Lexus IS300 - CarPC - WheelPC v0.8 pics inside

**drutort** · 12-07-2008, 01:08 AM

First things first: this is over 1 year old, I started this project last year about this time and had it to 70% at jan, then school started and work full time so it just hauled as I would work on it after work few hours, all the engineering and manufacturing on the spot

I do not take credit for the idea of a carPC in the wheel as its has been done in the past, but I do take all the credit in creating this design :P The second phase of the project will be the touchscreen mount, but this phase was just the carPC case

Since then I have thought of a lot of modifications, and also technology has jumped greatly, esp in the ITX area.

Modification required to trunk area:
*Wheel cover will have to be chopped in the center for clearance and for ventilation purposes.
*Optional: the foam wheel support will need to be shaved about .50 -1” it is quite thick and you will save some space, your tire will drop lower in the trunk yet you will still retain the cushioning for the tire.
*Replace the wheel plastic retainer, get a hex bolt and use the metal part from the retainer, this will give even more clearance
*for good motherboard fitting, the corners of the motherboard hit the sides of the plastic wheel section, thus requiring of using something to deform little lips, or simply cut out the area, note some motherboard are less than 9.6 and might fit on one or other side

Specs WheelPC Case
Fits standard microATX 9.6 x 9.6 sized motherboard
Specific room for 2x 2.5 laptop HD’s
Specific area for DSATX DC PSU (220W)
Enough room to fit all the slots, note that height is limited to bracket size
Current design has 2x 120mm fans under the unit, to suck the air under and from the sides of motherboard
Construction material is all Aluminum

This is still in prototype stage

I had personally came up with a fuse/relay section that is in my trunk for carPC and other future components, I also routed power from the PSU to the front of the car 5v and 12v rails fused of course
I was in the works for creating a plug and play for other misc wire connection such as power, reset and so on, everything should be able to disconnect and take the whole WheelPC out in under 1min depends how the power is connected, I used a regular Molex 12v connection for the power coming into the PSU, so everything that I have can be disconnect fast
The unit its self is strong enough for you to stand on it, the support rails on the carpet area could be removed, as right now it causes a little hump

Future plans and upgrades
I am thinking of designing a slim form factor, as they have a number of devices including video cards, tv tuners, sound cards that all could fit in slim form factor reducing the overall height 1 or 2 inches, which would require less modding in the trunk
I am thinking of designing some kind of locking mechanism that would lock the WheelPC to the wheel were you would have to unlock and get access to the WheelPC and the Wheel its self
Different layouts for more peripherals, such as more room for HD’s or SSD or even CFM ide/sata cards
Thinking of using smaller but more fans either on top and bottom combo, instead of 120mm as they are pretty thick and require clearance at the bottom, 4x 60mm or other sizes could work
replacing all cooling solutions with a custom water cooling kit, mounted together

Tests, I had the WheelPC in my trunk for a little less than a year, while driving around with it, the mobo and all the components worked just fine
I could create more prototypes, but it would require me to design this in CAD system, and since I have no access to CNC’s yet it would be all manual and slow process, with CNC I could take the solid and add other features maybe even material strengthening and weight reductions as well as better clearance and fitting

PICS

**drutort** · 12-07-2008, 01:10 AM

for those who want to see the thread on the my.is site here is the link to that place, but most people dont seem to have a clue about carPC there

http://my.is/forums/f103/carpc-wheel...cluded-376311/

also it is possible that i could mod this easily for any other 17" or 16" wheel i would have to get specs and come up with some different mounting and orientation but its doable using the main frame and modding it a bit

that is if there is interest in this, and if people are willing to pay for it, which I haven’t had the time to figure in the costs

**RS3RS** · 12-09-2008, 01:06 AM

Hmm, clever. That's a pretty cool idea, I like that!

**HiJackZX1** · 12-09-2008, 10:32 AM

Nice install.... very clever, but i do have some questions. What if you get a flat, you have to take out the plastic piece and the PC? If yes, is there some kind of quick release system your using? Also will the 2 fans mounted at the bottom really serve any purpose since the bottom of the MoBo is almost blocking them? Is there really enough access to air at the bottom of the car for the fans to be able to circulate anything? i think you should put a fan at the top, have it blow the air out of the space, unless your processor fan blows down. Also I noticed your MoBo comes with 7.1 Surround sound natively, but i noticed you also have a PCI soundcard... Any reason why?

**drutort** · 12-09-2008, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

Nice install.... very clever, but i do have some questions. What if you get a flat, you have to take out the plastic piece and the PC? If yes, is there some kind of quick release system your using? Also will the 2 fans mounted at the bottom really serve any purpose since the bottom of the MoBo is almost blocking them? Is there really enough access to air at the bottom of the car for the fans to be able to circulate anything? i think you should put a fan at the top, have it blow the air out of the space, unless your processor fan blows down. Also I noticed your MoBo comes with 7.1 Surround sound natively, but i noticed you also have a PCI soundcard... Any reason why?

there is plenty of room for air to move down through the wheel area, as you can see that foam spacer thing for the wheel.

I cant really have air coming from the top, as there is a carpeting cover that goes over the plastic thing, the air gets sucked from the cracks of the side as you can see on the plastic area
and i could make small drilled holes in the carpet area too

Yes you do have to take out that plastic peace when you have to change tire, so its the same just have to disconnect the carPC, i used same PC connections for power to the PSU and back out to my other devices, i havent connected a quick release for switches and other stuff, but audio video is easy to take out

i was using a xfi sound card

cant really beat that and there cheap now

in my 2nd phase when i finish the front and make my quick release screen arm then ill be able to test it even farther and make other changes

I have options of creating some spacers on the plastic to have more circulation and even putting a side mounted blower on the sides of the trunk as there is special vents that allow air to flow outside the car

**HiJackZX1** · 12-10-2008, 03:00 AM

Originally Posted by drutort

there is plenty of room for air to move down through the wheel area, as you can see that foam spacer thing for the wheel.

I cant really have air coming from the top, as there is a carpeting cover that goes over the plastic thing, the air gets sucked from the cracks of the side as you can see on the plastic area
and i could make small drilled holes in the carpet area too

Yes you do have to take out that plastic peace when you have to change tire, so its the same just have to disconnect the carPC, i used same PC connections for power to the PSU and back out to my other devices, i havent connected a quick release for switches and other stuff, but audio video is easy to take out

i was using a xfi sound card

cant really beat that and there cheap now

in my 2nd phase when i finish the front and make my quick release screen arm then ill be able to test it even farther and make other changes

I have options of creating some spacers on the plastic to have more circulation and even putting a side mounted blower on the sides of the trunk as there is special vents that allow air to flow outside the car

Well from the looks of that heat sink, it looks like the PC builds up heat. Just make sure it circulates fresh air and isnt recycling the heat air, could lead to PC failure.

Also I dont think the quick connect is a priority, I just wanted to bring it up.... Your maybe going to change a tire 1 every 2 or 3 years!?!

The X-Fi is wonderful, I love it, I got the Xtremegamer version. My setup is using onboard sound (for BT phone) and the Xtremegamer for music. Im thinking og buying this cheap little $7.95 USB soundcard for IR headphones.

**drutort** · 12-13-2008, 02:39 AM

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

Well from the looks of that heat sink, it looks like the PC builds up heat. Just make sure it circulates fresh air and isnt recycling the heat air, could lead to PC failure.

Also I dont think the quick connect is a priority, I just wanted to bring it up.... Your maybe going to change a tire 1 every 2 or 3 years!?!

The X-Fi is wonderful, I love it, I got the Xtremegamer version. My setup is using onboard sound (for BT phone) and the Xtremegamer for music. Im thinking og buying this cheap little $7.95 USB soundcard for IR headphones.

the heatsink was overkill, well maybe not its meant for high wattage cpu's but that cpu was a 45w max, while that heatsink can handle the quads and o/c even when i had it running a game or benchmark the heatsink never got warm at all, it was hmm room temp

its more for those times in summer when the car is 120-140F or whatever it gets inside a car

i also need to think about using maybe power for the fans from unregulated source, no need to eat up the power from the PSU, i should use small voltage regulators for those fans

and put them with a relay when the psu powers up

i think thats a good idea, ill put that on the todo list

**HiJackZX1** · 12-13-2008, 03:04 AM

Originally Posted by drutort

the heatsink was overkill, well maybe not its meant for high wattage cpu's but that cpu was a 45w max, while that heatsink can handle the quads and o/c even when i had it running a game or benchmark the heatsink never got warm at all, it was hmm room temp

its more for those times in summer when the car is 120-140F or whatever it gets inside a car

i also need to think about using maybe power for the fans from unregulated source, no need to eat up the power from the PSU, i should use small voltage regulators for those fans

and put them with a relay when the psu powers up

i think thats a good idea, ill put that on the todo list

I did the same thing your thinking about, I connected the fans, 4 of them directly to 12V source, other then the PSU. They seem to run faster, which is fine by me. The ones for the PC case though, are powered by the PSU, I was worried about when the PC is turning off and on, that when my car is turned on, the fans would cool the PC to much resulting in some issues. Then if I turn the car off the fans would shut off with the PC still trying to hibernate, cause heat issues. So the 4 PC fans are still powered by the PSU. Also my Processor fan was regulated by the MoBo and my PC would run hot, so I connected it directly to the PSU and now have no issues.

**dMand** · 12-13-2008, 03:08 AM

Awesome ingineuity!

Dude if this was my setup, I'd put two holes in the spare tire carrier, and configure some sort of S-trap tubing with filtration for an air inlet, and outlet directly opposite from eachother. Any heat issue will be resolved by further sealing the tire compartment from the trunk space.

**drutort** · 12-13-2008, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by dMand

Awesome ingineuity!

Dude if this was my setup, I'd put two holes in the spare tire carrier, and configure some sort of S-trap tubing with filtration for an air inlet, and outlet directly opposite from eachother. Any heat issue will be resolved by further sealing the tire compartment from the trunk space.

i realized that there is one advantage of having carpc inside with passengers... and that is AC, while the trunk has no such luck :/ though if i remember correctly, the trunk was cooler then the interior of the car, it could be because its all closed off and it does have vents to the outside, and the inside of the car has a lot of glass which allows a lot of heat in

either way i think ill be planning for a water cooling setup, it will save on the fan space and if i can shove it all in the carPC case then that would rock, it would mean i would never have to unplug any water lines if i need to take it out

i am going to do some kind of air vents in that whole trunk area, and if I can add some more fans maybe as auxiliary that would be great too

I just wonder if there is some possible way to have quick release water lines that will not allow any lose of water? And something that would be self bleeding system too, it seems that its getting a bit complicated, and it would have been a lot easier to have a fixed carPC case some other place… BUT im not planning to game much, only use onboard igp or go with a lower power 2ndary gpu in sli