Thread: My own MP3Car... Where to start?

yep you found the place to be...

best place to start is with your wallet. How much money do you ahve and want to spend. You could easily scrap something together for under 300 dollars.

Easy place to find parts is at a Computer show at a trade center. You can find a case there for 10 bucks. But you may want to slap together some wood or plexiglass if you dont have much room in your car for something big.

DC-DC is nice if you have the money, but many guys like me just use an inverter.

Take a look at our websites and get some ideas together. Everyone has similar ideas yet quite unique setups. Plan it all out: what parts, where are they going to go/fit, and how much money do you have.

Also, do a search on previous posts. You can find all sorts of info on mobo's, sound cards, storage, suspensions, etc.

Good Luck PoBoy

How do you want your setup to look?
Either you can use a really fast computer and spend lots of money, or one fast enough to play mp3s, and get it for 10$ at a computer show.
First, get a computer setup, and playing mp3s at boot. Either Use Dos if its an older one, or windows if you feel like rebooting all the time, or, you could be like me, and use Linux (I haven't changed my .sig yet)
Get the computer playing songs when you turn it on with no intervention.
Next, either spend 80$ on a DC-DC PS and only be able to power you computer, or get a nice 300watt inverter, and be able to use it for other things aswell. Some people claim DC-DC sounds better, I doubt it.
Now, how do you want to control your computer? Remote? Keypad? 2 buttons on a mouse? Pick one. Or, make your own control and hack up an old keyboard or something.
Now, how do you want it to display in the car? Big Expensive TFT? or cheap LCD?
the cheapest TFT you can get is atleast 120$
If you get a LCD, I would suggest getting a serial, there much easier than hdd44780's, cause I just fried my last 2 lcds, and I'm rather po'd!
Now, put it in your car, either in your trunk, or under a seat, most use the trunk.
USE HEAVY GAUGE WIRE, atleast 8 gauge, don't let these idiots tell you to use 12 or 14, 12 is whats in your walls for AC current, your doing DC, and your stretching it pretty dang far aswell, so use some nice 6 or something.
Lexan cases, custom molding, thats all extra,
use the search button at the top of the screen, right next to "Faq"
most of your questions have already been awnsered.
And HAve fun!

Hehehe....On/off switches on the dashboard and Ethernet in the gas filler hole....Must have seen my site...

Anyway, some of the best advice I can give you right now is to read the entire board. It will answer nearly all of your questions, and you will get a really good idea of the wide variety of configurations that others have come up with.

Anyone think it's worth learning Linux just for this purpose? I've never worked with it before.

Its not that hard to pick up on things, plus you dont have to learn it all. There are several versions of Linux out there ie. Caldera that are pretty easy to get going. It does have its advantages, but also disadvantages. But if you are only looking to play songs in a "windows" environment, Linux is a good way to go...but so is MS Windows and DOS :-) hehehe...and Cobra, OS2, etc. Dont want to offend anyone

Personally the ability to use winamp is a big plus with using a windows OS.