Thread: My First Car PC - Help !!

heres some search words: epia, opus, digitalww, xenarc, lilliput, mini itx

try these and keep reading

The most important thing that you did not mention is...
How much money are you willing to spend?

IMO, the best you can go for is a VIA M10000 mini-ITX motherboard with an Opus power supply and a Xenarc or Lilliput VGA touchscreen.

dont spoonfeed info, let him search

It's a Civic thing...

... you wouldn't understand.

www.thisstrife.com is a great place for a step by step guide

Originally Posted by CivicDisturbanc

Firstly hi to all on MP3Car...

Just need some good pointers with basics to start with.


Regards

Chris

think about What materials you would need to make a custom casing. I made mine out of wood bolted together with aliminum strips on the insides.

Then I would try go for the integrated motherboard (smaller and no need for riser cards)

LCD display is up to you, mine's a 20x4 character display, smaller and really does the job...

I went the hard way and bought a dc-ac convertor then atx powersupply... looking to the future to purchace a dc-dc...

While youre at the PC shop I would recommend u buy an extra cooling fan, it will prolong the life of your components, it gets hot in the boot!

hmmmm.... thats bout it 4 now.......
Goodluk

Civic thing!! HA!!!
Come On Ricer!! Lets line em up... oh wait... I have a nissan so I win to default. Hahahha Im just kiddin

All of you are missin the key issue here

What are you goin to do with it?
and Noddles is right
How much do you want to spend?

Be sure to plan everything out. Measure Twice, Cut Once. Something I did when I made my sub encloser was make a cardboard temptlant just to make sure everything fit right (forgot to take into account the layer of bondo so now its a real tight fit).
If your worried about how thigns will look in your dash post a thread up here with your images and one of us graphics guys will photochop it up so you can get an idea how it will look.

There is nothing worst than half and ***....

Originally Posted by SjLucky

Civic thing!! HA!!!
Come On Ricer!! Lets line em up... oh wait... I have a nissan so I win to default. Hahahha Im just kiddin

All of you are missin the key issue here

What are you goin to do with it?
and Noddles is right
How much do you want to spend?

Be sure to plan everything out. Measure Twice, Cut Once. Something I did when I made my sub encloser was make a cardboard temptlant just to make sure everything fit right (forgot to take into account the layer of bondo so now its a real tight fit).
If your worried about how thigns will look in your dash post a thread up here with your images and one of us graphics guys will photochop it up so you can get an idea how it will look.

There is nothing worst than half and ***....

Thanks for the replies Guys....

Going to be using it for DVD, MP3 & SatNav plus other things I am sure..
Been looking at the lilliput (sp?) jobbies but am a little concerned about what I have read about the sellers on ebay. Can not be doing with getting ripped off again.

I already have a basic boot install, see here: http://www.cambs-performance.co.uk/civic.htm and would like to incorporate my carpc into it.
I have a GPS receiver which works a treat and is about a small as a box of matches, would like to use a standard 16X DVD drive, or possible a compact laptop type drive. Will have WiFi so I can upload/Download MP3 etc from my main home base unit that is WiFi. Not too sure how to go about the audio side of things. I have already worked out how I can use a SoundBlaster Live card but am still deciding what to do about that !!
May well start off using an inverter with a small ATX psu then go upto a DC/DC one, again will have to see how the pennies stretch on that one. Will also be using a large capacity Laptop Hard Drive, both for space and power consumption. I have a rough idea of the spec of machine I want to build and have set a budget to start with of about £1000 but can upgrade and build on the first system.

Main thing for me to sort first is the screen, If I don't get ripped off from trusty old ebay sellers.

Again Thanks for your comments and Yes, I have been using the Function...

Regards

Chris

well On hookin up the pc to the sterro there are two things that could be done
1) line in on Head Unit (HU)
2) Amps runnin to all your speakers

The first one is the easiest if you have a HU that has a line in. Also you can still listen to the radio or cd without runnin a cd drive to where you can reach it.
Runnin with amps means you dont have to use a HU to control the speakers. This is good if you have the amps (and that depends on what you got runnin in your car) the cool thing about this is that you loose your HU so you get more dash space for your monitor. and today you can get tv cards with radio opitions and jazz like that.

IMO: I would go with a HU just so I dont have to screw around with wires and stuff. (Im lazy like that) Plus I dont want my friends screwin around with my playlist in winamp when they want to play a cd...(I know you can set up WMP to up the cd and winamp wont touch it but still Im anal like that)

Guys did I miss anything??