Car-computer wiring

[TAshifter88]

I was thinking of building a cheap, low end computer that's basically, just capable of using Vista, and putting it in my car for media. I was going to just stick w/ all Vista's required specs, and then invest in a higher-end sound card to put it in, then buy a small touch screen monitor (like 7-10") and put it up in the middle console. Then I'll just run media player form this computer ,and keep all of my music/movies stored on it, rather than having to burden with hooking an ipod up to it, or having to hassle with a bunch of CD's, ESPECIALLY considering that CDs hold SO LITTLE if you prefer having higher bitrates.

No here's where these forums come in //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif. I have a few questions on the side. Frst off... would this even be a good idea? I mean, I have computer parts laying around, so it won't cost much to build. The most expensive thing would be the soundcard, or a 100-200GB hdd. Also, what would be the best way to hook up the computer's signal? For example, the back of most soundcards have the single 3.5mm jack. I know they have 3.5mm jack > RCA adapters, but would that be the least lossy way to do it? And finally, I was considering one last thing. I know that if I have this setup, having a headunit would be a bit of a waste.. I was wondering if there is anything that I can replace the headunit with one of those dvd players that have the flip-out screen. My concern with this, however, is would there be any way I can wire this dvd player to my computer, and instead have THAT be my dvdrom for the computer? That way I can just put a DVD or CD into the player, and control everything like fastforwarding and skipping on the flip-out screen? Basically.. is there any touchscreen in-car dvd player that is compatible as a computer screen? Sounds like QUITE a project, but I have a bit of time on my hand //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif. Thanks everyone //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

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[phyphoestilic 5,000+ posts]

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/ great forum to check out. I would think its basically 3.5mm jack > RCA. My comp runs a 5.1 surround sound system like that. I use 3 seperate 3.5mm ports (Fronts L/R, Rear L/R, Sub/center). As for the DVD indash thing check the forum i gave u. lotta info tehre.

 

[Team Hammer 10+ year member]

There Is Thread already on this,

Try a search in the Lounge

 

[TAshifter88]

ook, thanks. I'll take a look at those forums. I've done a bit of searching around, just have had no luck on the screen problem yet.

 

[theCybe 5,000+ posts]

check www.streetdeck.com and as mentioned, www.mp3car.com

they can help you assemble a complete setup. vista's a bad idea for this imo. it's a pig of an operating system, and you might not be able to find a lot of miniatx boards that'll do well with it.

 

[TAshifter88]

Thx for the info.

I know what you mean about Vista. I'm still not sure I'll run it or not, but I just love the layout of it. I know it's easier to get skins and apply those, but I guess I'll just see what I can build with what parts I have at my house.

As far as the carputer itself is concerned, I think I'll probably just try putting it in as small an ATX enclosure as possible and hide it. The reason I say this is I have all the parts nedded for a 2nd computer lying around, but it's a bunch of stuff like graphcis cards, mobos, and psus. I figure it shouldn't be too hard to hide, and it'd be much cheaper on my part just buying a few pieces and a screen, vs buying a complete new setup. But I'll see what comes up anyways..

 

[Team Hammer 10+ year member]

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=173462&highlight=carputer

Here is the link

 

[spoonraker 10+ year member]

First of all, do NOT do vista, for a lot of reasons.

-It requires a powerful computer, way more than you need for anything you'll be doing in your car. This means you will need a powerful PSU for your parts, and the most powerful DC/DC PSU available is only 320W. You can use an inverter, but that will add noise to your audio system.

-You won't see vista anyway, assuming you run frontend software for music/video/gps/etc....I don't know why you'd ever have a carpc and not use a frontend, do you know how hard it is to click icons and navigate through menus on a touchscreen?

-A lot of programs might not work.

Ok so now....what would I do if I were you? I would use a moderately powerful Micro-ATX board with a low powered processor, nothing above a P4/AMD Athlon, a decent amount of RAM, a big hard drive, and a good sound card.

If you use a Creative Audigy card supported by the kX project drivers you can actually digitally rewire your soundcards channels, and apply eqalization, time delay, and crossover functionality, separately, on each channel. That means from your computer you can equalize all your sound, and split the front, rear, and subwoofer channels into high, mid, and bass channels. Then just wire RCAs from your soundcards outputs into the proper amps and you have a fully active crossover and equalization without buying any hardware other than the amps used to power the speakers.

Anyway, PM me any questions you have about car computers, I'm balls deep in my car pc project right now and have learned a ton.

 

[SilverSquared 10+ year member]

I agree with spoon. DO NOT DO VISTA!!!

I got a soundblaster usb external sound device and it has 1 pair RCA outputs, which go to my 1 pair of AUX. inputs in my headunit. So thats fairly easy.

Another point I agree on is the amount of RAM. Max it out. Its best. I dont think mine is 100% yet, but I dont have any problems with it like it is right now. So thats pretty good. I am only running a 1ghz processor, maybe 1.2, I forget.

DO get the huge HD. When I built mine, I went for just an 80 gig. Which is plenty for just freakin MP3s and pics. But soon I will have to either replace that 80 with more, or get an External HD that doesnt require more power than USB. So get the biggest HD out right now. It'll save you, in the end.

 

[BAD_MAYHEM 10+ year member]

Another way to go is grab a cheapo Dell Optiplex micro atx off ebay.. You can get a p4 box for under $150..

But yea, stay away from vista.. I put it on my desktop and ended up going back to xp

cause the gaming performance sux!

 

[spoonraker 10+ year member]

And like I said before, go with a soundcard that is supported by the kX project drivers, they are amazing. Most Creative Audigy and Audigy 2 cards are supported, there is a list on the wiki article HERE

here's a screenshot of my current set up...I'm just now starting to understand how this all works, but it's pretty amazing. You can digitally route any of our soundcard's audio streams to any of the outputs, through any number of EQs, time delays, or crossovers you want, all digitally controlled.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I've actually got an external processor that does exactly that ^^^^ with computer control. I'll be doing a car PC soon for the sole reason of controlling the processor. I'll integrate a few other features while I'm at it like nav, DVD video, a mic preamp for RTA software, dual monitors with the front end running on one and video on the other. I still haven't decided if I'm going to replace the HU or simply integrate it as well.

 

[TAshifter88]

wow. Thanks for all the direct advice everyone! Ya, I'm starting to look back at those forums supplied and a few others and have noticed some big mistakes I was wanting to go for.

As far as what I'm planning out now, I have a few pieces laying around the place that can assemble a good half of the computer anyways.. I have a Celeron 2.4 Ghz processor (a bit overkill it seems, but still light on the power), and was planning on getting an Intel microATX mobo. I also have a stray IDE 80GB HDD @ 4200rpm, and the mobo I was looking at supports IDE. To top it off, I have a Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic soundcard. I'm guessing that's not compatible with the kX drivers supplied above, but is there an alternative route I could follow instead? I had always thought that X-fi was the more top-end model of creative, so I figured there may have been support somewhere. And lastly, I doubt this will be needed, but I have a stray ATI graphics card thatis somewhat recent, but my guess is that it'll only cause more heat than what's needed. What's everyones' view on that? I have 700mb of extra RAM (atm) as well, but if needed to be upgraded, I can work on that.

As far as software is concerned, you mentioned different front-end software that everyone uses. Does anyone know which software works best (and whe nI mean best, I mean.. just something that works efficiently and has good looks.. not THE BEST). Thx for all the help everyone!

 

[spoonraker 10+ year member]

Well most of the popular front ends work very similar. I use RoadRunner because it's open source and has a very active community. People are always releasing new skins and mods for it, there is a whole section devoted to it on the mp3car.com forums, there is also a detailed skinning tutorial if you want to make your own skin, which is very easy. One feature I like about it a lot is the gestures feature, it makes it much safer to use a touchscreen while driving. You have all your buttons on screen like play/pause, track skip, etc, but with gesturing you can simply draw a line to the right on the screen to go to the next track, from any menu, anywhere on the screen. A line going up is play/pause, down is stop, left is previous track.

As for the computer, go for the Celeron if it doens't use too much power. The hard drive is slow at 4200RPM, and I also believe you will quickly be looking for more storage with only 80Gb. I've got nearly 5Gb of music alone, and most people say I don't have very much music. The movies are where I really start using up space, with each one being 1Gb or more, it adds up pretty quick. Like I said, more RAM is always welcome, it helps programs load faster and keeps your computer from bogging down while browsing big music lists, it's just good in general. The soundcard you have is a good soundcard, it may not be supported by the kX drivers, but even so it's got plenty of features. You can get a 31-band EQ plugin for VST, and a crossover plugin for a media player called Foobar2000, so you basically have most of the kX driver functionality. You'll just have to use a DAC to route all your sound through winamp and Foobar2000...that is asuming the X-Fi supports ASIO.

 

[Randy Savage 5,000+ posts]

Definitely go with a bigger HDD...they are so cheap now, there's no reason not to pick up a larger HDD. I went with an 80gig, and while I still have 25+gigs free, I wish I would have gone with a larger drive. I've migrated about ~10 movies over to my CarPC, in Divx format, and want to do a whole lot more, but with only 25gigs left, can't fit as many as I want //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif