I got my PC mounted and running. I still need to mount and wire the screen (it's working as you can see in the pics).

I built this using PC parts that I either had laying around, or were given to me for free, so my total cost for the project was under $50. The PC is an Intel D815EEA Socket 370 motherboard with built-in audio and video(w/ AGP Memory add-on module), Celeron 667MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB Maxtor ATA-66 Hard Drive.

Right now it's powered by a 140W DC-AC invertor with a standard 250W ATX Power Supply. But I'm getting alot interference noise with this setup, so I plan on buying a DC-DC ATX Power Supply such as this one.

The Screen is a Crystalfontz 20x4 LCD but I might change this to a 634 USB type screen for easier setup.

Here's the pics (click on thumbnail for larger view):




Future plans are to add a color LCD screen mounted in the glove box with a DVD Drive and mini-keyboard.

 

hope you dont put winblows on that

 

Dude, that's really sweet! Can you post more details on the installation and what you're doing with it? I can see you're playing MP3's with the setup, but are you writing your own software to run stuff? I can't wait to see it when it's done!

 

That's kool man.

 

First off computers for a car are a cool idea. But they pose so many problems that they really aren't practical. First off as you are finding out you have power problems with interference and stuff. Secondly is the whole problem with shutting it down. The best way to get around this is to have your computer running linux and the file system setup with Ext3 or ReiserFS so that if you shut it down without turning the power off you won't do any damage. Also you have to think about the hard drive and the bumps its gonna take. Don't forget to give it a nice cushy ride or you'll be replacing that in no town at all.

All in all the whole idea of a computer in a car is a cool idea, but if all you are gonna do is play mp3s on it then you might as well go out and spend $250 and buy a mp3 deck for your car. It'll work better and look nicer.

 

The power problems will be solved by using the DC ATX power supply I linked in my first post. That will elimate the whole DC-AC/AC-DC conversion and also includes a built in shutdown controller. The shutdown controller will "press" the atx soft power button after predetermined time after the key is shutoff or if battery voltage drops below a certain point. The ATX soft power button will usually do a safe shut down of most operating systems (in Win XP you can chose what it does in the power saving options).

It will eventually do much more than just play mp3's. Right now, that's all my budget of $50 allows me to do with it. It's a regular desktop PC and I can easily add anything to it that can be added to any regular desktop. I'll eventually add a regular screen and a DVD player and possibly a GPS system.

 

Just to play the mp3's, I'm running Windows XP with Winamp. The instructions and software for the LCD text display can be found here: http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/a_diy_lcd/ (thanks to WiLL for this link)

 

wow..........THAT is coool

I wonder if I can do that with my ancient 100mhz computer I have in my closet........................ :thinking:


btw, how do you control the winamp w/ your setup?? where's the keyboard?

 

good start, and It's great that it's a budget system.

Great link for the car/DC atx power supply, I love it.

You don't NEED winXP for your setup, something with less resource requirments will run just as good, and boot/shutdown faster.

When I do my system, I'm going to throw a bunch of memory at it, that way, windows won't be using swap so much, and reading/writing the HD, which is your enemy in a bumpy car.

If I could get it to load entirely into memory, and just load data from a CD, I'd be golden Cheap laptop might be ideal for that (if it has suitable video outputs, I want to control 3 LCDs, semi-independatnly)

Keep up the good work, I like seeing the car/case-modding world meet.

-PHiZ

 

i wanted to build one too, but for me it wasnt worth it. i had an micro pc with a dc to dc psu. a colored lcd screen some usb gps and stuff like that. its hard first of all to integrate it well enough in a way that its going go be user friendly. so for me the best way to do it was buy an old laptop, comes with a car charger and some wireless audio transmitter so that u can use it with ur existing radio. just a suggestion thou from experience.