Car PC in a self-contained double DIN unit (Subaru Legacy B4 RSK install)
I actually finished this at the start of the year, but have only just thought about posting it here.
The project goal was to be a fully self contained double DIN headunit replacement that I could drop into any car and use. I eventually gave up on the onboard amplifier, it fit in just fine but turned out to be faulty and I'd voided the warranty just a bit. Couldn't be bothered to buy another one when I had a pair of larger car amps sat around doing nothing.
I started off with the mechatroniks.com kit. This is an aluminium bezel and 3-sided chassis with a lilliput screen mounted into it. With a few modifications to the lilliput's mainboard (ie. removing the PSU connector) you can squeeze a Mini-ITX board in behind it.
The kit looks like this:
http://www.lum.co.uk/carputer/kit1.gif
Next stage was to figure out how to squeeze the HD, PSU, fans and amplifier in there. I decided to design and get made, a metal cover to attach to the 4 spare holes at the top of the kit, and attach everything to that.
http://www.lum.co.uk/carputer/steel_chassis.jpg
I used an M1-ATX PSU, a Hitachi TravelStar 40gig laptop drive, a radial fan that my GF found lying around in work and an AMP-100 from David Navone.com that I really should have tested before dismembering.
A quick testfit and it all seems to be going well
http://www.lum.co.uk/carputer/test_back.jpg
Actually wiring the thing was a nightmare. The 'Liliput wiring was hacked up, with the USB wires attached to an internal USB header, and the monitor wires soldered onto the underside of the motherboard. I left the join in the lilliput cable in place so that removing the screen later would be easier, and hacked up some spare pats of the lilliput cable to provide a power connector that could also be removed.
Finally the mounting brackets were removed from the car and attached to the casing..
http://www.lum.co.uk/carputer/MountingBracket.jpg
And installed it into the car
http://www.lum.co.uk/carputer/Installed.jpg
Of course, that's never the end of the project is it? I soon decided that the onboard audio was crap, so I bought an M-Audio Sonica Theatre USB. I could have dismembered this and put it where the amp was supposed to go, but I decided that since the dashboard area of my car is noisy, I'd mount it behind the handbrake, very close to my amps, for a nice short cable run
http://www.lum.co.uk/carputer/SoundCard.jpg
It's held in place with a few sticky pads left over from replacing my front number plate.
I also got an unpowered USB hub, USB bluetooth, USB wi-fi and USB->OBDII. The wifi isn't good enough to get a signal from the access point in my house, so out comes the soldering iron again..
http://www.lum.co.uk/carputer/wifi_modded.jpg
attached to a 7dbi antenna that sits on my rear parcel shelf. I realise this will only get me signal in one direction, but I always park pacing away from the house and I'm not into war driving.
Here you can see that I can indeed get on the internet over wifi, and that I can watch stupid flash animations while driving if I really wanted to (hint: This is generally a bad idea)
http://www.lum.co.uk/dc2006/Image(100).jpg
Oh, and the car it's in is a 1999 grey-import Subaru Legacy B4 RSK. 2 litre engine twin turbo.
http://www.lum.co.uk/cars/legacy/rea...dediagonal.jpg
Oh and here's a bonus video of me grass tracking it at a recent Digital Car meet here in the UK, complete with unintended drifting at the end. Car PC survived all this (as well as my many blats down pot-holed farm roads at silly speeds) without any problems, so I guess I can call it a success!
