Thread: Jeep Liberty Project

Originally Posted by BugNuker

Hello people.
I've been visiting mp3car.com for almost 2 years now.
I have had 2 vehicles I have always wanted to put a PC in.
I am a software developer, super g33k and these are the things I like to do
Anyways.
Let me tell you what I've got so far.
I have a PC under my passenger seat in my jeep. Its a small form factor compaq PC I bought a while back.
Its not made for a car, its nothing special really.
It just happened to fit under the seat and so I went with it.
Its a 2.2GHz Celeron. W00t!
I cant even remember how much ram it has. prob a gig.
This PC is running Windows XP sp2.
I've had this pc in my jeep for 1 year now. I had a wifi router in my jeep hooked up to the carPC. I then would connect to my "roaming" hotspot and VPN to my carPC to use it. Lame. but it worked.
the only thing I did with my carPC at this time was for a camera.
I installed a cam in the front of my jeep. I ran cables to my carPC and it was able to record video on my trips. I then did time lapse vidoes, like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqBK0lAY7Qw
This was fun. The videos were cool to watch.
I got bored with it, and wanted something more.
I got my cell phone to connect to my carPC over BT.
I then can share internet to my carPC (and, side note, using ICS, i can share the internet over the wifi router, meaning anyone within range can have free internet. People love playing PSP or DS over the internet while on the road. fun stuff)

After getting internet on my carPC, i wanted the ability to send pictures from my cam to the internet, in real time.
This way people can see my trip.
I use webcamXP to manage my cams in my jeep. WebcamXP lets me auto HTTP post a picture at a given interval. I wrote a quick ASP.NET application that takes these pictures, and puts them into my webpage.
thats here:
http://jeepcam.nukernet.com
Now, my carPC uploads a picture, of wherever I am, every 10 seconds. (if I have internnet)
The camera installed in my jeep is over one year old. Its an indoor spy cam (nice and small).
The video used to be really good on it. But after hitting the cam on some rocks, rain, snow, its losing it quality fast. I bought the cam for 30.00 at frys electonics, so I'll just buy another two or so and replace them. Easy replacement.
so, now I have my self a pretty neat setup. But its not doing any of the cool stuff you would EXPECT from a carPC. Where is my media? where is the GPS, and, for the love of god, why do I have to use VNC???

Step into Touch Screen mode.
As someone that reads this will probably know, live.com and ebay were doing 30% cash back around blackfriday.
I was able to buy a 7inch touch screen (liliput, the 2008 model) for 120.00 shipped.
Thats just too good of a deal to pass down.
I bought that sucker.
Now I am trying to follow everything in these forums on how to install and get a carPC working right.
I've installed iNav and centrafuse.
I am working on getting the plugin for CF and iNav.
I have GPS working with a bluetooth GPS.
I have cell phone internet working (always was)

my goal:
I want to mount this LCD in my dash, and replace the fac radio. not sure if thats a good idea, but others have seem to done it.
I want to get OBD working, possibly even temp controls on the touch screen.
I want to get live webcam and chat working on the jeep (3g speeds will be fast enough to let me have a live streaming webcam with a chat room for people to visit)
I want to get text to speach working.
I want to get phone intergration working.
I want to get the system to mark each picture with a lat/lon so all the pics that are uploaded are on a map of where I am at.
I want to build software that will keep taking pictures every 10 seconds, and sync them to my server. This way when i lose cell in a bad spot, the system still takes pics, and uploads them when i get cell back.
I plan on installing swiftWX for weather chasing.
I would like to install a rear cam.
I would like to figure out how to swtich the AV on the liliput when i go in reverse to activate the rear cam.
I am trying to figure out how to get stearing wheel controls to work for audio on the carPC.

Anyways, thats a good summery of what I've got so far.
I would LOVE to hear some feed back from you guys.
Also, I am a c# software developer, anyone in here looking for something cool, let me know. I love working on projects, and if it can benifit both of us, lets get er done.
I should be able to customize CF to anything I want.

Hope to hear form you guys. Will post pics soon.

OHHHHHH, I like this project. Only thing is, Jeep and Dodge both have that stupid 1 1/2 size DIN opening, so you will have to have the front of the dash redone. I had Nexson do mine for me, looks perfectly OEM. Now my setup has one unique feature that I think you will like. I do not have a cam in the front, but i have a cam in the rear, left side and right side to catch all blind spots. I am using a digital quad procosser to split the images onto one screen. The DQP also has a DVR out port which then goes to a USB Tuner card. I do this for accident reasons, because people in FL drive like cr@p and are willing to lie about what they have done. I choose not cover the front because monitoring the front and all 4 sides is distracting on the screen.

Hey, Im hoping to get a Jeep Wrangler after Christmas. Its been my dream to do a carpc for awhile now. I would like to use a MacMini, do the cam thing, and have a touch screen. With you guy's immense knowledge in this field, do you foresee problems in my future ambitions?

Originally Posted by capcadetjc

Hey, Im hoping to get a Jeep Wrangler after Christmas. Its been my dream to do a carpc for awhile now. I would like to use a MacMini, do the cam thing, and have a touch screen. With you guy's immense knowledge in this field, do you foresee problems in my future ambitions?

Not at all. You drive a SUV!!!!!!!!! With such large cars we have so many things that can be done to our cars. Check out my worklog, it is full of stuff I have done to my truck, although I am not done yet. What year is your Wrangler? If its a newer one then your in luck because it has a double din, perfect for a 7inch screen. If its older, then you would have to make some mods to the dash. As far as the mini goes, I dont know... Im a PC guy so thats my strong point. Mac doesnt have as many features when it comes to carpc.

If you run Windows on the Mini, any inputs will need to come via USB.

If you run OSX, there are Mac programs for security monitoring that will connect and display multiple cameras and record from them.

Its a 2009 Wrangler. I need to do some more searching so I can see if PC or Mac has better possibilities for me.

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

If you run Windows on the Mini, any inputs will need to come via USB.

If you run OSX, there are Mac programs for security monitoring that will connect and display multiple cameras and record from them.

Ah yes i forgot about the dual boot feature.....

BugByte, wont the cameras have to be USB then? Mine are composite, made for weather, but I have to have them go to the DQP then to a tunercard.