2001SE

How can i connect my laptop to the Bose sound system.
Then i can use winamp and hear hundread of songs instead of burning CDs all the time.

tomz17

sure, get one of those portable CD player FM transmitters.... I've seen them in mail order, auto stores, internet, etc... Then you just plug that little doohicky into your laptop's audio out port, fiddle with the dial until you find a clean frequency, fire up winamp, and tune your FM car radio to the same frequency)

-Tom

PS.. super cool rainy day project...

goto a computer show, pick up a cheap used laptop w/ sound (make sure it has enough bhp to decode mp3's in realtime)
~$150-$300

Buy a power inverter (nothing big... ~$30)

Buy one of those FM transmitters ($~20)

and you got yourself a junior car computer... remove the battery, and you can have it start up/shut down with the car.... (or you can write a small program to have it shut down neatly when ac power is cut)

It would be useful if this laptop had a cd-rom (play burned mp3 discs), and useful if it had a big HD... (compgeeks.com was selling 20gb IBM hd's for ~$150 a few weeks ago)... that's enough to store WEEKS worth of music!!!!

psing23

what do u think is enough power to decode MP3's real time? cause i just got a little laptop that im using that has like i think a 125mhz processor... is it good enough? lemme know

MaineI30

Yup, burning CDs sucks. I have a mini-tower in the trunk. Someone else said you need an inverter -- you really shouldn't use one. You should power it directly from the 12v DC (a computer actually runs off 12v DC also)

Look around for ways to do this.. one good resource is:

http://www.mp3car.com

later,
/aac

tomz17

I'm sure that a really optimized mp3 player could play an mp3 off of a 486 DX processor.... Any pentium should do...

(ps... you don't have a 125 mhz processor, because they don't exist... maybe 120mhz ???, and that would with almost 99% certainty be a pentium class processor...)

As for the power inverter, it is the easiest way to accomplish your goal...(and for $30 will save you a lot of unecessary stress)

Powering a laptop via direct 12v current from your car could be DANGEROUS, if you do not know what you are doing!!! in a standard PC, you use 12V, 5V, and ~2-~3V !!!!, so plugging everything into 12v would be a bad idea... YOU HAVE TO KNOW EXACTLY what you are doing to make sure everything runs within spec !!!


-Tom

MaineI30

I agree with Tom here. Best way to be sure is to get a dc-to-dc power supply for your cpu.

best,
/aac

max2kgle526

http://bubblemax.homestead.com/files/maxp3.htm

CKNY's maxima.

MaineI30

I found inverters cause more problems than they're worth.

/aac

2001SE

thanks guys

this really helped