Suggestions for Wiring Car Computer

I've got a 2006 Mini Cooper S that I've been working on. It's about time to start running wires and I want to make sure I get everything I need ran right on the first shot.

Does anyone see any problems or anything they feel I should add to this?

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/v...12/th_mini.jpg

All devices will be grounded to the same point on chassis. Mouse and keyboard if needed are provided by iphone via airmouse.

The screen mount and dash is almost done.
The docking station for the 210 is still in design phase.
Speakers have been upgraded, crossovers added.
Doors and critical areas have been dynamatted.

Have you researched whether your sound card will work fine plugged into a hub? I know of some USB sound cards that don't work well when plugged into a hub (clicks/pops in sound, driver crashes, etc. M-Audio comes to mind.).

I haven't done much testing with the Audio. I'll give that a try tonight and see if I run into problems. I guess worst case I can move the card back to the laptop and run a shielded cable from my head unit back to the Laptop. Any other devices that do not like a hub?

Last night I learned the laptop does not fit under the seat as well as I hoped so I'm looking at moving it to the back hatch area now.

the touch screen is also a good candidate for direct connection to the computer.

i like to keep, and recommend to keep, nonessential things on hubs, so that if they go out, it will not affect most of the tasks that you'll use the computer for..

for instance, my hub doesn't always work, but all that is connected is my dvd drive, not-in-use gps puck, and 2 usb extensions mounted on the dash-- none are needed for most activities, so when they don't work, it is no big deal. now, part of why they don't work is that i am running out of room on the 5v line on my dsatx, so it is partially my fault, i just haven't built a 5v regulator for it yet..

Sounds like a good idea. I can pretty easily plug the touch screen into the laptop. That will fill all three ports on it. One for touchscreen, one for sound, and one for the hub.

I also just realized that I need to run a wire to the laptop to turn it on/wake it up. The only way I see to do that is to connect to the magnetic reed switch for the lid.

the other 2 options would be wake on lan(WOL), if the netbook supports it, or to open it up, and connect wires to the power button.

there are threads about how to do this in the laptop section that should be able to help more then me if you are interested in either of those methods(i know they exist, but couldn't tell you exactly how to do them)

I opened the laptop last night and removed the hall effect sensor from the motherboard. Now it will atleast run with the screen closed. Next comes the power switch. It's too bad they use all surface mount chips now, it makes soldering a lot harder.

Here is my new diagram:

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/v.../th_mini-1.jpg

i missed that you were connecting the audio card to a headunit-- if you haven't purchased the card yet, first try the audio with the output of the netbook-- in most cases, this will be more then adequate.

if you already have the card, forget i said anything-- the card will have slightly better audio outputs then the netbook(though, it might not be noticable when sending the audio into a headunit).

I've done a lot of thinking about running the sound through a amp and bypassing the stock head unit, but I've kept the head unit for those quick little trips where I don't need the whole pc running.

I've already got a 5 channel kicker and a 5 channel powerbass sitting in the guest room. One problem I kept running into when thinking about the amp was that the output from the computer is two channel so I'm not really getting the full effect of 5 separate channels.

i completely understand-- i keep a aux input connected to my amps for similar reasons.

technically, most audio that you listen to in your car is only 2 channel(the only sources that aren't are movies, and SACD's), a aftermarket deck splits it up for multiple speakers, but it is still 2 channel audio..

there really isn't a good and bad way to do audio. there are many solutions, and all can get audio to the speakers, some just do it better, or differently :)

for the 5 channel amps-- they are usually 4 fullrange channels--ie: the same sound for both front and rear left/right pairs, but the amp is usually setup so that you can control the gain separately for the front and rear. and then they also have a 1ch sub output--which is usually getting the same signal as the other speakers, but uses a lowpass crossover to reinforce the bass..

they could be setup to have 5 individual inputs, but will require using either a sound processor or a 4.1 audio source--with 4.1 encoded media...