Although I've been cruising these forums for a couple of years I'm still a newbie cause I post so little. Anyway if any of you care to see some pics of my new entertainment setup here they are. I haven't put trim around the LCD yet because I'm planning on moving the whole computer system from my trunk to a double din size case that will intergrate with the LCD to be a drop in replacement.

Pic of the GPS with streets 98 (Can't afford new software at the moment)


Pic of Winamp running


Setup in the trunk

 

Now THAT looks clean and sweet! I always drool when I see a nice system.

 

You = cool! I hope you have a good alarm.

 

nice set up
how much did it all cost ya??
did you do your own work?

 

Damm that is sweet, to bad there wasn't enough room for a cdrom in the dash too.

 

Well there is a CD-Rom available if you fold down the pass through into the trunk. I did spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to put a CD-Rom up front in my next rendition but I haven't settled on just using a portable USB drive or actually stuffing one in front. I'm thinking of just stuffing most of my movies (probably all simpsons and futurama episodes) on a huge harddrive anyway.

I did most of the work over a week in the summer. I had my whole car torn apart and wires going everywhere. Nothing was really difficult, just time consuming.

As for the cost I'll try to outline it.


7"LCD $240
GPS Reciever $100
New Speakers (Blew the last ones with the windows chime, Dang!!) $70
Power invertor $50
Video card with video out $100
Cables and wiring $80
X10 Mouse Remote $50

I already had all of the computer equipment on hand.
AMD 6-2 550 + motherboard
2.5GB Harddrive (its small and will only fit a couple hundred mp3's but it was the only drive I had sitting around that I didn't care about.)
ATX Power Supply
192mb Memory
Yamaha Sound Card
Lan Card

The next stage will be to purchase:
Via epia-m motherboard. $120
OPUS DC-DC powersupply $180
40+GB laptop harddrive ?
OLD double din radio to be used as case.

I plan on stuffing everything into the double din size case as a drop in replacement four the stero and cup holder. I actualy might be able to fit in a slim line DVD drive just above the coin tray but I haven't thought about that one to much.

Anyway, thats the layout. Needless to say I'm pretty much broke, and waiting for Christmas to start on stage two.

 

Did you have any problems with the power invertor? Did it cause any noise interference problems?

 

sweeeeeet setup dude....I'm thinking up upgrading my front monitor setup too, squinting to see my 5" screen ain't cutting it anymore.

 

I don't have any noticeable noise from the power invertor bleeding into the system. I did have a problem with noise from the LCD (don't know why) so I actually put it on an AC to DC convertor. So the LCD power goes from 12V DC to 120VAC and then back to 12v DC. It might not be the best system but it works.

For the power supply I would highly recommend getting a DC-DC power supply for the computer. This will be my next big purchase at around 180 dollars but it should eliminate a whole lot of headaches.

Are there any other Max's besides mine and DA-Max who have this type of system in our cars? I have to go take a look at DA-Max's again, I remember looking at his before I built mine to see what it would like like in a Maxima. It helped a lot.

 

yeah Brandon's got a similar setup too with a 7" screen. his old 5" screen setup is the one I have right now in my car....I think Alex90se(??) was one of the first to have the whole computer setup in his 3rd gen too, his setup is really nice as well.

 

You could also set up your system so that instead of using CAT5E cable to run off Wireless...

I was going to do it if i had the money but no mulah!

If its an ATX case you will probably need to get a PCI PCMCIA cradle and a PCMCIA wireless card, and on your computer set up a wireless base station.

This will probably save you a lot of hassle sending a cable down to your car everytime you want to update your song list.

 

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but that will be an additonal $80 for the card and $120? for the base. I have a laptop so if i attempt that, it shouldnt be a problem....Nice setup though. Adamis, concerning your GPS setup....what's the receiver for? Reason I ask is if you have a pc in your car, then why not get a map software installed (like roads) on it? Correct me if i'm wrong, cos what I was thinking was either you get a complete gps system or a system with a remote mouse and screen (like yours) with the software among others installed.

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean. The system I use is Microsoft Streets 98 which uses a Rand Mcnally Street finder GPS reciever plugged into the serial port of the computer. I would use some better software with voice recognition and stuff but I haven't quite settled on which package to go with.

As for the network, I would love to use a wireless system but that again entails a DC-DC computer power supply to do it right. Then you could do a wake on lan feature I believe so you don't have to manually turn the computer on and off. Using a power invertor and leaving it running all of the time would drain the battery to fast.

 

Just a note, couldnt you pop in a second battery just for the puter, have it charged too, then lets say if you wanna throw some mp3 through wireless,it could suck in the other battery for juice, I wouldnt have a clue how to wire that up, just a thought

 

I think you might have a problem with wake on lan, I'm not sure if the wireless nic cards support it. You technically could use two battery's but the thing about that that is it's gonna add a whole lot of weight and take up more trunk space. In theory if you did have a wireless nic system that supported the wake on lan feature and you are using a DC-DC power supply and keeping the computer in standby it might work. I would go to the forums at http://www.mp3car.com and do some searching cause those guys know there stuff.

 

Damn duud, that looks clean, ill give you props for that. That really looks stock, but where is your headunit to control everything?

Good stuff, oh well i managed to screw up the control board to my LCD so i scraped it. It was cool while i had it, but mobile video is kinda overrated, and i dont use my car that much anyways anymore. But damn, the gps is sweet and the way you have your screen setup is sick!

if you want to see pics of mine just check my homepage, its pretty outdated as far as my system goes but that is how the screen looked when i had it in there. Changed the speakers and the amp since then and the sub.

 

Why bother with an actual standard case at all? It seems the most inmprtant components in and of themselves are fairly small, the motherboard, hard drive, and cd drive have you thought about building something in the trunk? something along the lines of a false wall where the car jack goes (or the other side.) Sort of like the "stealth" subwoofers in SUVs. Fairly "Easy" to do. Feel free to PM me if you want more info, i put together a little something like that for one of my friends, too bad he wrecked the car before we even got to build it!

 

I don't have a head unit in my car anymore. All of the music is MP3's stored on the computer. At first I thought I would miss having my AM/FM radio so I tried to get one for the PC but it didn't work with Win2k. After a while I realized that it was really cool to be able to drive for three hours and not have one set of commercials so for now I have ditched the AM/FM thing. Now I'm looking for a large harddrive to stash a ton of music as well as all of the simpsons and futurama episodes I can find. Of course the idea isn't to watch the stuff while I'm driving on my own, but If I have passenger's on a road trip they can watch if they want.

Although I currently have the computer setup in the trunk it is just to bulky for my taste. If I ever wanted to take a long road trip and I need the extra space I have to take the sub and computer out (I would tell people to pack less before I did that) thus making for a very long silent road trip. The idea of doing a false wall is okay but I want everything to go up front. All of the part's that I have scoped out for the next rendition will allow me to fit them in a double din size case and slip it right into the existing double din opening without any modifications to the trim.

 

All the components? You could really do both, have the headunit up front, and then with doube Din sized components, those could be put anywhere really, build a srudy case, and mount under the sdeat and then small guard to protect the components from people with big feet sitting in the back. For my future set up i'm leaning towards reworking the console between the front seats, basically the arm rest area will contain a dvd drive facing towards the dash, and then a disassembled PS2 would be on the reverse side. that way i have access up fron to what i need, navigation, movies, CDS, and the rear passengers get the same, minus access to my music. Putting it all in the Double Din area sounds good, but aren't you going to start running into cooling issues, even though there's nothing intense going on? You've got the hard drive, MB, whatever heat the engine puts off that comes though the firewall, the LCD screen, power supply, and maybe a cd drive, and don't forget the heater when it's cold! and then of course residual heat from when it sits outside hefore the AV kicks in...which all of this could be negligible, but just thwoin stuff out there! I would hate for you to lose a drive full of songs, i did and it's a pain in the @$$!

 

First Off... Madd Props For The Setup. That Looks Great.
Second... I Think You Guys Are Under-Estimating The Convinience Of A Glove Compartment... And The Space In The Doors, Just Below The ArmRest... Just A Few Thoughts And Comments... I'd Like To See A Write-up Of How You Got Everything To Fit Snuggly, And Stay Mounted In, If Possible... Thanx!

 

riiighht.. you find me a computer components that will fit in our puny gloveboxes.. and what are you gonna do in door pockets? put a cd drive in the doors so it can get wet in the rain?

 

so what are you gettiing sound out of? two computer speakers? Or do you have the computer hooked up into an amp thats powering car speakers?

 

The sound goes through the audio out on the sound card into an RCA cable adapter which then plugs into the RCA inputs on the amp. The front speakers are kenwoods cause I blew my old ones, at least up front, the rear speakers I blew also but I haven't had the time or money to replace them. The cool thing about this setup is it is easy to go to a 4 channel surround system system by getting a 4 channel (or 5.1) sound card and a 4 channel amp.

I like the idea of putting the DVD drive in the center console, probably the 16x Slot loading DVD would go good idea if I could get a ribbon cable to it... I'm actually leaning towards using a portable usb2.0 system with a portable dvd drive and harddrive. If I want the extra music or the ability to watch a dvd I can just plug it in and go. From personal experience though it's the music and gps that gets used 99.9 percent of the time. Movies are for long trips with company and I haven't had to many of those come along.

The heat issue I'm not too concerned about for a couple of reasons. The first is the motherboard that I eventually plan on putting in the dash is a VIA Epia board that makes about 4watts of power (I believe thats the specs). I also plan on using a laptop harddrive because it is smaller and able to take more heat and abuse because of its mobile design. As for the DC-DC power supply that could be a problem but I think a few fans should keep it happy. The key is the whole setup hopefully won't be drawing that much juice and creating that much heat.

I would love to do a writeup but I'm gonna wait until I have it completly finished so I don't leave you guys hanging.

 

theres a lot of space behind the dash without a headunit there too.. if you could fashion some sort of flip down monitor setup, maybe having the screen on a pivot you could get a cd drive mounted behind the screen and maybe even peice a computer together back there..

 

Hey guys, just wanted to add a bit.

First off, niiiice setup man, I've wanted to do that for a looong time. Well im a big time computer enthusiast and man alive Ive seen some SMALL stuff, check this link out. Im surprised no one has done this yet, or maybe I havent seen it. I thought it was a great idea, and if peeps were interested I could have something made up that peeps could "drop in".

Heres some parts specs:
Computer
CPU: Intel Celeron 1.2ghz
intel 815e chipset
Memory: 128mb SODIMM max up to 256k
VGA: Onboard 4mb SVGA video up to 1280x1024
Hard Drive: 10gb Mobile Notebook Drive
CDROM: 8x DVD Drive
Integrated 4mb shared memory
IO Ports: 2x Firewire, 1x LAN, 1 Parallel, 1xSerial, 4xUSB, 1xTV out, 1xSVGA out, 1xPS/2 KB, 1xPS/2 Mouse Onboard: 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
and 56K V.90 mod

10gb hard drive aint too bad, plus its upgradeable. But yeah, I was thinking of setting this up with wireless using P-P USB nics, no need for base stations. Second, this thing requires next to no juice, so if you have a big battery, it could run off it for a bit. But like I said, if peeps were actually interested, ide make a few of these.


just ramblin