Thread: 2010 Toyota Corolla S - Custom CarPC Build (Lots of photos)

baaa, i just got done praising your choice in tech up and down and my post didn't work. SOO needless to say i'm extremely impressed and plan on copying a lot of what you used top notch mate! Got a few quick q's though.

1. Could you give me a one line flow of how you're hooking up your audio. Because I want to not have a headunit at all, i mean if i'm going to get a beast of a machine like the one you have i would hope I would just harness its awsome processing and memory to power my system. I have a 4 channel amp and a mono for my subs. As i understand it the clarion offers 6 rca preamp outputs, so it could serve as the perfect intemediary? And would you just take a 3.5 to split rca from the headphone jack in the motherboard to get to the clarion?

2. How is your cpu/motherboard setup? I would imagine that more than enough to run through bluerays and 3d games no? And specifically the little remote/keyboard, does it compare to stuff like the rii wel;?

3. That steering wheel microcontroller, did it sync well with yoru steering wheel buttons, i have a camry so its gonna be a good relfection of how it would work in mine.

lastly, why did you replace that thermal goo?

do you have any up close shots of your power supply and how the power is hooked up

Originally Posted by bossman137

baaa, i just got done praising your choice in tech up and down and my post didn't work. SOO needless to say i'm extremely impressed and plan on copying a lot of what you used top notch mate! Got a few quick q's though.

1. Could you give me a one line flow of how you're hooking up your audio. Because I want to not have a headunit at all, i mean if i'm going to get a beast of a machine like the one you have i would hope I would just harness its awsome processing and memory to power my system. I have a 4 channel amp and a mono for my subs. As i understand it the clarion offers 6 rca preamp outputs, so it could serve as the perfect intemediary? And would you just take a 3.5 to split rca from the headphone jack in the motherboard to get to the clarion?

2. How is your cpu/motherboard setup? I would imagine that more than enough to run through bluerays and 3d games no? And specifically the little remote/keyboard, does it compare to stuff like the rii wel;?

3. That steering wheel microcontroller, did it sync well with yoru steering wheel buttons, i have a camry so its gonna be a good relfection of how it would work in mine.

lastly, why did you replace that thermal goo?

1) The 3.5mm line output from the Car PC goes to the Phoenix Audio MT107A, I have a Y-splitter on there so it doesn't use the MT107A pass-through. From there it goes to the Clarion EQ/Line Driver then each set of outputs goes to the corresponding amp. This works out perfectly and the sound is better than any aftermarket head unit I've owned.



2) The setup is quite powerful, the system is in Windows and loading Centrafuse in about 10-12Sec. The graphics WEI is 6.7, not quite powerful enough to run the latest games at max settings - but it's PLENTY for Blurays, DVDs, and any media on the internet. My resolution is always running at 1280x720 with zero graphic lag on anything I've thrown at it so far.



3) It works very well and the auto detection feature is great. My Corolla has a total of 5 buttons (Vol+, Vol-, Track+, Track-, Mode) and a neat feature is it allows programing for short presses, and long presses - in other words I have 10 different buttons programed to 5 buttons.

4) I've built many systems over the years and Arctic Silver Thermal Paste always seems to help with CPU temps - it's no water cooling but every degree helps

Thanks for check my build out!

Originally Posted by DracoPCGuy

do you have any up close shots of your power supply and how the power is hooked up

Yes:


Basically, it takes the +12V off the battery for the main power and the +12V IGN switch so it knows when to power on/off. It has a 20/24pin motherboard harness, 2xSATA, 2xMolex, 1xP4, 1xFloppy and it'll put out 250W continuous (300W Peak). It also has a 12V remote output to turn all my amps on.

Lol i went ahead and took the plunge got the motherboard, PSU, and clarion. I set it all up in my house first and its is wonderful . I put the clarion out in the car while i get things ready and i fully agree, BEST sound quality i've had in my long life as a car audiophile. who'd have thunk it, 50 dollar equalizer was the key! One last question i make the great install tomorrow, what wires did you take off the psu to power the screen?

Originally Posted by bossman137

Lol i went ahead and took the plunge got the motherboard, PSU, and clarion. I set it all up in my house first and its is wonderful . I put the clarion out in the car while i get things ready and i fully agree, BEST sound quality i've had in my long life as a car audiophile. who'd have thunk it, 50 dollar equalizer was the key! One last question i make the great install tomorrow, what wires did you take off the psu to power the screen?

I was kinda surprised too with that EQ - I read some great reviews on it and that helped in the decision of that one or something else.

The screen I used had it's own DC-DC supply with filter and I didn't want to put any additional strain on the CarPC PSU so I just connected the screen to the radio harness +12V IGN and GND.

I forgot to mention that the factory battery didn't hold up too long... It's not just because of the CarPC, but the addition of it didn't help. It got to the point where the car was having difficulties starting in the morning. I wound up upgrading to an Optima Yellow Top battery - it's got enough juice to power my amps, carpc, and all the other misc things.

I hope i don't have to get to that, we'll see. Istall is done and its so great having it on my car lol. But I'm fighting a ground loop problem, alternator whine. we both have a toyota and very similar setups, same motherboard and psu and equalizer. So what did you do to keep the sound clean?

I waterjetted a aluminum inlay kind of like you did for my motherboard and psu, and grounded the psu to that and then grounded the aluminum sheet to the chassis of the car. I have to amps in back. And I recently experimented with grounding the rca cables which helped the most but still not perfect...

Originally Posted by XAndyJX

.....
Rest of the parts came today. Sirf III GPS antenna with modified Baud Rate, Directed AM/FM/HD tuner with USB interface kit, Joycon EXR Steering Wheel Interface, Phoenix Audio MT107A Echo-Canceling Microphone, and Centrafuse 4.0 with Navigation.
.....]

Very nice setup!

I have been looking at the Directed AM/FM/HD tuner because I need my am/fm channels. How do you like the unit? Did it integrate well with Centrafuse and do you think it sounds as good as a headunit does?

Appreciate it...your opinion will probably sway me one way or the other!