Thread: my car-computer project... any ideas?

skip the lcd, use an old pda http://www.giantdisc.com/

get a cheap/used head unit with an audio in and fm tuner...maybe even a cd player, or use your stock head unit and use an fm transmitter to send the audio http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/audio/5dab/

power and boot up can be controlled by the opus http://www.opussolutions.com/

since you are only doing audio, you can use the cheapest mini-itx board, the EPIA 5000, this guy sells them on ebay really cheap highquality48

rather than a laptop drive, use the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus8, single platter, thin, but fairly cheap http://www.google.com/

you don't need a cdrom

that's everything you need, but you can add other things to make the system better, like running a from scratch linux from a CF card and loading it to ram disk, and run a linuxbios (with the BIOS Savior, to be safe)

do research, make your own decisions, don't just do what other people tell you

Originally Posted by RobbieIG

skip the lcd, use an old pda http://www.giantdisc.com/

get a cheap/used head unit with an audio in and fm tuner...maybe even a cd player, or use your stock head unit and use an fm transmitter to send the audio http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/audio/5dab/

power and boot up can be controlled by the opus http://www.opussolutions.com/

since you are only doing audio, you can use the cheapest mini-itx board, the EPIA 5000, this guy sells them on ebay really cheap highquality48

rather than a laptop drive, use the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus8, single platter, thin, but fairly cheap http://www.google.com/

you don't need a cdrom

that's everything you need, but you can add other things to make the system better, like running a from scratch linux from a CF card and loading it to ram disk, and run a linuxbios (with the BIOS Savior, to be safe)

ideally, i want to be able to pull my system out of my car and use it elsewhere when i want to. that's why i went along the lines of a military .50 cal ammo case. it's heavy duty, easily portable, and plenty spacey.


i wont be using a laptop drive, i was thinking of just finding a really good deal on a fairly large IDE drive. i dont have anywhere near enough mp3's to fill a 40 gig hard disk, but eventually i may.

it will also be able to be pulled out at friend's houses and plugged into their network to feed off their files. that's why i wanted to go with a power inverter.

the palm solution seems like at best a temporary solution. while, i guess it would work since this is not the final and complete incarnation of this system (will be changing cars), i guess this makes a better temporary solution than trying to mold a lcd into the dash of my current car. (POS that it is.) thanks.

I have a cheap head unit in there already... i'm not sure if it has audio in, though, that's one thing i have to check. eventually in the final incarnation of this system, i hope to be completely doing away with the head unit, and running line level feeds directly to the amp.

i was somewhat thinking about putting a standard 24x cd rom drive in the case itself, and it's not like it'd be hard...what with everything else i'm putting in it, and only opening it when i need to stick new files on the computer...

i prefer to do all my purchasing from a reputable dealer... buying off ebay strikes me as something not to do. hell, it took me almost 2 weeks to build up the courage to trust newegg. yes, i'm a paranoid freak :P

haha, a from scratch linux.... i have enough trouble working with redhat. :P

bump?

alright, i'm bidding on a palm right now, and a the mini-itx mobo...