Ever since I've heard about Mini-ITX and related projects. I wanted to do something. I finally decided to go on and make a car PC. Initially I was planning to do this in my first car which was a 1997 Pontiac Sunfire. It's not mine since the 22 June, day I've received my brand new 2006 Pontiac Pursuit SE. Before going any further, here are some pictures of this car:
I do admit it's not the best front pic ever, but you get the idea.
You can see a little the old Sunfire behind the Pursuit. I've sold my old car to my mother that will eventually sell it to my little brother once he get his licences.
A look at the inside.
And now, a look at the computer I'm putting in there :
Case: Travla Casetronic C134
Motherboard: VIA SP1300
Memory: 512MB DDR
Hard Drive: Fujitsu 60GB IDE
CD/DVD drive : Samsung SN-M242C 8x DVD/24x Write/ 24x Read
GPS : the one that comes with Microsoft Streets & Trips
Monitor: Xenarc 700TSV
Since it's working well so far, I'm using an iRiver FM Transmitter to get the audio to my sound system.
Now that all the basics are down on the table, some pictures on how I'm putting the computer in the car:
My father as a motorcycle and helped me with this idea. There is a motorcycle shop in Ottawa that sells cargo net strong enough to hold luggage on any motorcycle. They have various sizes, but I took the smallest one. If you look at the roof of the trunk in some car if not all, there are various holes. The cargo net as 6 hook. Just find the correct places to put them all and you have something resistant enough to hold a computer case. I had to put an extra extendable elastic (bungee) cord to make sure the cargo net is perfectly holding itself.
Close up view of the case's front. I've put some foam (caulking) to proctect the computer from the metal roof.
Close up view of the case's back. Some foam was also applied on a screw that was coming out from there and could be damaging for the case.
Close up view of underneat. Like the last image, you can see that I've added two extendable elastics cords to properly hold the computer in place in the cargo net.
Now, why did I do this?
1. It's easy.
2. Shocks are absorbed by the foam and cargo net other than behing absorbed by the case stuck in a box.
3. In theory, this should protect the computer quite well as it's able to take shocks and have a margin of maneuver to compensate for the shocks.
4. I have access to my emergy tire.
5. I'm able to remove the computer from there anytime I whant (to then either use into another car or as a media player at home).
Now, let's see how I've put the screen.
I've used 4 pieces of wood in total. Yes, the top one is a baton used to mix the paint.
And the first stage result. So far, nothing has been screwed anywhere in the car and none will be in the coming images. All the screws you see are to hold each pieces of woods together. My father told me I went a little be overkill with the screwing (16 screws in total).
I'm lucky to have a car with 2 cup holders right next to each other up front. My old 97 Sunfire only had one. So this is where the screen is gonna go.
Now I've added to this the black metal holding that came default with the Xenarc monitor. At the right you see the stand that comes with it. Only 3 screws hold everything together. I did required to buy longuer screws to be able to screw thrue the wood since the original ones are extremely short (since I forgot to take pictures when it was in the car, pictures are from in home).
The actual monitor is positioned exactly just like it was intended to be.
The wood support is strong enough to hold it up standing even when it's not in the cup holders.
The good thing with this is that I'm able to hide the screen somewhere to prevent too many people from seing it. I prefer not taking any chances.
I was able to make a test drive with everything hooked up. Only problem is that I need to first start the power inverter and then the computer in the trunk. The wiring are in a mess also at the moment. So my work is not quite done just yet. I still have to make the necessary buttons to be able to start both the power inverter and computer without leaving the driver seat.
Once I get the wiring corrected and buttons in places, I'll take more pics and show up the final version.
Feel free to leave comments/suggestions/questions!