My new carputer

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:28 am

Just a quick post for the moment, as I've got to go to work in a few minutes.

I installed the screens last night, they're not yet recieving a picture as I thought my laptop used RCA as tv-out but apparently it's S-Video so I need to buy an adapter today.

I've got more pics and info to come for people interested in setting one of these up.

For the moment I'll just leave you with an image;

(Yes, I know my car is dirty atm

And, no, I havn't concealed the wires yet)

scarecrow · Post by **scarecrow** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:04 am

I love that you used a laptop

Easiest way to get a carputer running with minimum fuss. The screens will look great once those wires are tidied up! Oh, will the laptop fit away somewhere unseen? Like, in the glovebox or something? And are one of those screens touch sensitive or are you using another sort of input?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but you should be able (if the laptop had an external transformer) wire it straight up to your car's battery

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:01 pm

scarecrow wrote:I love that you used a laptop Easiest way to get a carputer running with minimum fuss. The screens will look great once those wires are tidied up! Oh, will the laptop fit away somewhere unseen? Like, in the glovebox or something? And are one of those screens touch sensitive or are you using another sort of input?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but you should be able (if the laptop had an external transformer) wire it straight up to your car's battery

Both are touch screens, yeah. I only bought the 8" cos I found it on ebay really cheap, which turned out to be a good thing cos I think I accidently fried the 7"

I'm in touch with the manufacturer and we're trying to find a solution. That's what I get for doing it before work and stressing as the time got later, and later... and later

I've got the laptop in the boot cos I use my glove box and I didn't want it near the heater plumes at all (if you notice, the stuff in the glove box actually gets quite warm with the heater on). So i've got it in the boot, and I've bought a raised cooling pad for it to rest on, which should come this week.

I believe there is some way of wiring the laptop to the car battery, but I didn't bother trying, it wasn't that much trouble to just buy a power inverter from autobarn and use that.

I've got more pics and stuff to come. TV/FM Reciever comes this week also so I'll upload pics when I've got all that working

khunjeng · Post by **khunjeng** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:39 pm

mate love your idea...I'LL come down to your house and have a look. where abouts in Wantirna are u??

so if i'm guessing correct, you have a laptop in the boot with a touchscreen hooked up in the cdplayer area there??

I've wanted to do this for ages...how much the touch screen cost?? I was planning on buying an industrial computer and mounting that in the boot and hooking it up to the battery direct...

shue · Post by **shue** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:52 pm

man this is exactly what ive been wanting to do. touchscreen with a laptop. do u have a headunit or u using the soundcard from the laptop for sound?

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:19 pm

khunjeng wrote:mate love your idea...I'LL come down to your house and have a look. where abouts in Wantirna are u??

so if i'm guessing correct, you have a laptop in the boot with a touchscreen hooked up in the cdplayer area there??

I've wanted to do this for ages...how much the touch screen cost?? I was planning on buying an industrial computer and mounting that in the boot and hooking it up to the battery direct...

When I'm done, khunjeng, I'll definitly catch up with you and show you how it all works. At the moment, it's not quite there, and I'd rather show it off when it's all completed

I bought the 7" touch screen direct from the manufacturer for ~$217US + bank fees, it worked out to $318 all up.

The bank fee killed the good deal I was getting because they only accepted wire transfer as a payment, which was a $28 fee.

I can get more from them, but unless it's 5+ it really doesn't work out to be any better than buying it from a seller on Ebay. You save about $10, but you have to go through all the wire transfer paperwork, which is a nightmare.

I stumbled across the 8" on ebay, monitored it and no-one bidded so I grabbed it for $200. Huge bargain, but the quality isn't as good as the 7", both picture and weight wise. It's so bloody heavy I'm having a hard time finding a permanent solution for keeping it attached to that dash like it is.

I'm just about to go searching for solutions at bunings, infact.

Yes, I took out the CD player, and had to modify the holder to cater for the screen. Pain in the arse to do, but worked out well in the end.

shue wrote:man this is exactly what ive been wanting to do. touchscreen with a laptop. do u have a headunit or u using the soundcard from the laptop for sound?

I'm using the laptops built in sound card for sound at the moment (3.5mm jack->rca adapter). However, the later plan is to buy one of the Creative USB sound cards and hook up 5.1, but that wont happen until I get my stereo system done.

By the way, the reason I'm using two screens is because I'm looking at doing multiple desktops. So that the passenger can do their own thing without distrupting the workings of the driver. So for example, if GPS is on the centre screen, and the passenger wants to watch a music video/movie, or whatever, they can. This will save fights between myself and the GF who loves to distrupt things

That's the theory, anyway. Hopefully it plans out well.

Like I said guys, I'm gonna post full details on how I did this for my needs, and references for other people to read so that it may help them complete their project.

I actually burned a few hundred bucks doing this, just because what I had planned to do didn't work out to how it needed to be done. So I hope to save someone else the trouble!

Post by **Supplanter** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:41 pm

I'll be doing things a little bit differently to that... mostly because I am poor

What brands of screens are you using?
What front end?

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 9:15 am

Supplanter wrote:I'll be doing things a little bit differently to that... mostly because I am poor

What brands of screens are you using?
What front end?

Lilliput for the 7" where the stereo is, and some weird brand for the 8" that I havn't heard of.

RoadRunner as the front-end for now, but I'm going to make my own eventually. RoadRunner is the best front-end I've found so far, but it still doesn't do everything the way I'd like it.

khunjeng · Post by **khunjeng** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 11:33 am

nar looks swee. dunno if I would be "allowed" to do this anyway...

rnbboi · Post by **rnbboi** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 11:56 am

just want to post up this link for those interested in this setup. It has an abundance of info...

http://www.mp3car.com/

lawrencetlc · Post by **lawrencetlc** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:59 pm

hi!

The screens look so cool!!! i hope i have one...

But, well,

what do you need a screen there for? is it just purely for GPS? or... can you install a game in your laptop so that the passenger can play with it while you're driving?

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:17 pm

lawrencetlc wrote:hi!

The screens look so cool!!! i hope i have one...

But, well, what do you need a screen there for? is it just purely for GPS? or... can you install a game in your laptop so that the passenger can play with it while you're driving?

I assume you're talking about the 8" screen mounted on the dash? There's also one mounted in the centre console...

Well, since 7" broken atm, the 8" is my main one until the manufacturer and I have sorted out what's wrong with it and how I can fix it. But when I get the 7" fixed or replaced, the 8" will be used as a secondary screen. I'm toying with a few ideas for it, but i'll post them when the time comes.

I'm not at home for the next week or so, but when I get back to normal routine I'll post up more pictures, and info.

Phase 1 is working and almost completed, then phase 2 will begin.

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:32 pm

Here's a couple of pics I just took. Only one screen at the moment, the other is on its way back to China to be fixed after me screwing it up. Must say that I'm impressed with Lilliput's service thus far, but I'll let you know how it all goes at the end.

Boot is kind of a mess at the moment with all the wires, I've left lots of excess just because I don't yet know where each item will end up. Phase 2 is a custom frame to hold everything. Just gotta work out what design I'm going to make.

In the boot atm:

* Black-box - Power relay to ensure that all power is cut off to the inverter is off when the car is off: $10-20 in parts from dicksmith.
* Power inverter: 300W - $80 from autobarn
* Kenwood 320W 4 Channel amp: $115 from ebay
* NEC Laptop - 900mhz, nothing flash.
* 2 fan, blue neon, raised USB notebook cooler: $35 from ebay
* Digital TV USB reciever: $56 from ebay

bobz · Post by **bobz** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:03 am

Mate I love your project and I think you have it all worked out, but remove that passanger screen, if you have an accident your passanger being your GF will be wearing this screen for a face from that moment on. I know no one plans to have an accident but we also buy insurance just in case.

BobZ

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:48 am

bobz wrote:Mate I love your project and I think you have it all worked out, but remove that passanger screen, if you have an accident your passanger being your GF will be wearing this screen for a face from that moment on. I know no one plans to have an accident but we also buy insurance just in case.

BobZ

Hm, you know that never even crossed my mind. Damn you! I'll see what I can figure out, maybe I'll roof mount it or something..

khunjeng · Post by **khunjeng** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:19 am

u dont live on cantubury road by any chance? loooks good though

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:21 am

khunjeng wrote:u dont live on cantubury road by any chance? loooks good though

nah bud, i live 2 minutes from Knox City. Half way between High Street Road, and Ferntree Gully Road.

Post by **I8A4RE** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:33 pm

I know this is slightly off topic but that hasnt stopped anyone before lol.
where did u get your neons (inder car and in foot wells) from and r u happy with them
r they bright enough
and do they have different modes

noccers · Post by **noccers** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:29 pm

I8AFRE wrote:I know this is slightly off topic but that hasnt stopped anyone before lol.
where did u get your neons (inder car and in foot wells) from and r u happy with them
r they bright enough
and do they have different modes

heh.

I bought the ones for inside the car from autobarn for $12 a piece, and the under-car ones from one of the members on here. They're bright enough, but they're not long enough, as you can see there's a slight gap at the start and the end of the sides, and I'm anal so that pisses me off.

If you're looking to get ones for under the car I suggest putting water proof tape, or painting the half that's going to face outside the car.

In my opinion it looks really sh*t if you can see the neon its self under the car; having one side blacked out gives a little bit of illusion. Obviously you black them out once you have them on the car and at the angle that's best for you.

I don't really use the under-car ones though, mainly for photos.

The ones I got are similar to this, but mine has only 7 colours and no remote.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/LED-Neon-Underca ... dZViewItem

kizl · Post by **kizl** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:10 pm

noccers wrote:Both are touch screens, yeah.

A quick question on the touch screens - what type of connection back to your laptop do you need to get them working?

You can buy double din, touchscreen head units of eBay pretty cheap that have AV inputs, but can you connect a laptop up to these and use the touch screen to send inputs back to the laptop?

My idea is as follows:

double din touchscreen head unit, connected to laptop, connected to ECU. In theory, as well as having music, movies, GPS on your head unit, you would also get all the benefits of your PC and could have readouts from your ECU.

But is this possible? Should I just get a double din head unit and use it for its intended purpose and have a second screen linked to the laptop (and ECU), and will the touchscreen of a standalone screen feedback to a laptop any better than the touchscreen in the head unit?