Noob

**fLeMaRo** · 09-14-2004, 01:19 AM

Hey Guys,
I would like to introduce myself. My name is Eric and i own a 2001 Camaro Z28. Its been about a year and a half of thinking of building a carputer and i am seriously thinking about building one in the next few months - hopefully during my month long christmas break. As I am building my system I hope I can get a few pointers from all you experienced people. First off, fyi, i have been building computers since i was in the 5th grade so i got that down, however i am unfamiliar with the DC power supplies. I have read about the OPUS 150W PS and i hope that will work. I want to show you my system that i have designed so far:

Antec ARIA MicroATX Cube
PS will be replaced with OPUS 150W DC
FOXCONN KM400 Chipset Motherboard
Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM Drive
Excel 80GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
512MB DDR RAM
AMD Athlon XP 2100+
Creative Labs Audigy Sound Card
I will not have a deck in my car, I hope to use my carputer as my media center, have the signal from my sound card go directly to my amps.
Sapphire ATI Radeon 128MB Video Card?
Do i need that, my MotherBoard has onboard video
Leadtek TV/FM Tuner Card
Copilot Live for GPS
As well as an OBDII Diagnostics
Lilliput 7" Touchscreen

Theres my system. itll come out to somewhere below 1500 dollars. Any Reccomendations? Plus to all you carputer owners with camaros - have any of you put a touchscreen where the 1.5din slot is for the radio. I hope to be doing that, and if i cant do that, i will not start the project of my carputer. I hope to put the Antec Cube where the spare tire goes. My goal is to have this project done by the end of the year as a great computer integrated into my camaro.

Thanks
Eric

**RS3RS** · 09-14-2004, 06:56 AM

First of all, nice car. I hope to own a Z28 one of these days...

The OPUS would be perfect for that system. Should handle all of that just fine.

I wouldn't think you'd need an extra video card unless your onboard video really, really blows. As long as it can run 640x480 @ 75 hrZ with no problems, then it should be fine. (A lot of people run their Lilliput at its native res. of 800x480 or just 800x600, but I find things too hard to read at that size).

Do your amps have line level inputs? If so, no problems there.

As far as a lilliput in a 1.5 din slot, it depends on if you mean mounted flush inside the slot, or on a pull out "drawer" type system that fits in a single DIN slot.

You're not going to mount it flush in the dash of a 1.5 din slot without some cutting up of the dash to make the hole bigger. A lilliput/xenarc just barely fits in a 2 din slot as it is.

If all else fails, you can get a 1 din thingy (digitalww.com carries them I believe) that you can mount your lilliput in, and then slide it out when you need it.

Good luck man, looks like you're off to a good start. Btw, pictures of the car (oh yeah, and the carputer too

) are to be expected once this project is complete!

**owenjh** · 09-14-2004, 08:27 AM

I have been thinking about putting a screen in my cavaliers 1-1/2inch place, looks like I will have to buy a whole new bezel and hack it up to have it fit properly. From the liliput measurments the screen is just a little bit bigger then the whole :-(

**EBFoxbat** · 09-14-2004, 08:43 AM

Check the specs on the ATI card. Doesn't that pull a ton of power? You don't need it unless your gaming, which is hard whil driving. That 7200 RPM hard drive might suffer. Mount it vertically (others will argue but at 7200 rmp it should be vertical.) 512 RAM is a lot too if you're going to hibernate.

I think that system is a bit much for a car. But let's be honest, as a fellow computer builder for years, I'm not really going to tell you it's soo much.

I can't help with the sound card, I've never had any issues with onboard audio quality. I must not have a good ear

FM Radio: You might want to hold out to see what Seth's ends up like.

FYI: Seth is making an end-all soulution to radio for carputers. It'll be I2C (and eventually USB). I don't know what the ETA is on a completed project, but from what I read, he (and his forum buddies) are near a prototype. Thread here: HU Quality AM/FM RDS/RBDS Radio with Features

**Curiosity** · 09-14-2004, 06:05 PM

I haven't really seen it yet, but I think you can get the lilliput in there flush with a nice bondo job without moving anything. The 1.5 DIN is shorter and wider than the lilliput but I'm almost positive the space behind it is large enough to fit it all in without the case. I really want to see someone do this!

**fLeMaRo** · 09-14-2004, 07:59 PM

Well u guys i am going to mount the lilliput flush. but im going to put the case where the spare tire goes. I will build up the money, purchase everything, and build build build