Skipping the newbie forum...

**Pestilence** · 03-16-2005, 01:12 AM

Hi all, I've been reading a lot here over the last week to get some ideas (A TON!) for my truck install. I've been dreaming of a computer in my truck for almost 8 years now and have finally started rolling on it.

I want to share some pics of my F-150 install as I progress with it.

This first pic is a corner view of my creation sitting in it's new home. It's a Via EPIA M10000 motherboard with an 80gb drive and a 90 watt power supply I originally bought for my i-opener (remember those?). I've constructed a plexi subframe to hold all the computer components plus my old mp3 deck. Tonight I got the sleeve from my deck positioned correctly and pop-rivited into the plexi frame. I'm using up the area formerly occupied by my heater/ac controls. Those will eventually be housed in a pod I'll make and attach to the lower dash below the cig lighter/cupholder.

The next pic shows the same thing but from the front. I was amazed at how much room is available in the F-150 when you remove the existing radio mounts and the climate controls.

This last one (for now) is a pic of everything with the dash bezel and deck bezel in place and my lilliput bezel propped in place (but angled back since I haven't cut the dash bezel away to make room for it yet). The climate controls take the place of my cup holders for now so I can run the heater in the morning and the ac in the afternoon (Arizona this time of year is like that

)

Next step will be to kitty-hair the bezels together and start sanding. After that I still need to receive and wire in my shutdown controller I ordered from the mp3car store, then I can polish everything up and texture and paint it. Hopefully it won't be more than a week or so to finally realize my dream

**frodobaggins** · 03-16-2005, 02:19 AM

Pics don't work.

**Pestilence** · 03-16-2005, 07:14 AM

DOH! should work now.

**Dudes99** · 03-16-2005, 09:59 AM

Nope.

**wizawuza** · 03-16-2005, 10:02 AM

works for me.

Nice placement for the mobo, must help a lot with wiring! Just make sure that sucker doesn't overheat in there.

**Dudes99** · 03-16-2005, 10:10 AM

I wanna see! Still no pics.................. tried a few tricks to.

**Pestilence** · 03-16-2005, 10:14 AM

That's one of the cool things about placing it there - it's RIGHT in front of the main air conditioning duct. I'm probably going to drill a couple of smallish holes in the duct and place a filter over them so I can get cool air to the system in the summer and a little heat if it's REALLY cold out. I don't use the heater much in arizona, but if I lived someplace with very cold winters and ran the heater a lot i'd rig a way to shut off the airflow if the heater is running.

It'd be sweet to set up a temp monitor and make the computer cool/heat itself by controlling a valve in the duct