My first carputer was cheap as free. It featured an old compaq mobo i had lying around with a celeron 460 processor. It was powered by power invertor and fm transmitter I both allready had. I built the "shutdown controller" myself and the controls were a hacked up joystick mapped to control winamp. Not very exciting but it was an "mp3car". You'll find pretty quickly though you want more. I soon added a touchscreen ($300) then gps ($100). The power wasnt stable enough so i switched to a new invertor ($70). Next i needed wifi and antenna ($50 and $10) followed by XM ($50 and change). Needed a slim drive up front i could put dvds into (rather than the old full drive in the trunk) ($80) and of course with all this new functionality i needed a processor that could actually play a vis without choking. That's when I bought an epia and moved everything into the dash (Mobo $130, Adapters plus $50, Power regulator $70, Bondo and more $40). Total cost... Free + $950. Can you make an mp3car for cheep, sure, can you pursue this hobby for the same price, not a chance.
- Cobelli
If I just wanted to play MP3's I would have got a MP3 player, I'm going play too but I'm not interested nor can I drop as much money into it as a lot of people on here. I like will1384's setup, I also picked up the same Datalux display, I'm not sure what the state of the inverter is but I'm interested to know how difficult it was to replace and how much of an improvement it made.
Well, what sort of money are you looking to spend on a system. There's some that can be built for a couple hundred dollars if you already have a machine. Typically the touchscreen adds a big chunk of money on the cost. My first system used a cheap IR receiver and remote control, rather than touchscreen.
www.mobile-effects.com
Free file hosting, picture gallery hosting for installs, PM me.
Internet's first Front End Skin browser, featured installs, downloads, links, informative articles - all free to registered users.
LOL... good question...
Unfortunately.. as much as I wanted to keep the cost of things around $850, I ended spending roughly $1200 without realizing it... I was buying parts here and there... week after months... then when I gathered everything and tabulated the total cost, I nearly passed out... I have to admit though, the real big expenses came from the Xenarc monitor and the Opus PSU (even when I got the latter on a quick MP3CarStore discount). The board was about 60, the damn CPU was about 90, then memory for about 50, the HDD for about 50, the case was about 40, the CD-ROM was about 30, and all other lil' odds and ends... keyboard, powermate, cables etc...
A couple of years ago mp3car.com had a nice feature were could view completed examples of mp3car projects, The 'show off your project' forum is nice but it's difficult to navigate and seems to be slanted to very high end projects. Is there anything else to look at regarding completed projects?
My Supra setup is very "cheap" check it out.
Most part/component are reuse from desktop upgrade.
One that really cost is the software (OS and GPS).
2004 Matrix XR A7N8X-VM/400 AMD XP-M 2500+, DS-ATX
89 Supra Turbo P3 600E@750/Abit BE6 II, Alpine M-BUS Car2PC.
Y2K Accord Dell GX150
RoadRunner is the best FE PERIOD
EmoRebellion is a SCAMMER
Go to the Show off your project forum.Originally Posted by c4shm0ney
There is also a Worklog subforum.
1999 Plymouth Voyager (That's right, big-pimpin' in a minivan.)
PC built into console
worklog with pics: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/worklogs/46359-1999-plymouth-voyager-computer-in-console-between-seats.html
Some of my music: http://www.myspace.com/markquestion
Thanks for the responses guys, I'm going to start a worklog on here. You will all see what a baller on a budget can do.
Matrix, I like your plexi-case how many hours did you spend on it? Do you have any more work flow pictures on plans on how you built it?
C4sh
I know a 100gb laptop drive is 200 + I doubt they even make 120gb
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks