Thread: car2pc without a headunit?

I have reason to believe that the car2pc adapter is for use with a carpc that still has the stereo head unit. (Maybe your monitor is mounted elsewhere and you kept your stereo?) The adapter takes the place of the CD Changer, which communicates with the stereo head unit, which sends audio to your amp and speakers. The steering wheel controls also communicate with your stereo head unit, so that would make the head unit mandatory.
What I'm wondering is if someone is going to come up with an adapter/harness for the car's wires that would be connecting to the stereo, but now connect to the pc. I assume it would be something like the wiring harness you buy when you buy a new stereo? Only it would integrate the sound and possibly the steering wheel controls into your front end interface... (That actually sounds pretty complicated... Haha) Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, which I may be.

Yeah I completely bypassed the head unit. I'm going from speakers > 5 channel amp > crossover > dac > computer. It's a handful I know but everything is going smooth.

The only reason I'm looking to get the car2pc would just be for the steering wheel controls.. that's the only bad part about removing your head unit is losing the knob. So it sounds like I might be out of luck.. I was hoping that communication would be possible but I didn't have my hopes up too high.

Ya I was pretty disappointed myself.... Haha But who knows, maybe sometime in the near future... I won't hole my breathe though...

Ya I was pretty disappointed myself.... Haha But who knows, maybe sometime in the near future... I won't hold my breathe though...

That looks to be about 1/3 way there... It lets you use your steering wheel on NOT your stock radio, but the problem is still how to translate that to a pc type interface..

I actually used the SWIX to integrate steering wheel control -- you can see more details at my worklog
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/work...e-worklog.html

It looks like the SWIX uses a headunit still.. I just need an interface between my steering wheel controls and the PC..

This "SWIX" lets you use your steering wheel controls on your carpc even w/o a stereo headunit?