After baxo had to show me up I decided to step it up a notch. Exept with a pc (macs suck :locked: .....j/k) So here is the motherboard I am going to use.
http://www.viaembedded.com/product/epia_ml_spec.jsp?motherboardId=301
I already have it but I am having problems getting it to post. Supposedly any ddr 266 will work. I put some in and it started smokeing :bs:. I am setting things up with via to either get a replacement or get mine fixed.
It is 6.5 x 6.5 and about 1 1/2" maybe alittle bit taller.here is a pic for scale http://www.via.com.tw/en/images/products/processors/eden-n/nano-itx.jpg The mother board I got dosent have tv out. It does have intigrated surround sound (5.1 compatable)
So here are the parts that I need.
-Mini itx motherboard (purchased)$125
-touch screen $200
-laptop hdd and cdrom (freebie)
-adaptars for laptop to ide cables $10
-keyboard and mouse usb $20
-Video card with t-v out (optional)
Anything else you guys think that I will need?
I think that is it. Baxo what do you think of this so far
the 6.5 x 6.5 dimensions are the same as the mac mini, so you'll have no troubles replacing the radio with it, if you choose as such. However, i have a question.. do you plan on buying a regular in car screen? judging by the fact that you want a video card with tv out, I get that impression. The 8" lilliput I got has touch screen, S video, RCA as well as VGA for computers, so I didn't need a special card all i needed was a DVI to VGA adapter, which came with the Mini. I think you'll be better off getting a screen that has VGA rather then trying to adapt your computer to suit a regular car monitor.
I really dig the intergrated surround sound. Wish the Mac Mini had that, but oh well i'll have a solution to that.
What size is the laptop hard drive?
also, is the cd rom slot loaded, or does it have a tray?
And, you'll definitely have to look into powering that thing properly, I suggest you look at http://www.carnetix.com and see if any of their power regulators would suit your motherboard.
Also, if you're still interested in doing the monitor my way, I'll write up a detailed instruction sheet of what I did.
I'd love to do something like that, but even a laptop hard drive would not fare well in our -30 to +30 celsius temperature range. If I could rig something up with the OS installed on a flash-type drive (solid state) and use a USB flash memory drive and a DVD ROM for media it'd be OK... If, say, I were to get a 1GB flash drive I could store plenty o' MP3's on it, and when I got bored with the MP3's I could plug it into the laptop and upload a bunch of new ones. And I could install Winders XP or 2k on a 2GB flash drive. No moving parts except the fans and DVD ROM drive :D
I wonder if it would be possible to make it "sleep" when the key is off and "wake" when the key is turned on, the way my laptop does when I close and open the lid?
OH it's possible and that's pretty much exactly what my Mini will be doing. the Carnetix p1900 regulator controls taht.. i can set it to go to sleep mode 30 secs - 1 min after the car is turned off.
I have been looking at stuff on carmp3.com. I am more an oportunist. I have been checking out ebay alot. I am looking at the same screen as you. But I want to get a monirot flip down to replace a small tear in the head liner right next to the light thingy. I would be interested in the way you mounted it, But I dont care about the dash too much. If I screw it up I have two other cars just sittin(shh ;)). Such as, my ac is bypassed on the car I am going to put it on. This is gonna be kinda ghetto with no real "professional" install. I will make it look okay, But I am not gifted with a steady hand.
The power supply I am looking at a opus or I may still just splice in a regular power supply with an inverter. I havent decided yet. It will all come down to cost. The opus would be perfect. Rather then shutting down the ocmputer it puts it in soft off, aka sleep mode. I will run windows 2000 off of a 4 gig laptop hard drive. I will mount a removable hard drive tray some where hidden. The laptop drive is a pop out kind and it isnt even a cd burner, but that is temporary. This is more or less an experiment. If I cannot get it to work I will just mount it all inside of a power supply makeing the case look empty and hang a disco ball in the empty spot.
haha well yeah.. experiment around.. you'll find some solutions in no time.. Eric and I had to do a lot of figuring out to get mine in. And most of the planning happend as i went along and thought "now that I did that. how would I do this?" and it was all a hit and miss situation.. and a hell of a lot of improvisation..
Yeah I am not goint to mount it until I get it working off of a small motorcycle battery. I will prolly even just leave it on a charger in my room when I get all of the peices. I am really looking to just hook it up to a power inverter with a regular power supply and then hooking it up to a battery back up so it wont restart when I turn the car on or off. Also then I can just keep it in sleep mode where it shuts off the fans and stuff. If it dosent draw too much power I will prolly just do that. $45 bucks for a 60w power supply, Or make my own that runs off of 12v, or just an inverter hooked up with a regular one..... I already have a regular power supply, and a inverter so. What do you think ?
OR you can save yourself the troubles and for $90-someodd you can buy the p1900 power regulator that controls startup/shutdown and power on/off, sleep/hybernate..
For me this regulator will automatically set the computer into sleep mode about 30 secs after i shut off the car. the only drawbacks to the p1900, is that currently i have to cut the power wire to attach it to the inverter.. but the company's working on making a plug that'll plug straight into the mini.. unfortunately it won't be out before CJ so i'm left with the cut and paste method.
To be honest i would have probably went with a regular inverter.. but then I learned the Mac Mini runs on 18v power not 12v.
Woooo, i dont want to hijack but how works that "flash-type drive (solid state)" I dont know anything about that !
(http://usuarios.lycos.es/racingtrykes/almacen/Cougar.jpg)
It is a drive that is completely solid state, with no moving parts. You know how hard drives still have those discs inside that rotate? well the solid state flash drives don't have em. But it uses the regular IDE ports, so it's pretty much just a replacement of a regular hard drive.. I guess for car applications it's perfect because it's a lot more rugged then a regular harddrive. It also operates in a more wide temerature range.
Think of it as a big card reader. That is mostly what it is. Its a really big card like in a camera.
http://www.mini-itx.com/
lots of tips and kits here
yep linked there many times.
http://www.mp3car.com is the shiznit though.
mp3car.com is the more upperclass expensive for people with too much money, and not new idea's.(no offense or nothign) I didnt even know about the whole carputer thingy, I thought that I made it up.
Oh no offense taken, however I feel I must defend myself. I'm not what you call "rich" I'm actually borderline poor. I am well underpaid for what I do so it's not like i'm rolling in cash. I just don't drink smoke, or do any useless addictive shiznit or even waste cash buying fast food every day, so I have money to put in the Cougar, that's all.
well the way I see it, save $200 ebay, or go to a name brand place.
oh.. you're referring to the mp3car store.. i'm talking about the mp3car forum. It is very VERY helpful.
I didn't do the Mac Mini for it's brand name. I did it for all the sweet features it had to offer in such little package without any hassles.
yeah the forum is pretty cool.
Well then...after the debut of Alex's car at Cat Jam...everyone is going to have their work cut out for themselves. Wow. Despite some power problems with the XR7 (alternator shiznit the bed Thursday night, and the battery wasn't the greatest either), Alex was able to fully demonstrate the capabilities of the setup. And everyone was blown away. My dad's still talking about it. Alex, you did a hell of a job bro. I know it wasn't cheap and it wasn't easy, but you are truly a pioneer. Considering the computer itself didn't exist a little more than 6 months ago, and that products weren't available right away, you managed to shoehorn the mini into the car, get it working, and play chess by voice on the way down from Canada. That's pretty impressive!
man I am so jelous. You guys and your macs all suck. If I only had money alittle bit earlier.
now that I figured out that I just had the wrong kind of ram, I should be right behind you baxo
One thing i should mention, is that you'll actually be the third ;)..
I have a friend who lives in the same town, installed a carputer in his 87 Xr7.. what he did is he removed his back seat and placed a tower in it's place with a custom plexi-glass case and some cool blue LED's.. he was also at CJ but showed up late saturday night so not many people got to check it out.. He said his whole project overall cost about $500. I've been trying to get him to post pics, but he's got no pics to post unfortuately.
This wasn't a competition on who can claim it first. This was me crunching it in and getting it done before Cat Jam. Everyone has projects they want to finish for Cat Jam and this was mine.
it really isn't the newest of ideas. but into cars as old as ours.. this is pretty revolutionary stuff..
we do have more space for customazation over the ricers though, glad its working good.
Yeah I'll bet I could get away with mounting it to the bottom of the seat, the glove box,(good bye heater core. Heh) or even under the steering colum. BUt I wanna do it the way baxo did in a stock looking radio.
Jeez, Alex, stop stealing ideas!
I'm sorry.. I just can't help it.
Indeed I had a few people ask where the computer actually was.
I doubt that my install will be half as clean as yours. You did very well.
Thanks, However the dash setup is actually a filler, it's not how it's staying.
my ultimate goal is to have a completely clean panel.
(http://www.baxo.ca/cougar/xr7/consoleconcept.jpg)
Rotary heater panel conversion with some round billet s to match the Griffin powermate, and jsut the slot for the CD and have the panel and the console plate in 1 and on a curve so they don't meet at a 90 degree angle.
-Mini itx motherboard (purchased)$125
-touch screen $200
-laptop hdd and cdrom (freebie)
-adaptars for laptop to ide cables $10(edit $8)
-keyboard and mouse usb $20(edit$10)
-Video card with t-v out (optional)
so far I am at $150 shipped for a motherboard and $8 for the adaptar and $10 for the keyboard/mouse.
So far my total is $168
I am planning on the dvd drive from my old puter, so really it is all freebie stuff. Total I see, will be about $300 on top of that for the power supply and the screen. So really it will be about .....
$468 total. Maybe more maybe less. Alex, how much was that mini mac again? Maybe I should have just gotten one, but for now I am happy with this.
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
It's around there. As Eric and I have been saying from the beginning, it'll run you around the same.
Haystack, if you have the hard drive and optical drive already, the challenge of finishing the build with the rest of the components will be rewarding in the end. The money you've estimated isn't really all that bad for ANY computer, much less one going into a car. After seeing Alex's friend Erik's car, and what he did with a PC, I think you can make a winning combination. And you've obviously done your homework on the parts. Honestly, I'd recommend that you try out a Mac mini before buying...it may not do everything you want. For example, a good GPS program is non-existant for the Mac OS. Don't get me wrong--Alex's setup is incredible. But if you're used to Windows you may want to just stick with a PC setup.
I agree with Eric. I'm pretty sure what you'll do is going to blow us all away. I did this for the plain fact of answering the question of "Can it be done?", and now that it can be, the only thing we'll see is improvements in people's setups hence forth. Not to mention i'll be making improvements on mine in a short while, mainly the 5.1 dolby surround sound. And the GPS thing is only half true, there IS a GPS solution for macs, however it doesn't do route planning, it only follows your current location on a map.. which all in all is still pretty cool, I think and I just may opt for getting it..
But before all this happens, I have to solve the battery drain issue. I cant seem to run the mac for 15 minutes, when the car is off, without it draining the battery and it's starting to get on my nerves. If the system is on while I drive, I have no problems.
yeah thanks for the comments guys. I am dead sure I can get it to work, and it will cost less then a mac mini with the screen. Right now the motherboard is giving me fits still. I am dead sure that there is a problem with it. First it started smoking with ddr266 type of ram in it. It looks like to me that the ddr266 should work. Specally because that is what it says to use. Well I got some ddr333 and it worked fine in the bottom of my dads computer case fine for a whole day. I unplug it and what not, and bring it into my room to set up windows (And linux) in my room rather then f'ing up my good hard drive, it wouldnt even turn on. So I bring it back into my dads room and the same thing happends. I clear out the cmos and what not, and It will now turn the power supply on, but nothing else. When the ram is out, it will give me a ram beep code but that is it. Sigh. I will prolly have to send it back. If that is what happends, Look for a 300mhz pc to be going into the trunk of my car with a power inverter to a regular case and everything, oh and for that loud thumping and what not, My 120 watt guitar amp hooked up to the computer. All I will have to do is keep a screen in the trunk and start the play list, and then take the screen off to conserve power.
All joking aside, if I cannot get this stupid thing to work in the next little while, I will just have to buy a new one while this one is in for repair. Then I will HAVE to live with two car pc's. Aw it could really suck then.
I would like to think that I have done my homework on this, I have litterly been drooling over a min-itx motherboard for more then 3 years when they were first released. Also, I was planning on putting a computer in a car, I dunno about 5 years ago.
(http://myspace-016.vo.llnwd.net/00183/61/07/183777016_l.jpg)
some updates for ya'lls
(http://myspace-649.vo.llnwd.net/00183/94/68/183778649_l.jpg)
That's lookin good man.. that's lookin' real good. Glad to see another guy who's old dreams are comin' true.
working on a mount for the laptop hard drive right now. I just want to keep it from touching the mainboard. I am still getting all pissed off at it though. I cannot get it to post. Any cards that I put in there will light up and power on. No display from the motherboard. Tried clearing cmos and everything but still no where. Changed out the ram and still dosent work. I litterly have everything that I need exept the power supply. Here is an update on what I have
-Motherboard $125
-PCI riser $8 (with two day shipment from euroupe!)(optional)
-Laptop hard drive $freebie
-2.5" to 3,5" adaptar $8
-256 ddr 400 $25(I think)
-keyboard/mouse $10
-diffrent from freebie laptop drive(mine wont do dvd's) 1of 2 missing parts >$80
-powersupply/controller missing part 2 of 2 >$60
-screen (whoops forgot this one) missing part 3 of 3 >$250
This should include all parts and shipping. The only problem that I have right now is that I cannot get the stupid thing to boot.I cannot even get it to post with just the ram in. No beep codes at all. No display at all, on onboard or pci video card. If I pull the RAM it will give me a ram beep code. This thingy is starting to piss me off. I may just break down and send it in for repair.
This makes me feel so stupid. All brand new parts(almost) and I still cant get it to work. Maybe I will present myself to the mp3car.com forums. I did join before you alex.
man please explain to me this fascinaition you have with wanting to be the first to come up with this idea? I'm in no way trying to be in competition man. It doesn't matter who's done it first, or who thought of it first. All that matters is that those who want to have a computer in their car will have one in their car.
I really hope you get that problem fixed. it looks like you've done a lot of work so i hope it all works out for ya man. But for chrissake, the competition has got to stop. No need to compete against your own kind.. If you want real competition, compete against those rich asses on mp3car who are putting their systems in porches and beamers.
I don't know whether you think I'm rich or something, but I'm not rich man. at all. I shouldn't ahve done this because i put myself in a little debt to do it. The difference between me and others is that I wasn't afraid to put myself in debt to accomplish my goal.
Haha I know i've just gone off on a tangent. I'm happy you're getting this done for a fraction of what it cost me. Because it shows people the other side of the spectrum and shows there are a lot of ways to go about putting a computer in a cougar.
Yeah I am just kinda being a dick arent i? Sorry I guess I do go off on it alittle bit. It was ment to be in good fun but yeah. Sorry about that.
It's all good man,
What size will your screen be anyway?
I dunno for sure yet. I am leaning twoards a 7 inch. I also have decided that it is time to send the computer in for repair.
I was gonna go with the 7 inch. then i figured 800x600 resolution would distort on that so i'd have to run some weird ratio, and since I wasn't 100% sure what combinations the mini would handle, I decided to go with the 8 inch. That's pretty much how the design of retrofitting it right in the dash took place. My original plan was just to mount the screen in that area. actually a 7" would probably fit a lot better if it were to be retrofitted in there.. OH well, I love the 8 inch. I get comments like "you can't even tell its a monitor when it's shut off"
Yeah it is pretty slick. I will prolly just velcrow it over the clock. Maybe make some kind of mount. I want to make it so that it is removable. Or at least really hideable. I just started thinking about it, and I really oughtta get some kind of car alarm or maybe working door locks. The guy I bought the car from gave me the wrong key.
the resolution I think is like 800X420 or something like that. The video card should be able to do that but I am not able to verify that.
yeah so it is such a pain setting up an RMA(return merchendice authorization) through email. Everytime I try calling the hot line it is dead or it tells me the number is disconnected. So I set it up through email, which they just barely got back to me for the first time about. Kinda funny cause I sent them the email a couple of weeks ago. They basically told me to call tech support. Here is what I said.
"I have a mini itx model XXXX and I cannot get it to post. It dosent seem to matter wether the ram is in it or not, it just gives me a ram beep code. I have tested and traded out the ram and have still gotten the same thing."
And here is there response
"What is it doing?"
I am so pissed right now
yeah retarded service techs are no rare commodity. SO what do you think you're gonna end up doing now?
Yeah I dunno. They are dumb I decided
figured it out. Guess I was going to the wrong portion of their company. I was at the on chip support thingy. For sound drivers and things.
finally got the RMA set up. All that I need to do now is ship it to cali(2 states over yeah) and I should get it back soon. I will let you guys know when I have it shipped off.