Datalux 12" touchscreen mounted on a JottoDesk arm. Custom built PC in the cargo area w/ 12V power supply, 900 Celeron, wireless keyboard, 10GB of tunes, GPS, and a partridge in a pear tree.

It's the XP-terra...

nice nice nice

I'm jealous...

:rolleyes:

Thanks. Trade ya my screen for your supercharger!

Now thats sweet!

Do you have a mouse? Would like to see some pics of the PC installation. Did you use an industrial 12v ATX supply, or an inverter?

What programs are you using for gps and music? Did you wire the sound into the sound system yet? I thought about a touch screen and may still go that route due to in-cabin noise, but am working on voice control right now. I have a 14.1 inch LCD screen with a custom 850mhz AMD computer. 30 GB HD, DVD, GPS, LAN and wireless keyboard/mouse combo. I'm reworking the center console to hold it all. I did a trial run of the Mojave Road with my setup. Three days on washboard roads. Only problem was Windows Media Player would crash every 50 songs or so. I'm using Mapsource for GPS and that was pretty cool.

I dug up a crappy pic I took at the mailbox on the Mojave Road.



This is in the middle of the Mojave Desert, so the screen is washed out a bit. I also have the LCD pulled out from between the seats and turned 90 degrees from where it would normaly sit. I have since cut my computer case in half and will be testing that set up as well as voice control this weekend at Calico. Where did you buy your 12 volt ATX power supply? The biggest one I could find was 95 watts.

Lifeboat - very nice! We (I) want more specs, how-to, etc. Looks like you're running a Street Atlas variant (Road Warrior edition perhaps?). That seems to be almost exactly what I want, only I don't need the screen to be so big. Also I was thinking of going with a display-less laptop connected under the passenger seat (just so it's out of the way). I've really been on the lookout for a small wireless keyboard, but haven't found anything small enough so far. Which one are you using?

Xterrian, any reason you're not just running Winamp for your mp3s? WMP seems like overkill...

Goodness Xterrian! You put a whole tower in there? That's freakin huge? what happens when you need a cupholder?

Thats what CD rom drive is for

Classic, Oleg.

Can you give some details on the 12v power supply? Where did you get it from? I have an inverter, but I would rather not go from 12v to 120v and back to 12v again.

Thanks

Richard

I love your setup lifeboat!!! That is exactly what I would like to do! I am going to suggest to the site that we do an installs section like www.240sx.org does. Then we can try and convince you to hook us up with your install. I want to do the same thing but also hook it up to my network via wireless nic card...then I could just transfer mp3's to it when it is in my driveway!!

Wow, lots of interest in this. Ok, I did up a quick page with a more detailed overview of the system:

XPterra Carputer

To answer some of the questions directly:

The map software is Delorme Street Atlas Deluxe. It's not perfect, but it works well enough. About three more versions and they'll have it right. I have Mapsource but haven't tried it in the car yet, I would like to get some topographic maps too eventually.

The player software is Media Jukebox 8 Beta. I like it for the library management features mostly, plus it will play MPC files, which is the format all of my music is in. I am waiting to try Winamp3 once it's final, and also looking forward to Sonique2 when it's released.

The sound is routed to the aux-in on a Blaupunkt head unit, not the best but it sounds ok. I have a slight noise problem (ground loop) that I haven't been able to filter out, so I need to redo the power wiring for the PC.

Voice control would be cool, I hope to try that out someday. For now I use a small trackball mouse, IR keyboard (check eBay for mini keyboard), plus the touchscreen. A wireless NIC would be good too, but for now I have a long Cat5 that I run out to the driveway for online updates and such. The hard drive is removable so I can just plug it in to my home computer to transfer files.

Power is a Keypower 250W DC-DC. I started with an inverter but quickly decided the money for a good power supply was worth it. More info on the overview page.

The PC enclosure is semi-custom, more info on the overview page. It doesn't have a powered cupholder though.

The best place to learn about doing something like this is the MP3Car Forum . Those guys have tried just about everything, and they have a lot of experience and talent over there. There are a lot of different ways to do things.

The whole project was pretty involved, but I probably made things more complicated then necessary. I'm glad it's mostly finished, my play money and time is devoted to more important things now, like torsion bars, lights, and a winch.

Thanks for the comments!

Tim

Damn, you beat me to it!

That's what I've been thinking for a while... With WiFi connectivity so that I can exchange MP3s when I park in front of the house!

What about having a keyboard shelf, or getting a touchscreen-capable LCD or add-on? Failing that, maybe a pen-based display.

I would've used an industrial type mini motherboard and case like you were thinking - way smaller form factor, and more ruggedized, though at probably a good bit higher cost... Depends, stuff is there if you look for it long enough, heh.

The new iMac is begging to be hacked, and Mac OS X now supports pen and handwriting recognition ala the Newton... Hmmm... 10" round base all-in-one.

Cough...
"Datalux 12" touchscreen mounted on a JottoDesk arm. Custom built PC in the cargo area w/ 12V power supply, 900 Celeron, wireless keyboard, 10GB of tunes, GPS, and a partridge in a pear tree."

Very nice though, I still would think twice about putting a whole PC into my truck... too much vibration IMO.

Lifeboat...that is one saaawweeeeetttt setup. Not often I get jealous of other folk's stuff but I am now.

Xterrian: Can you give some details about your LCD? Does it have a special controller or does it work off of normal VGA?

Do you remember where you got the mouse?

Very nice. I'm still in the stone age with my portable Garmin GPS

I'll post the site where I got my LCD when I get home tonight. It has a built in controller, so it is VGA for all practical purposes.

GrumpyTom: You can get one of those meeces at eBay . That's where I find most of this stuff.

Hey Lifeboat!

Terrific install!

I have only one question.. For your wireless keyboard, does it trasnmit all the way to the back of the X? Or did you have to put a port replicator up front to get the IR transmission?

Thanks, and it looks great. Terrific job!

I got my case and processor from e-bay, but the motherboard I bought there was crappy so I bought another one and everything else new. My wife estimates $800 total, but that sounds high to me. I'll add it all up when I'm done or else I'll never finish. How much was your LCD? Mine came without a case, so I slapped one together with fiberglass. It ain't pretty, but it works. My tower is now 2/3 as tall as it was in the picture. I took the dremel to it and got rid of a bunch of wasted space. I'll probably chop it up some more later on so it will fit under the passenger's seat. I highly recommend Mp3Car.com as well. I want to mount my LCD on a gooseneck so I can move it from front to back so the kids can watch DVDs on the road. Pilot Pivot is also great for turning the LCD on it's side.

Bobby, the IR reciever is up front, it's attached to a PS2 keyboard extension. There's a pic of it on the web page.

Xterrian, I'd like to see a shot of the fiberglass monitor case you made. That's something I wanted to try with a different display I have here. Mine was about $350 off of eBay, I actually got two for that price! The touchscreen part was something I scavenged from another dislay and hacked in. Do you have a link for Pilot Pivot? It didn't google.

Thanks guys!

Lifeboat,

that Keypower KP-D250, did you buy from the importer or a distributer, $?. Does it support ATX power control features, and lastly why the preference for the PC Pwr+Cooling solution?

It wasn't mentioned - what's your OS?

thx,
-Paul

I got the supply used from someone at the MP3Car forum. It's full ATX, 2.01. I like the PCPower model mostly because of the 1U form factor, which would allow for a much smaller enclosure. I think it may only be 100W though. If you are comfortable making your own, there are parts and plans to be found at the MP3Car forums for a couple of very small DC-DC supply. Fairly simple design, but not something I wanted to deal with.

I think the hot ticket for this stuff is going to be the new mini-ITX boards from VIA. They have an onboard power system and take 12VDC directly. I'm just waiting for a faster processor to become available, because it uses an embedded C3, which isn't all that great.

OS is WinXP. MS is working on a more graphical home-theater oriented OS too, should be out in a few months. I think it's called Freestyle or something. That might turn out to be very good for cars too.

Here's where I got my LCD: Click Here

This is where I got the Pivot software:
Click Here

Here's the MP3 Car site:
MP3 Car

The newest update of mapsource available at www.garmin.com allows scrolling realtime tracking with your GPS. Make sure you download it!

IMHO, National Geographic TOPO! is the best though...

Bryan

Lifeboat,
What did you use for a monitor stand?

I couldn't find anything on Via's mini-ITX description to verify this. It seems to use yet another new combination of regulated 5 and 12V. Do you know the link?

BTW, have you tried hibernate mode to improve startup (40 sec) and shutdown (8 sec) speed?
Also, turning off unnecessary services can improve the speed and lower the basic memory load to < 48 MB.

My mistake on the ITX power system, it's not on the board itself. I've read that some of the barebones ITX enclosures include a 12VDC power supply though.

I have tried both sleep and hibernate, it tries to work, but for some reason when I resume from hibernation I usually get a blue screen. When it does work though, my startup time is about 20 seconds from hibernate, and almost instant from sleep.

Here's the link for a mini-ITX w/ the DC power unit:

Case Outlet

...thanks..

You can all try this site for small pc computers:

http://www.littlepc.com

I'm curious...do you experience any overheating problems? Wouldn't leaving a car out in a hot summer day cause hardware problems to the computer? Namely the HD?

Zerokarma: thanks for the link, those are cool little PCs. Expensive though...

Socal: Heat may serve to reduce the lifespan on the drives, but is unlikely to cause failure unless we are talking about really extreme temps. I ran my system 10-12 hours a day for 5 days on a x-country trip this summer, with no problems.