Thinking about a carputer

[97chameleonbird 10+ year member]

Sorry to hijack but, sicaudio, how do you run a hd on a headunit? Is it possible to use a double din touchscreen to somehow nav it? You can send a pm if you don't wanna flood this thread. Thanks.

 

[SicAudio 5,000+ posts]

HDD not hd... HDD is a hard drive lol

most ( but not all ) units that have a usb port will allow a HDD hooked to it for music.

 

[97chameleonbird 10+ year member]

Yea I meant hard drive. I always heard that they wouldn't read it though. So as long as it has USB it can? Do you know how it displays on a touchscreen, or are they all different.

 

[SicAudio 5,000+ posts]

they are all dif...

but similar.. the deck has to say it will read HDD tho... thats why I said not all //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

on my Pioneer premier it reads just as if it was a cd with MP3 on it... all the info is the same..

 

[Bassin Buick]

best bet is to find a HDD that is powered seperately (not through USB) most decks only have 500ma of current on the usb which is not enough for most large HDD's.

 

[budahbuddy803 10+ year member]

best bet is to find a HDD that is powered seperately (not through USB) most decks only have 500ma of current on the usb which is not enough for most large HDD's.

I want something to hook my 1tb HDD up to it. It needs an external power source, but I would easily do that. Be able to watch all my movies and access all my music all through my HU. Is the such a thing?

 

[SicAudio 5,000+ posts]

not that I know of...

all the decks I know of only allow music and nothing else on the HDD...

my Pioneer can have upto a 250 gig USB powered drive.. 500gig if it is powered externally..

 

[Haunz 10+ year member]

i was thinking the same thing. I Don't think the internal sound card is up to the task. Probably terrible SQ on it.

The internal sound card should be more then adequate, but may require some additional processing depending on the rest of the equipment and what you want to do...

The biggest concern with carputers is finding a proper power supply with an isolated floating ground - you are likely to run into ground loop and other noise problems otherwise... In your case you could try a simple power inverter and the stock power pack but your results may vary...

 

[Bassin Buick]

The internal sound card should be more then adequate, but may require some additional processing depending on the rest of the equipment and what you want to do...
The biggest concern with carputers is finding a proper power supply with an isolated floating ground - you are likely to run into ground loop and other noise problems otherwise... In your case you could try a simple power inverter and the stock power pack but your results may vary...

I think it will be ok , like you said with additional processing. Mainly a simple line driver/eq or a line driver feeding a xover.

 

[SicAudio 5,000+ posts]

most onboard soundcards are crap... if it has an actual removeable pci or pcie soundcard they are usually fairly decent..and should work but don't bank on it.. when you amplify a basic soundcard you here all kinds of stuff you dont hear on PC speakers..

try it on your home stereo... lots of white noise...

 

[Bassin Buick]

most onboard soundcards are crap... if it has an actual removeable pci or pcie soundcard they are usually fairly decent..and should work but don't bank on it.. when you amplify a basic soundcard you here all kinds of stuff you dont hear on PC speakers..
try it on your home stereo... lots of white noise...

I have done it before. Integrated is terrible and my old sound blaster live is mediocre at best. I'm gonna scout out some usb cards that look decent and also i'm gonna go set up the bench and see if i get any noise outta the built in sound. also see how much voltage it puts out. I don't know how i can measure it so i'll just plug it up to an amp and see if i have to drastically turn the gains up for decent volume.

BTW , i have been trying out some of the carputer software and centrafuse is by far my favorite so far. ride runner is lame as hell. relies on other programs to work and its slow as all get out.

 

[SicAudio 5,000+ posts]

well Haunz is never wrong..... lol just ask him..

too measure the outputs hook up the rca ect to it and use a dmm to measure the voltage //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif the shield is the negative the pin is positive..

 

[Bassin Buick]

well it's settled. my integrated sound is pretty **** good. So i'm gonna do it. Gotta get a EQ/Line Driver/Crossover. Tried out several front end programs and settled on centrafuse 3.1 with the aura skin. Debating on which screen to pick up , and trying to find 2 non touchscreens that allow VGA inputs for the headrests. I'm in love with the features of the carputer over a DD touchscreen headunit. For the money there is a lot more features.

 

[Bassin Buick]

Pretty much settled on a Audiocontrol 2xs for the line driver/crossover. When money permits this should be pretty nice.

 

[d77543020 10+ year member]

just get a ipad,a nice deck to run the signal threw and some fiberglass and call it a day