those with a carputer...
03-11-2005, 07:49 AM
#41
vicodin ... gift of life
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: norcal
Posts: 5,401
Before you guys start a project, it's best to put a price tag on it and stay within those limits.
There are SO MANY options available now.
First, start with a motherboard. Take a look at VIA products, they have some pretty exciting stuff. 1ghz+ is the way to go now if you want a decent media-driven system.
Powering it is your second issue. Most of the VIA boards take a standard ATX power (harness). There are many products available for the VIA boards as well. There are some issues to keep in mind like having the system survive (doesn't reboot) when the car is cranking. Also, most of these power supplies (DC-DC) have features like auto-on when the car starts up and auto-shutdown when the car is turned off. OPUS is one company that comes to mind, as well as many ITUNER products.
Now, worry about your display and interface. Personally, I say you save up for a VGA touchscreen. They are about ~$300 for the lilliput screens. Alot of people have complained about them, but I would recommend them. I have spoken directly with the manufacturer as well as a few distributers and all of them have confirmed that their latest screens have a new power controller (weak link before that people had issues about).
Keep in mind that both lilliput and xenarc use the same LCD screens, just different power boards.
Now, you'll need some sort of GUI. MediaEngine is pretty good, based on winamp. It is skinnable so you can play with it and make something customized to your needs.
If your system is not going to fit in a single or double din (at this point not really possible with mini-itx boards), you might as well get a standard 3.5" harddrive.
GPS is a must-have if you are going to be building a carputer. I recommend the Rikaline GPS mouse that you can easily find on ebay for about $50-$60. The BU-303 GPS mouse is pretty good too. I have both, both of them are great and lock sattelites quickly.
There are different O/S to consider, but for the average carputer enthusiast, you can stick with XP.
As far as all the other fine details, like GPS software, and whatnot, check out MP3Car Forums.
I am working on a similar project... hopefully to be done by Summer. I've spent alot of money and time, testing a bunch of different products, and my feedback here is based off of first-hand experience.
I'm now involved with some of the embedded solutions that aren't found on the consumer-level.... so much available since last year. The project has taken forever now, but soon, I'll have my own hardware and software up and running.
There are SO MANY options available now.
First, start with a motherboard. Take a look at VIA products, they have some pretty exciting stuff. 1ghz+ is the way to go now if you want a decent media-driven system.
Powering it is your second issue. Most of the VIA boards take a standard ATX power (harness). There are many products available for the VIA boards as well. There are some issues to keep in mind like having the system survive (doesn't reboot) when the car is cranking. Also, most of these power supplies (DC-DC) have features like auto-on when the car starts up and auto-shutdown when the car is turned off. OPUS is one company that comes to mind, as well as many ITUNER products.
Now, worry about your display and interface. Personally, I say you save up for a VGA touchscreen. They are about ~$300 for the lilliput screens. Alot of people have complained about them, but I would recommend them. I have spoken directly with the manufacturer as well as a few distributers and all of them have confirmed that their latest screens have a new power controller (weak link before that people had issues about).
Keep in mind that both lilliput and xenarc use the same LCD screens, just different power boards.
Now, you'll need some sort of GUI. MediaEngine is pretty good, based on winamp. It is skinnable so you can play with it and make something customized to your needs.
If your system is not going to fit in a single or double din (at this point not really possible with mini-itx boards), you might as well get a standard 3.5" harddrive.
GPS is a must-have if you are going to be building a carputer. I recommend the Rikaline GPS mouse that you can easily find on ebay for about $50-$60. The BU-303 GPS mouse is pretty good too. I have both, both of them are great and lock sattelites quickly.
There are different O/S to consider, but for the average carputer enthusiast, you can stick with XP.
As far as all the other fine details, like GPS software, and whatnot, check out MP3Car Forums.
I am working on a similar project... hopefully to be done by Summer. I've spent alot of money and time, testing a bunch of different products, and my feedback here is based off of first-hand experience.
I'm now involved with some of the embedded solutions that aren't found on the consumer-level.... so much available since last year. The project has taken forever now, but soon, I'll have my own hardware and software up and running.
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