Thread: off the wall ideas

Originally Posted by masch

Yup, it is less cool, but it achieves the purpose. It'd be cheaper too, to simply just mount driving lights towards the angled sides of the car

Or... if you still want to add to the cool factor, but don't want to deal with the steering interaction:

You can buy a small timer IC or a ready made circuit even, along with some low-speed motors. When the car starts, the motors could be turned on for like 1-2 seconds to turn the lights to face out. When the car is turned off, the motors reverse polarity and turn the lights back to the front position.

I always liked how the pop-up headlights looked. You'd turn the car on, and they'd pop up. Here, you'd turn the car on, and the lights would turn on and then swivel out, increasing your visibility in a cool little display.

Thats a good idea, starting the PC via RFID. I posted a question on the other thread though, these RFID things are new to me.

I woudlnt want it to start the car either, sometimes I just wanna take some items off the boot to my house, I wouldnt want the car to be on then.

But like you said, the distance of the RFID is quite short, is it about 1 meter or what?

here we go again...

For the focused speaker, even if there was one that was easy enough to get and implement, you will have to deal with the microphone. microphones dont work really well in cars, most of the sound is garbled. Unless you chose a good focused microphone and position it in such a way that it receives the sound signal from a certain area on the driver's seat. That means you cant slouch or edge forward while driving.

Microphones can be mounted in endless variety of working positions, so that point is void. Plus dont cops talk over loud speakers, they dont sound garbled do they?

And then, you'll have to assume the driver of the car behind you can hear what you said. What if he has speakers real loud or he's talking on the phone via a bluetooth headset? What if he's in the new Alfa Romeos that wont let through any noise from outside for the extremely quiet cabin area?

Wow, you have to bring up the most extreme situation possible to say this idea wouldnt work. First off, how many of these have i seen on the road? none. Most of the time someone that is tailing me are in normal everyday cars what arent impenetrable to sound--matter of fact, i havent seen one car in my whole life that was sound proof-- point voided.

The fingerprint idea.. well just make sure your hands are never dirty or sweaty, you'll never get to start the car.

Am i mud wrestling before i drive? No. Plus the fingerprinting tech from that mouse says that it is 100%, and the one that are in the new cadillacs dont lock you out if 'your hands...dirty'. Im pretty sure customers wouldve been pretty ****ed off if that happened, and im pretty sure the makers of that mouse weren't lying either. another point voided

The carpc detecting you coming from afar to start the engine and start playing music is a great idea.. but that means you'll have to leave your PC on 24 hours. Try leaving your headlights on for 8 hours while you sleep and see if you can start your car the next morning. And headlights arent even 200W.

Im not explaining this one again, you're going to have to read the replies that i already posted some 2 pages back about this. With the pc that is going to be purchased for this, it would take some 26.6 days to kill the battery to the car if it was on non-stop w/o a recharge.
So thats it, all youre points were ...pointless, please research before you come in with comments that cleary arent correct.

Yeah, but then you';ll need to deal with motors and the mounting of the headlights.. back to the cost factor. Cost not necessarily $$, but time and effort.

How about a steering sensor that simply just turns on the lights facing outwards? No moving parts

Originally Posted by Banderon

How do you know they don't?

I dont, read my post, i didnt say anything about anyone else. I said, 'Im not at all worried about seeing further ahead' nothing about anyone else in that statement

1/ Dont cops pull down a microphone that takes up one of your two hands? I thought you wanted a handsfree operation

2/ Perhaps you havent read my post clearly. I have never said it wouldnt work. I just said it will take a lot of effort which may not be worth the trouble. And it is not extreme, I live in south east asia. Almsot everybody here uses bluetooth headphones.
And while we're at it, almost all of us are about my height an weight too =)

3/ All the fingerprint solutions I have seen that I have used will not give accurate results when your fingers are sweaty. I have come through a lot. And most of all say they are 95-98% accurate. Most of the time I will need to put my thumb about 10 times before it recognizes. Maybe that's how they define accuracy.. it works.. they just didnt say anything about how many times you'll have to try before it works.

4/ Please leave your carPC on for 26 days and see if you can start the car. =) Then talk to me about this one hehe.

Originally Posted by masch

Thats a good idea, starting the PC via RFID. I posted a question on the other thread though, these RFID things are new to me.

I woudlnt want it to start the car either, sometimes I just wanna take some items off the boot to my house, I wouldnt want the car to be on then.

But like you said, the distance of the RFID is quite short, is it about 1 meter or what?

There's active RFID, and passive RFID. Passive is powered by the detector via electromagnetic waves, whereas active is powered by its own power source and is always transmitting its signal when it has power.

Active is long-range (couple meters), while passive is short (a few inches). The EZ-Pass tags use passive, but the detectors they use are huge. The signal they send out is really strong.


I don't know a good way to implement RFID to start the PC. You'd either start it when you don't want to by walking by, or you'd have to be very close already to start it, defeating the purpose.

I think an Aux channel on an alarm's keyfob is the best way.

Originally Posted by bubbrubb

Im not explaining this one again, you're going to have to read the replies that i already posted some 2 pages back about this. With the pc that is going to be purchased for this, it would take some 26.6 days to kill the battery to the car if it was on non-stop w/o a recharge.
So thats it, all youre points were ...pointless, please research before you come in with comments that cleary arent correct.

Didn't you get that the guy's amp, if it was using the full 800 watts, would have drained his battery completely? Your car would not last 26.6 days.

and the saga continues...

1/ Dont cops pull down a microphone that takes up one of your two hands? I thought you wanted a handsfree operation

True, on both accounts, i never said it was going to be hands free, and cops do use a handset to talk threw the microphone. But im certain that there are places that you could put the microphone that could make it handsfree and very clear.

2/ Perhaps you havent read my post clearly. I have never said it wouldnt work. I just said it will take a lot of effort which may not be worth the trouble. And it is not extreme, I live in south east asia. Almsot everybody here uses bluetooth headphones.
And while we're at it, almost all of us are about my height an weight too =)

Oh im read, and interpret your statements. And think its you that needs to slow down and read/interpret what i posted. I never said you said that it wouldnt work, did i? No. I gave examples of the tech supporting my agruments that it would work. Like i said, ive been coming up with facts and data to support my statements, and when someone comes in with what they think would happened it just gets on my nerves. Also, im in america, people here a very different in terms of body weight/height, no one i know is 5lbs of each other.

3/ All the fingerprint solutions I have seen that I have used will not give accurate results when your fingers are sweaty. I have come through a lot. And most of all say they are 95-98% accurate. Most of the time I will need to put my thumb about 10 times before it recognizes. Maybe that's how they define accuracy.. it works.. they just didnt say anything about how many times you'll have to try before it works.

Facts/data? none, who knows what happened when you tried it, who knows if it was in beta or some non-supported test phaze, who knows what circumstances the hardware/software running it was in. Who knows? All I know is this tech is out and working very well in america, must be some east asian hardware that doesnt work or something.

4/ Please leave your carPC on for 26 days and see if you can start the car. =) Then talk to me about this one hehe.

Like i said, its not a normal fully stocked carpc. Its only fuction is to scan finger prints, and or wieght the person getting in the car. So that being said, it doesnt need the power of a normal carpc, and it drain a little more then a car alarm.