figure something out later, probably using bed sponge stuff. I can rig up cooling aswell.

Just worried about amping, the front/rear of the sound card is enough. It supports 24bit sound so its all good for quality.

I think all I need to worry about is amps for the speakers and the keyboard rigup for controls.

Like I always say if I'm gonna do something I'm gonna do it right. Besides I dont see this costing me as much as I originally thought a couple months back when I was dreaming about car PC.

What do you guys think?

PS. Is styrofoam conductive?

 

[LmpPns]

If you use slickdeals.net you can get much better deals on hard drives and RAM.

 

[FyreDaug]

Eh doesnt seem too much, plus I could try to get deals locally. The prices listed were just the first ones I saw.

I still might go with the PII 400mhz slot 1 with 64meg ram, 6gig HDD, floppy, cdrom and onboard vid/sound. Its a desktop case so it comes with a sister board to keep everything horizontal which is kinda nice. Throw in a good Sound Card in there and my old 3.2gig hard drive as the boot + programs and the 6 gig HDD as my mp3 storage. (I have more than 6gigs of mp3s, but I could always get another 6gig drive aswell.

 

[sup3rcarrx8]

Sounds like a pretty cool project. Keep us updated!

edit: don't forget pix!

 

[FyreDaug]

Yeah I'll be doing TONS of pics no worries

My main concern right NOW is how to keep shaking away from the HDD's. I have a full stereo already and the bass is gonna be hard. Plus the road bumps.

What I'm thinking of doing is using foam all the way around and building a somewhat tight case out of wood or something, and put the foam inside it. And on the base of the motherboard I will use styrofoam, aswell as other parts. The "case" will be fully closed except for an intake and exhaust port to keep it flowing, but hopefully to keep some of the low sound waves out/away from HDD's. I'm pretty confident it wont be a problem, but its still a concern because I havent done this before.

Another big concern is heat. Since its going to be in my trunk it wont have the best circulation. My seats will be down so air can still easily get back there. I'm going to have to rig up something good. A water cooled system would be absolutely amazing for a car PC, but thats out of the question (for now atleast) so I have to rely on air.
I wonder how hot "HOT" air is in my car. Because I have vents underneith my seats for the "lower" setting so air reaches the back. I could make a fiberglass mold from that and run both vents to the back so the "case" gets fresh air.

But that brings up another problem. Winter. I leave my car outside at work and its -30C outside, how do I heat up the system enough to somewhere in the range of normal operating conditions?

I dont really wanna cold boot the system when its below 0. I know it will help cooling of the cpu, but what about hard drives? If they are too cold I dont want to risk anything. Or is this really an issue?

How I'm going to hook up the "off" switch will be a regular push button switch (like normal power/reset) except it will send a signal to the keyboard. The sleep button. Which in windows I can set to either standby or hibernate.

2 questions. If its in standby mode how much current is drawn? Like if the computer is on standby mode sitting in my car overnight will it have drawn enough power to kill the battery? Or does standby really cut down power?
Secondly, in hibernation mode (I havent used this much before) does it just dump the ram to the HDD and when it turns back on (out of hibernation mode) it loads windows like normal, then loads the "ram file"? Also, in hibernation mode can it do with NO power? So if I put my computer to hibernate right now and it did its stuff, can I pull the plug and it will still be ok?

EDIT: Also I forgot to mention. Around the case will by some dynamat (blocks out sound waves). Its used in car audio competitions all the time and its just meant to block sound out. Therefore decreasing the chance sound waves will hit the HDD's. Theres still the intake and exhaust that has to be totally open so sound can travel in there. Am I worrying too much about low sound waves or am I right?

 

[attack]

Checkout opus power supplies, they're designed for car PC's and can do cool things like suspend when the car is turned off and also will stay on for 20 seconds to ensure shutdown.

Also for heat you might want to get a via epia too, compact, low heat...good all round board and not too expensive.

 

[AFIsoldier]

I have a question, sorry to butt-in, but how do you connect the speakers to the computer? And can you still use the radio when not using the computer?

 

[FyreDaug]

Well no I wouldnt use the radio. Which is good, because I hate it.

To hook up the speakers you need a headphone to RCA wire/cord whatever and run them to an amplifier. From the amplifier its just +/- connections to the speakers.

 

[FyreDaug]

Everyone who wants to know more about the project: I've taken pictures. They are located here: fyredaug.dnsalias.com. I apologize if the transfers are slow, this is my computer (that I'm typing from right now) and its normally busy. I will update the pics and add a list saying whats what later on. Note the pics are very large as I just took them off the camera.

I didnt go for either one of the computers I was going to build/get from work. I ended up with an Epox 8kta+ with my xp2100+(pal) and a stick of 512 SDram. On the board is a Sound Blaster Audigy and a 10 ethernet card. The vid card is an ATI Rage IIC. The ethernet card is only going to be in there during the setup process, once its in the car it will not be on there.

DCP_0318-DCP-0322 are pics of the set up, how everything will sit in the car. Its all just test right now I need to make mounts/brackets and stuff. And then the HDD protection will be around it.

 

[EternalX]

ill be watching this post, been thinking about this for awhile.

 

[FyreDaug]

Update

Here's another update, nothing on the progress (besides the fact that damn video card doesnt work!)

I figure I should invest in a UPS. Something small, only needs to hold a stable voltage during low rpms and starting. Plus its just a good idea to have.

I am also going to get a single 4ch amp (why I thought 2 2ch amps would be better I dont know)

For power to the back of the car I will run a 2 (or 4) gauge cable fused from the battery and switched inside the cab. The inverter will be hard wired and the plug on the back of the inverter will sport a UPS (not the surge bar as in the pic before). (I love ups's)

I may also be using my audigy 2 zs platinum (in my pc right now) in my car. Because the voltages on the back of the sound card are too low, and will cause distortion. So if I use the coax or optical output on the 5.25" bay voltages to not matter and I can keep the best SQ (sound quality) system I can do. And put the audigy 1 in my computer.

Hmm... what else. I'll be putting a dvdrom in the trunk for sure. Maybe I can find a good external firewire one and mount that in the cab area of the car, we'll see. Not too important right now.

Also, for a monitor I've found some good prices on some 13.3" and 15" LCD's (wow big huh?)

Now I just need to find a 4 channel digital amp. Great.

 

[FyreDaug]

News

I bought this mouse ebay link and I am probably going to buy a wireless keyboard tomorrow from Top-LogiX (local) as they got a refurbished one in today and they offered it to me. $21 for it. Not bad at all.

The LCD Screen I am going to get will not be a touchscreen like I originally planned.

AND I am going to be doing some research about using a home audio amplifier instead of a car audio one (since I have the AC available, I can trade in the 800w inverter for a.... 1300 or 1500W one if need be) because it has all the digital features I want. Plus an on-amp equilizer. And I can support 5.1 input (which is supported by the amp) maybe a 7.1 one! (hah just kidding) But that would be exactly what I want, I just hope my car audio speakers will work (assuming they have the same or acceptable impedance). The reciever/amplifier will support radio (so I can turn off the computer and keep the radio for whatever reason) by using my car antenna (modified ofcourse).

I'll let you know tomorrow.

 

[FyreDaug]

Sorry I didnt update before like I said. But I bought a home theater amplifier. 5.1 DTS. But it doesnt handle a 4ohm load like I thought and it doesnt have enough equilizer settings, so on monday I am upgrading for another 200-300 bucks. Maybe I will get a 6.1, that way I get the rear center channel too (especially for DTS).

I bought 36' of 12gauge lightning audio speaker wire.

I am putting my dvd burner in the car, just so I have a burner in the car (if for whatever reason I need it) and it can play DVD's.

I am putting qpod kickpanels for the front speakers and I am using MB Quart 6.5" components for the front. I would like to eventually rig up a system for the rear speakers where I use more 6.5" components and mount them closer to the driver/passenger. and put the rear center channel back where the 6x9's normally are.

I dont know what I want to do for a front center channel yet either or where I am going to mount it.

I am also going to be upgrading the car pc. I am going to get teh cheapest mobo I can find that has onboard video (because its still a step up from the Rage IIC) and onboard nic. Because I'm having SOO much trouble with nic cards lately and I'm not sure how stable this epox board I'm using is. The duron 800mhz is *enough* for what I'm doing. But if I'm upgrading the board its gonan be using ddr so I'll probably pull a stick of 512 from my system (because I just use it remotely anyways, and it doesnt need 1024ram, if and when I need it I'll just put it back in. I'm pretty sure I can only use 1 at a time. Car PC or Home PC) and the 800mhz is only a 133fsb (or 100... I donno) so I wouldnt be making too much use out of the ram bus. But its not a performance system, its gonan be playing music.

Anyways enough rambling, tomorrow I will be upgrading my amplifier to something I hope will be much better (it should for another 200-300 bucks!) and I will try to get this system going before I upgrade anything.

I bought a 15" BenQ monitor thats 16ms and 1024x768 with 450:1 contrast for a nice price off ncix. Plus I get a 50$ MIR aswell. Got free shipping too.

I'm having problems with my car, its being a POS and im hoping to get it replaced. Its a 2004 sunfire and its had OVER $10000 worth of work done to it. The engine was just rebuilt and when I left the dealership it was ticking and now I have a check engine light and it is having trouble holding an idle. So I might not be installing it right away, but either way I have to have it working and installed by xmas. Its my gift to me.

 

[FyreDaug]

Here's some more news, and some testing information.

First off, I upgraded my Yamaha RX-V350 amp to the RX-V450 model because the 450 properly handles a 4ohm load (because its in a car, I will be getting 4ohm speakers. Not 6ohm..) Plus it also handles 6.1 decoding. So now I can wire up another "center" channel for the rear. It will help during DTS movies or anything else encoded in 6.1. Might aswell keep up a little more with the times. 7.1 is NOT what I want/need, so I didnt bother.

I hooked up the 800w inverter for my car, which works fine and then I hooked up the UPS from my computer. It sure didnt like being hooked up to a car and kept cycling between battery and online(AC power source). Kinda depressed me, because it would bring up some more worried about surge, starting the car, voltage drops etc.
So I went on a theory that the inverter is acting as a regulator. It takes anywhere from 10-16V input and send out 117VAC (constant, havent seen it change).
So first I hooked up the computer and an LCD monitor from the guy who lives downstairs, just to make sure everything works the way I want it to. Perfect, I used a generic surge bar in replacement of the UPS and got everything working, computer booted up fine. (My trackball mouse also came in the mail today, so I hooked it up aswell)

I ran it for about 15-20 minutes with the car off just running off the battery. I noticed the input voltage went from 12.2 to 11.9 so the battery was being drained obviously. So I went to start up the car (battery wasnt as dead as I thought it was and it started fine) and the 11.9 voltage dropped to 11.5, and the output stayed at a constany 117VAC. So I dont think I have anything to worry about, I wont need a UPS. I invested in a good surge bar today though, bought it from walmart but its a good one.

Right now I have the whole computer installed in the trunk. I also cut out 2 120mm fan slots in the spare tire cover thing and got it all wired up. The subwoofer sits ontop of the cover. I guess I dont have any magnetic interference because I had the sub going full while the computer was on and I didnt have any problems which is a huge good thing.

I'm waiting on my monitor from NCIX and tomorrow I am going to call the place I took my XP 2100 chip to get RMA'd and check the status on it. If I can RMA it, I will upgrade the motherboard aswell. AsRock's cheapest board, it has onboard video, which IS a step up from the Rage IIC.

A few things I need are:
Some "o" rings to connect to my battery post. So I can cut the clamps off on the inverter and hardwire it into the battery.
Various zipties to hold some wiring in place
2sided tape
~10-12ft VGA cable

I have a bunch more pictures and I'll post them up later.

I'm kinda worried about actually cold booting the system tomorrow, but we will see what happens.

 

[FyreDaug]

Right on, go NCIX.com! I placed the order on saturday while they dont work weekends, they processed it monday and it came here this morning! I love this monitor even though its only a 15" its going in the car, which is like 5" more than normal.

Ok, so back to the car. I went to take it in yesterday because the engine was ticking, they couldnt get me in, so I took it in today. But yesterday I spent (well me and my friend too) atleast 8 hours working on it.

I hardwired the inverter to the battery, so its on constantly (left it on over night with the inverter/surge bar on, but nothing turned on) but it doesnt drain the battery very much. It was 12.4V when I went to bed, 9 hours later I went to the car and it was at 12.3V, so no big deal.

Me and my friend wired up all 4 speakers (still factory "premium" speakers), we wired the 12 guage wire directly to the rear 6x9s speakers (because the amp is <1ft away) but the front ones we had to go to where the head unit(deck) was. We pulled out my JVC mp3 player and chopped up the wiring harness for it to get to the speaker wires, we just tapped into the original 16 or 18 guage wires to go to the speakers, otherwise we would have to run wires through the door, rip off the panels and solder directly onto the speaker. Which was too much work for those crappy speakers. Remember I am getting Kickpanels for my new speakers eventually so its gonna save me some time in the end.

We mounted the amp properly (almost the way it was before we started, just a tighter hold) and put the sub back to its normal spot but closer to the back (held away from the edge of the car by styrofoam, otherwise the excursion of the sub would hit the car, which = not good) and we fired it up. Front speakers run at 4.4-4.6ohm and the rears are 7.5-7.8ohm, so 4/8.

We had a major problem though, while we were wiring up the front speakers something happened to the front left part of the harness, the wires that were orignally there are 2 different colors than those on the wiring harness, due to the fact of the previous installer using an adapter. So we hooked up the front right speaker through the adapter harness because thats how it was before, but we tried for the front left and it wouldnt work, for the life of us we couldnt figure it out. I'm serious we spent like 2 hours trying to find out why it wont work, and we never did figure it out, we just pulled off the door panel, found out what the 2 original wires were (the colors) and ran it past the adapter harness and it works. Which doesnt make any sence because the wires we tapped into should have directly went into the harness. But oh well, it works and im super happy.

We cranked up the radio (because I didnt have my monitor yet so I couldnt use the computer) and it sounded 10x better than it did with the deck installed. The amp has so much customizability its insane. I cant wait to throw a digital well sampled mp3 to it.

Grrr, godda wait for the car to get outta the shop now.

EDIT: Now I need to fabricate up a swivel arm for the monitor with a quick release so I can take the monitor with me.

 

[lennytiger]

Awesome project!

I have been thinking about doing this to the car in my avatar... old school huh?

And its got dashboard neons... lol

anyway keep us up to date

i'd love to see this finished!

 

[FyreDaug]

The rental company gave me a 2005 suburban fully loaded. I suppose its nice and all, but it sucks gas like nothing and Im just not an SUV guy.

Any ideas of what I could use as a swivel arm for the moniter? I'm gonna check out home hardware and home depot and stuff tomorrow but I want more movement outta the moniter. I would like to be able to move it left and right atleast 6inches would be nice. Up and down and tilt. I'm sure I can rig something up, but the cost of this project is killing me already.

Its not quite as easy and simple as it seems. There are some parts to it where its MORE simple than you think, but in the end you better have some money!