Need Quick help putting together a CarPC!

**Mickz** · 11-03-2011, 09:49 PM

I looked at GA-NET a year ago but the price also put me off. Apparently it does give you access to a lot of onboard systems, but with different country versions of the same vehicle I couldn’t be sure what I wanted to access was available. Someone reminded me of it recently on my project page. In my case it would not have solved the problem of relocating the HVAC control PCB and maintaining both “standalone” manual control and independent PC SW control over dual com links which I accomplished for a cost of around $70 in parts.

I have a low cost CAN-BUS interface and some software to monitor communications across the BUS, when I get some time I’ll see what I can access, control and use on this vehicle.

As far as MB’s go, the one I’m using is strong and beautifully made. The only downside is the 12 to 14 second POST time before the OS starts to load. Of course that’s not a problem if resuming from sleep.

**Mickz** · 11-04-2011, 04:53 AM

“However to be honest I will be using my stock screen which is definitely not HD. I plan to have the camera turn on and start recording when when the Warn away/Alarm is triggered.”

Hi, just so were on the same page with a HI-DEF web cam. It has little to do with the resolution of the LCD screen in the vehicle and everything to do with the ability to recognise number plates and fine detail in the recordings. In my tests I found I needed to be recording at HD with a good frame rate for that, hence the need for a 300GB+ 2.5” HDD especially with front and rear cameras recording together. I thought about a recording trigger but in the end continuously running seems to be the only way I can think of to catch “everything” that may lead to an accident event. One reason I like the rear camera as so many come from behind these days, people texting, playing with Car-PC screens, you know

BTW it looks cool on playback with forward and rear cameras displaying in sync. Almost like a video game.

**shizzlehappens** · 11-04-2011, 09:14 AM

Originally Posted by Mickz

“However to be honest I will be using my stock screen which is definitely not HD. I plan to have the camera turn on and start recording when when the Warn away/Alarm is triggered.”

Hi, just so were on the same page with a HI-DEF web cam. It has little to do with the resolution of the LCD screen in the vehicle and everything to do with the ability to recognise number plates and fine detail in the recordings. In my tests I found I needed to be recording at HD with a good frame rate for that, hence the need for a 300GB+ 2.5” HDD especially with front and rear cameras recording together. I thought about a recording trigger but in the end continuously running seems to be the only way I can think of to catch “everything” that may lead to an accident event. One reason I like the rear camera as so many come from behind these days, people texting, playing with Car-PC screens, you know

BTW it looks cool on playback with forward and rear cameras displaying in sync. Almost like a video game.

Mickz,

What recording program are you running? I was trying to do exactly this with Mark's (Vegasguy) DashCam but I could never get it working. He [Mark] is incredibly supportive and helpful and the program looks great but it just doesn't like my set-up (most likely a codec issue or something similar). I've been looking at MiniCam and GPSDVR but haven't installed anything yet since I'm spending all my free time just trying to get my hardware build finished.

**erie** · 11-04-2011, 03:16 PM

Here is a system that will run Win7/8 without an issue and due to the SSD will stand up to the harsh car enviorment.

ASUS AT5IONT-I Intel Atom D525 (1.8GHz, dual-core) BGA559 Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
Zalman N Series SSD0064N1 2.5" 64GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Kingston 2GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 800 Unbuffered System Specific Memory Model KVR800D3S8S6/2G

I have had great luck with my Opus power supply and case, but I cant find the case for sale any more. Anyways here is the power supply
DCX3.120 (120W)

GPS reciver
BU-353 Weather-proof GPS Receiver

SirrusXM reciver
MJS-SC-C1 USB Interface for Sirius Satalite Radio (Mjs-scc1)
Sirius Receiver

FM/HD reciver
HD Radio USB PC Interface
HD Radio Reciver(•Visteon HDZ300 - Ebay has deals on this tuner, in most cases < $75.00)

I hope this helps.

**Mickz** · 11-04-2011, 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by shizzlehappens

Mickz,

What recording program are you running? I was trying to do exactly this with Mark's (Vegasguy) DashCam but I could never get it working. He [Mark] is incredibly supportive and helpful and the program looks great but it just doesn't like my set-up (most likely a codec issue or something similar). I've been looking at MiniCam and GPSDVR but haven't installed anything yet since I'm spending all my free time just trying to get my hardware build finished.

Hi, using MiniCam - Never failed yet, some 2 and 3 day driving trips with 10 hours a day driving and a mixture of full time and on-demand recording. Multiple cameras processes embedded into my FE and controlled from the main FE rotary encoder for manual control of Record, Stop, Open, Close or fully automatic.

Currently overlaying OBDII speed as Win7-64 does not support the GPS overlay app.