Complete bolt in Screen/CPU/HD/PS - indash

**nbe1999** · 12-02-2007, 02:42 AM

Spectacular write up and the almost 2 years of follow up to keep everyone up to date is great. I am a newbie at carputers, but can put together a home PC. The software end of it, well, I'll be doing alot of reading/learning. This thread has made alot of decisions for me on which routes I want to take and I appreciate your thoroughness. I have a 2007 Dodge Ram and have only found a couple of documented truckputers in one. Hopefully I get a start on this within the next couple of months and either fab my own case or take the easy way out and buy one from you to get everything started. Lots of learning and planning ahead. Thanks again for the writeup.

Nick

**gla502** · 12-04-2007, 11:24 PM

Hey Joe as usual I need your help!

First of all I tried installing my carpc last night and it was a minor disaster. I don't know about your mustang but mine seems to be seriously cramped in space. It doesn't go all the way back but I think I may have the HD mounted too high so I am going to take the brass spacers off the bottom of the HD case and try again.

I also tried powering the unit on since I had it out there and I got nothing at all. From the harness I have the constant 12v cable connected to the MTX power supply constant 12v and then the ignition wire (from the main harness) together with both "amp turn on" wires (which is from second part of the harness which has the rca plugs and two "amp turn on" wires which turn on the factory amp) and then the negative to the negative. All other wires from the harness are connected to the appropriate ones (FL+ -, FR+ -, RR+ -, RL+ -) and then the rca cables outputting from the computer going into the amp ......I have the amp power cable connected to the battery ran all the way back to the amp and the amp grounded to the back seat. I also have the remote wire connected to the MTX to prevent any popping noises.

Did you have to move any of the factory wiring around or anything else to prepare the dash for the install? The wires I am referring to are on the bottom that control the AC and Fan?

Thanks for any help.

**blk02si** · 12-06-2007, 04:19 PM

Hey Greg,

I did move one of the large wire harness's in the radio area. It was clipped to a dash support I just pulled the clip and relocated it. I won't lie it took me a bit of trial and error to get all the mounting right , esp with the 3.5 hard drive.

For the power I would do this: (fellow embedded OS user) Pull the timer jumper on the m2atx so that it is in dumb mode. Hook up ground, and hook up constant power with a manual on/off switch to the main power of the m2atx. When you juice the main input it will turn everything on. No switched power source needed. When you want to shutdown just pull the main power and everything turns off. One of the benefits of a read only flash install is the drive will never get corrupted in a hard off. Thats been my power scheme since I did the embedded OS install and it runs better everyday.

Hope this helps some, let me know how its going

Its been very

here in MI with temps around 20 degrees. and the PC has been booting fine in sub freezing conditions. Also the whole PC has survived many snow drifts.

**TxAxZxZ** · 12-06-2007, 06:44 PM

Joe,

I finally had time to take my factory radio out and get some dimensions. I've been building a subwoofer component system and just finished up. Here's the dimensions of the OEM radio for a 2007 Jeep Wrangler:

NOTE: the dimensions do not include the factory bezel (D=1", W=8", H=4")

Length (or depth of radio) - 6 1/2"
Width - 7 1/4"
H - 3 1/2"

So now I have a slight problem. The factory radio bezel is exactly the right height for a double din, but the width is larger. The only aftermarket trim kit I can find is this one:

Do you think I will still be able to trim the factory touchscreen bezel to fit in using the trim kit above? If not, I might have to come up with another solution that would involve mounting my touchscreen permanently to the dash (thus making it no longer OEM). What are your thoughts?

I'll still buy a chasis regardless of what I do with the screen. I'm not in too much of a hurry for it. Let me know when it's convenient for you.

Thanks again,

Tazz

**blk02si** · 12-06-2007, 07:11 PM

That chassis would reguire at the maximum size a mini ITX board. I can bend it up for you. The standard is 7" deep, stick a tape measure in there and see if there is any additional depth.

Here is what I configured all morning, HD tuner. So Far I have RR controlling it and sound is the best ive ever heard for a capPC application.

**blk02si** · 12-09-2007, 06:07 PM

Well the RR skin is done and I am deploying this to the carPC. So far the only real problem i've ran into is the .NET that needs to be installed to make the HDradio in RR work. Its a huge bloatware application that must go in the c:/windows folder. So I had to move all the maps off my flash in order to make room for the .NET crap. Blah :P

Anyway I think I am going to upgrade that flash module to a 4 gig extreme 4 sometime in the near future

I will have pix for the thread soon!

**gla502** · 12-09-2007, 07:02 PM

Sounds good make sure you keep us posted on that I can't wait to see the pictures. So I ended up ordering a new M2-ATX power supply from logic supply and I find out I can just ship the broken one back to the manufacturer and they will send me a new one which leaves me with two brand new M2-ATX power supplies. If anyone needs/wants an M2-ATX power supply let me know and I will hook you up with a good deal I am just trying go get my money back since I obviously don't need two of them.

I got my sirius tuner and everything else mounted today with the antenna routed without any wires showing (yes awesome I know). Then I had to make a longer wire w/molex connection to power the usb interface which wasn't hard at all. I will post some pictures soon.

I do have a question for anyone that has knowledge on the issue. The M2-ATX power supply has a feature that eliminates the pop from the amplifier. All you do is hook up the remote wire (from the amp) to the amp pins on the M2-ATX but there is a positive and negative pin on the power supply do I just split the single remote wire into two ( in order to have a positive and negative)? Or do I have to run a wire from the amps ground also?

**cazorp** · 12-09-2007, 07:45 PM

Hi Joe,

Ive been reading this thread for the last few days and have read through the entire thing... i have an 06 mustang and am wanting to do a system completely behind the dash as well ... are you still selling these dash kits??

Also has anyone ever used a high quality sound card for a cpu to run their speakers instead of using a seperate amp?? i do have a few amps laying around I could use but I think if a nice sound card would do it it would be so much better.

Also joe, would you have any interest in building a car pc to specs if I provided any parts you needed and paid you labor??? the only reason I ask is that while I think I have the knowledge to do this I own two businesses and lack time... if not that is ok and im sure i will try anyway.. just curious

Thanks for any help
Zach

**blk02si** · 12-10-2007, 01:35 AM

Hey Zack, I have some dash kits for mustang in stock right now, the finished .063" white aluminum chassis.

You can use a HQ sound card but you will still need an amp. All sound cards put out line level signals.

I would be interested in this project, I have a month off from school starting wedensday

email me we can talk about parts and pricing. joe dot com at gmail dot com.

HD radio is officially done! Took my entire sunday to install but I also did about 4 hours of software update and config. Upgraded to the newest version of RR so I can have my iList support (think apple) and HD radio. I also launched this with the newest version of Shock Skin, v6.0 which will be released to the public as soon as I road test it for a few days. I snapped a bunch of pictures as I my day progressed. As promised here they are starting with the bench test/software re-config.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention I took this time to replace my BIOS battery, time has been starting to act funny so I know that batt was low. Installed a fresh energizer and that solved it.