helaesus2

First off, yeah I know this belongs in the audio forum but I have some 4th gen specific questions.

Ok, I'm gonna get a 7" screen to go into my dash and get a Palm Pilot keyboard and fit it to the slot under the bose unit slot. I read the how-to on fitting the tv and such. No problems there. The difference with what I'm doing is that I am attaching a PC to the screen and was planning on putting it in the trunk. I was gonna run a stripped Linux distro on it and use it mainly as a DVD player and MP3 player. The question is, when i put it into the trunk I am gonna need a AC/DC converter and I dunno what wiring circuits are available in the trunk. Should I bring a wire from the battery all the way back? Or can I tie it into the lights or something. The power supply on it will pull 150-200 watts. I'm doing a road-trip to cali this summer and I want to have a nice pimp car to compete with you guys

Business810

iTrader: (6)

I would just run a wire from the battery, just like if you were setting up an amplifier, but instead for the AC/DC converter. Besides, I don't know if you want that drawing power from some other system that's already there. I don't know THAT much about wiring in cars outside of audio, so there might be a better way.

I had an idea similar to this, but I don't really have the cash. I've always wanted to see someone pull it off. Good luck!

fishpony

iTrader: (2)

sounds like a good idea and yeah i'd run a wire from the battery. what kind of computer are you going to use by the way. i'm looking for a 7 inch monitor what kind are you going to get? o and i saw on ebay a touch screen monitor that you could hook up to a computer u should check it out that would be sweet

helaesus2

I do custom PC work (and I'm DAMN good at it) so I was gonna build a 1ghz t-bird athlon on a mini-ITX mobo. Pack in 256mb of memory and a 160 gb hard drive. I'm gotta keep the power usage to a minimum though and it has to wake-up/go to sleep VERY quickly so I'm gonna customize a linux distrobution. I havent decided on the screen but probably not touch screen since I wanna keep this on a budget. I figure I can hack up a palm pilot keyboard and make it slide in-and out of the dash. touch screen would be nice though.
EDit: to any computer guys out there. How can I make it go to sleep when the car goes off? I thought I might rig it to the power button so when the lights etc. go off the bios sees the voltage change (which is how a modern power button works if I'm right) and powers on/off.

driver824

run a fresh power wire.. if u pull it off the light or whatever then it may cause a power surge and thats not good if ur runnnig a sound through ur speakers.. may blow them out... and even the computer itslef may be damaged..
id have a constant power source on it, have a switch that manually turns it on or off with or with out the car on...

blake

Business810

iTrader: (6)

I've built a few computers myself (that's how I got an idea similar to this) so I might be able to help a bit. I know in some BIOS settings like those on my mobo (and inside windows based operating systems, not sure about linux though) you can set it to automatically sleep if it sits idle for a set amount of time. In this case set it low (maybe 3 minutesor so) so it doesn't kill your battery and you're set. I think trying to work something into the rest of the electronics of the car would just make it a lot more difficult. Don't know much about your voltage change idea though, it might work.

My original idea was similar to yours, but I'd build it as small as possible and mount it under a seat. Cooling might be a bit of an issue, but if you went with an intel processor (slow pentium 4, maybe a pIII) you could get away with passive cooling (no fan, less noise). Then you could just use the power switch to put it to sleep.

Just my .02...

helaesus2

Yeah, I have the PC built already. Got done bout an hour ago. It goes to sleep and draws almst NO power. It wakes up in around 5 seconds. I decided to run a hella stripped windows XP. I wanted the good APM support and some goodies that came with it. I just gotta tweak some of the power settings and I'll be set. Anybody reccomend a good name in touch screens? As soon as I can beat a camera out of somebody I'll post pics.