car PC

car PC

ok so vortex and I are building a few car PC's one for my car and maby one for his, for those of you that have one how do you like it what features do you have, heres a list of what I'm planning on doing,


e-manage programing (the whole point of the car PC idea)
DVD player
video processer for the video system that I am setting up on the front of my car
bluetooth handsfree phone answerer thing
WiFi for internet access and MP3 loading from my network
mp3 player (hence the MP3 transfer)
GPS navigation

and some other things that I havent thought of yet

the 2 books I got are "GEEK my ride" and carPC hacks from o'reilly
any other ideas and such would be helpful

this is a SERIOUS car pc here. i wana see where this goes

check this site out http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/index.php it answered alot of my question in term of building a carPC. I am currently in the process of building one also. I think Barnacules have one too.

yep already a member over there... infact thats where I'm getting my screen...

Friend of mine has one in his Celica, basically uses it (along with a 7" touchscreen molded into the dash where his deck was) as a deck replacement, has an 80gb hard drive with mp3s and games on it and the wireless receivers hidden in the dash also for his keyboard/mouse/controllers... its awesome fun, plus he has a wireless card so he can pick up and use open wireless networks while driving around...

yep.. its eather that or after I have a job that I can afford to do it... run one of them broadband cards from verizion or cingular and always be connected to my VPN at my house... stream mp3s from my network all the time... only problem anybody who has done this has come up with is dead cell spots where you eather a loose all connectivity or non digital zones where you have to pay per kilobyte... they say gettin hit with a 200 dollar phone bill sucks if you are only parked in one of these places momentarly...

You guys have non digital zones? Up here, I believe that everywhere that there is cell coverage, there is digital coverage...

It's definitely fun having the net in the car...

One thing I remember frmo his build, alot of places we're saying to use notebook hdd because they are more *shock* resistant, so he had tried that but found them too slow (I believe he had a 4200rpm drive, heh), so he put in a regular 7200rpm drive and it's been abotu 8 months now (if I remember correctly) and its stillw orking fine..

Don't let CR98 get wind of this...he'll be wanting that so he can get on VVT-i in rush hour.

thats the last thing I want to do... put my design in a mazda... its bad enough I agreed to put one in Jon's (UKO) VW

I have had a CarPC for almost 2 years now and I love it. Molded 7" touch screen in the dash with an EPIA M10000 Mobo in a custom case where the sunglass box used to be in the console. I have Bluetooth, USB, 1394 for my connectivity and can connect to the internet though my cell phone without taking it out of my pocket. I also have 802.11g wireless networking so when I pull into a business or my garage I'm on high speed internet. I also have my eManage and OBD2 hooked to the CarPC so I can tune without a laptop using a USB or Bluetooth keyboard or the onscreen keyboard if I have enough time to hit all the tiny little buttons. I run RoadRunner as my front end software when I'm driving to make it easy to navigate my music collection. I also have XM sattelite radio routed though the Line-In so I can change my volume with the touch screen and such. So far it has been really great but you will kill a hard drive about once every 6 months if you drive hard while playing music and videos unless you go with a laptop hard drive, but since I couldn't find any 200gb laptop hard drives I setteled for replacing the drive every 6 months or so But anyways the bottom line is I love it and my CarPC is so cool I don't even have a head unit anymore. I also used to have a DVD player connected to the CarPC but found I never used it because with the 200gb hard drive i just loaded everything onto the CarPC so I could access it without swaping shit while driving down the road.

nice.. and the person who I wanted to respond to this is useing it for the exact same thins that I will...

Oh yeah I totally forgot the GPS, I have a USB GPS mouse connected and use Streets and Trips or Mappoint to get around town. Its pretty slick. But just be forwarned that CarPC's are not without there problems and they do need some TLC from time to time to keep the running good.

kinda like a regular 'puter right?

Far worse

explane please!!! dusting screen cleaning defrag of the drives... replaceing drives when they go bad... things like that right

Yes, what kind of TLC does it need? This is all very interesting to hear and I've always wanted to put a comp in the car...

You just gotta re-install software from time to time and USB devices seem semi unreliable in a house but in a car they suck total ass. I have to pull my dash apart to play with USB hubs every so often because the computer won't recognize the devices. But its just minor shit you gotta deal with but it just seems like you can't go a full week without having to tweak something

eh I can deal with that... I was thinking something worse like remounting it in a diffrent spot every month and you cna never put it in the same place cause it knows and it will stab you in your sleep... stuff like that

Actually I have moved my CarPC 3 times now that I think about it and had to change the position and mounting on the hard drive like 10+ times. So if your starting from scratch your in for a ruff one