First Carputer build

[chkolny541]

well its official, after about 3 weeks of driving in silence em2ab and i got er up and running

my first carputer build!

Im sure there are alot of people out there who didnt even think of going this route, so i figure i might as well show my build and perhaps get people thinking apart from the standard dble din

there were alot of reasons for going towards the carputer route rather than just a standard dble din. I just loved the customization that a carpc offers, i can upload any new skin, create new buttons, add countless plugins, be able to play snes (LOL), have an enormous hard drive, nav,play movies without the gay bypass trick and many other things. The total cost would be estimated at ~800$ all said and done (i needed a 4 chan amp, cost about 350$ alone) which would still be cheaper than a descent dble din with nav.

heres a couple shots, ill upload more as i continue working on it. Its no where near complete, still ALOT of things to tinker around with to get er where i want her to be.

props to em2ab for helping me out with this one

some random stats
mobo- via epia mini itx (built in processor (1.0ghz),graphics and sound card)
ram- 512 mbs
power supply- m1-atx 90 watts
hard drive-180 gigs 2.5"notebook drive
screen 7" xenarc 705TSV
no more cd drive at all :(
will be running iguidance 4.0
will be running snes emulator complete with controller up to front seats
and alot more to come!


and if anyone has any questions just post in this thread rather than a pm, and ill help as best i can

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/chkolny/IMG_0142.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/chkolny/puter2.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/chkolny/puter1.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/chkolny/puter3.jpg
^^front end im running, eLite
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/chkolny/puter4.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/chkolny/civic01.jpg
^car its gone in :)

ill upload more photos as i go

[Zhariak]

Good job!

Looks good!

Whar made you choose Windows over Linux (I've heard theres a few open source car computer UIs that are pretty slick)...

I've though about ripping out the navi in my lade and doing something interesting, but havn't had time yet... If I do I wanna make it SUPER slick, lol

[Zewind]

Pretty cool.


How did you hook up a Nav to a carputer?

[nobb]

Looks great! Would love to see pics of your finalized install. I remember my install used to look like a mess in the trunk too when I first got started. Do you have a link to the SNES emulator that you are using, and maybe comment how feasible it is to use that from a touchscreen? Can you use it with any standard PC game controller? I think that's a neat idea to keep the passengers entertained.

The linux based front ends right now dont offer the same level of refinement as the windows based stuff currently (in my opinion at least).

One thing to point out is that your notebook hard drive most likely wont work when winter hits, so a SSD is something to consider.

[chkolny541]

Originally posted by nobb
Looks great! Would love to see pics of your finalized install. I remember my install used to look like a mess in the trunk too when I first got started. Do you have a link to the SNES emulator that you are using, and maybe comment how feasible it is to use that from a touchscreen? Can you use it with any standard PC game controller? I think that's a neat idea to keep the passengers entertained.

The linux based front ends right now dont offer the same level of refinement as the windows based stuff currently (in my opinion at least).

One thing to point out is that your notebook hard drive most likely wont work when winter hits, so a SSD is something to consider.

im still finalizing the install so ill get those pics up soon.

the snes emulator im using is just http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/snes/snes9x.html this guy here, the ZSNES emulakept crashing my system for some reason.
i hope to be able to create a quick launch button right from eLite to launch snes, but im clueless, so a simple short cut from desktop will have to do for now. And i will just be using a standard usb controller attached to a 4 port usb hub that i ran right up to my drivers seat.

and im not really familiar with linux systems, so just for simplicities sake i chose windows, despite some bonuses to linux i havent ever used it and dont really plan on learning

ive looked into a SSD, but holy shit the price was crazy, ie. my drive was ~80$ (180 gigs) brand new from memory express, the same size drive in a solid state is 530$!. So f that BS. i may look into one next year, but its really all based on price for me, 500$ for a drive is just not happening. And with the issue of drives not working in winter is that ironically the temperature that the drive stops spinning properly is about the same temp that the monitor wont turn on LOL, so it really doesnt matter anyways, haha. ~-20 or so, but we really dont have tooo many days where the base temp dips below that (without windchill) so im not really too concerned, then on those days i really have to only wait ~10 min for the car to warm up then im good again. :dunno: