As promised, I said I would do a full write up when I did my 2nd carputer creation and install. I'll post an inventory list of what is used, costs, and pictures through the process. The idea for this carputer is to bulid a good quality carpc with fairly low power consumption, not break the bank, be stable and make it show quality.

So here is what I am using.....
(I will add more as I add it to the system)

Computer Hardware:
Epia-M 1ghz motherboard
1 GB PC3200 memory
M2-ATX dc power supply/shutdown sequencer
120gb 7200 rpm w/8mb Seagate 3.5" drive
Qtronix mini keyboard with built in mouse
Logitec Wireless Rumblepad 2
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Computer Software:
Windows Xp SP2
Streetdeck Front End
Centrafuse Front End
Microsoft DirectX 9
Microsoft Windows Media Player 10
Ffdshow DivX codecs
Fraunhoffer DVD codec
Microsoft Speech SDK
CoPilot Live Laptop 9
Alt-Tabber
Girder
Mame32 Arcade
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Other parts:
Power wires (Fused)
Plenty of electrical Connectors (taps, butts)
Extra fan over PSU
Usb extension cords
Powered usb hub
GPS antenna BU-303
WiFi adapter
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Status:.....Finally done! PICS ON PAGE 2
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saved for pictures.....

 

and another.

 

looking forward to this! i'd love to see the car in person some day.

 

Alright, I'm back at it again. I ran into a few design changes and some bad memory which has now been replaced. My original plan for this carputer was to do a recessed floor desing out of mirrored plexi for the box and a cnc'ed aluminum and plexi cover. It was going to cost too much and have too much down time on the G so I scraped that idea. The new plan is to do what everyone so far has said can't be done....fit a mini-itx based carputer into the upper cubby. Above, there is a tease pic of the cubby box partially converted.

 

have you checked out the AOpen Pandora? Fits right into the upper glovebox cubby. That's what I'm doing, should have it complete by the end of the month. Using God_of_CPU's upper glove box DIN converter for a nice easy mounting solution with a aluminum faceplate cut to the size of the AOpen box.

 

How much is this project costing you? I was interested in doing this down the road. Btw, isn't the lining of the upper cubby a felt like material? Wouldn't that be slightly dangerous with heated electric parts such as power supply and etc?

 

Amthar: I looked at the aopen pandora, seems pretty sweet and I was considering that too. My only hesitations were total cost and not seeing benchmarks or reveiws yet. It is a sweet setup if it works well though.

Espresso: Yup, the inner lining is covered with a felt like material, i was a little concerned at first, but I took a lighter (open flame) to it to see if it would flare,light, smoke, melt... and to my surprise, it didn't!

 

The a-open is definitly fast compared to anything by via once you get it up and running. The only major problem I've found with it as a carputer is its boot time. Its BIOS isn't very configuable and it forces you to wait through a network boot and a slow BIOS boot up, it also resumes from hibernate slowly. The sound card audio is also marginal. Other then that I think that its a very fast, well made, and compact machine.

 

The boot times running through Windows XP are indeed very slow. To speed up the boot process you can disable networking related things, but this really is a bad idea if you plan on using wifi. I'm currently working with Linux and Windows CE/XPE engineers right now to try and develop an OS based on XP embedded that will run a front end similar to StreetDeck or CentraFuse. I also had an idea of using a quick boot system similar to the Linux's Instant-On feature on notebooks. Will update you guys when we finish with the project. Oh yeah, I'm also planning on using the Aopen Pandora on my next CarPC and mounting it in the upper glove box.

 

Alright...It's been a while and alot of things have set me back from working on the carputer (moving, knee surgery, G got wrecked). I finally had some time to spare and snapped a few pics of the progress. Enjoy!

 

Just got the car back from the bodyshop and the morons managed to somehow screw up my software on the existing CarPC.... shouldn't be much longer to get the new and improved one in now!

 

what's the progress now? how much did all the parts cost if you don't mind me asking.

 

......I have been in hibernation this week! The pc is still at home waiting to be dropped in. Other than that, I just need to get some clear plexi to finish it off. As far as cost, the pc & power supply/controller was only about $450 or less in parts but alot of labor. I am going to be reusing my usb hub, DW screen, wifi. gps and existing wires from my previous carPC so my out of pocket cost for this upgrade will only be about $450...and thats before I ebay off the previous carPC and power supply/controller.

 

which USb hub are you using? the 7 port 5v one I was using seems too weak to handle the copious amounts of shi* I'm plugging into it.