Thread: CTPC Laptop Mod

I am in the process of finishing a project that has taken 6 months to complete. After several revisions, I have finalized a design for my Car Theater PC using a TP600X laptop. I obtained 10 of these units for free so I had no problem cannibalizing them or rendering them useless after a soldering mistake. The project was to take a paperweight and turn it into a portable media center without ending up with a Frankenstein pc. I started with a PIII 500, 192meg memory and 40gig hd. I maxed out the memory to 576megs ($65 on ebay), gutted the chassis of internal modem, ps2 port, and docking port, and serial port. I hardwired the s-video/composite connectors ($10 adapter on Ebay) onto the external video board (TP600x upgrade option included on this model) and mounted the s-video connector where the PS2 port was. Then reversed the PCMCIA cage making a vacant hole where the push-button release for the PCMCIA cage was, creating a new home for the composite connector. In the course of reversing the PCMCIA cage, I lost the use of the lower PCMCIA port but added a 4 port USB 2.0 adapter ($14 on Ebay) to the top PCMCIA slot. I hardwired the USB power from the docking port power after using a volt meter to find available power and replace the 4 female USB ports with USB extension cables($8 on Ebay). I then added a Netgear wireless N USB adapter ($23 on Ebay), Targus RF USB presenter mouse ($16 on Ebay), A bluetooth USB adapter ($7 on Ebay), and a serial X10 RF universal Pc remote ($13 on Ebay) to the chassis. I removed the external floppy adapter and used the hole to install the remaining USB 2.0 port. In order to install the serial RF adapter, I had to remove the serial port and solder leads to the female connector to keep everything internal. An afterthought was to hard-wire the existing headphone port to the audio-in port and disable to audio-in function to create dual headphone outputs. This laptop is going to be installed in the rear tire well pocket of a new Honda Odyssey and powered from a DC car power adapter (a cool find from the junk parts closet at work). The Odyssey has a convenient power port in the rear of the van. Next, I drilled a hole on the inside of the tire well pocket through the external A/V compartment next to the third row seat and ran A/V cables from the DVD input ports to the tire well pocket. The final step was to install stripped down XP pro, J.River media center, and all the A/V Codecs I could find in order to run all my kids Disney movies I converted to avi. The laptop is now a fully functional portable media center pc that looks exactly like it did before the mod. My next big hurdle was finding a way to power the thing up when the car was turned on. I settled on a "1 CH RF Wireless Remote Control Momentary/Toggle Robot" I found on Ebay for $14. I thought I could install the remote in the dash, replacing one of the blank buttons with a real one. Now I have to figure out a way to power the robot receiver. It requires a 12vdc, 6mah power supply. I would like to utilize the laptop battery if possible but I found that it's output is 10.8vdc at 1500mah. I'm not sure how to proceed without finding a 12vdc 6mah car power supply and installing a new power port on the laptop. After I purchased the robot, I discovered this site and saw the thread: "Laptop Auto Power-On / Turn-On Module" which I thought would be the ideal fall back plan if the RF remote thing got too complicated. The downside to that is it requires more cables being plugged into the laptop creating the unsightly Frankenstein effect I was hoping to avoid. Does anyone have any suggestions for me regarding this? I would love to share pics and thoughts if anyone's interested.