My work in progress carputer case

kmkestell · 06-09-2004, 02:33 PM

Hey. So I've been working for a while now on acquiring all the parts for my carputer. I've got my M10000, PW-70, and ITPS, and I've got my 4x20 HD44780 wired up. Currently, I'm finishing up construction on the housing for the M10000 and hard drive (5400rpm 3.5"). I chose to make a wooden box, small enough to fit under the passenger seat (I chose not to put the computer in the trunk, due to poor air flow, heat, and having to deal with running cables all the way back there. The motherboard will be held down using those brass motherboard stand-offs, screwed into the bottom of the box, and the hard drive will be insulated against shock by some acoustic foam. As you can see in the pictures below, there are two holes in the box for intake and outlet fans. The lid will be hinged, and the box will be covered with some neat black automotive style carpet that I got from Home Depot. Because the floor of a car isn't exactly the cleanest place in the world, and because of the horrible amount of salt and sand you tend to track in during a Minnesota winter, I've decided to cut a small hole in the box to run the cables out of, versus cutting a hole large enough for all the ports to poke out of. I think this should help to minimize strain on the motherboard ports, as well as keep everything clean.

Let me know what you guys think of this work-in-progress, I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished project when I'm done.

-

The Car ('98 5-speed Jetta GL)

The LCD (front)

The LCD (back)

The Motherboard/Hard Drive Enclosure

toadster123 · 06-09-2004, 02:57 PM

looks good so far... just wondering what software your are going to use / include....
also, will you only be using the character lcd...or are you planning on adding anything else...

greenglo · 06-09-2004, 03:12 PM

Nice case... reminds me of my days in woodshop *sigh*, good times.... lol. Sexy lcd too.

Bennai · 06-09-2004, 04:23 PM

lol not tryin to diss ur work or nething but the case looks like a drawer.
keep up the good work man

Chairboy · 06-09-2004, 04:48 PM

Looking good. A suggestion on the cables, you might want to consider working out a strain relief plan so that if something is accidentally yanked, it won't hurt your components (like you mentioned). Off the top of my head, one way to do this might be to put a post (made out of a dowel or something) near the hole and, as you run your cables from the motherboard out the hole, do one loop around the dowel.

This way, if you yank on a cable, the force will be transmitted to the dowel and not any electronic components.

Like this:

binary.h4x · 06-09-2004, 06:06 PM

great idea

dignome · 06-09-2004, 06:36 PM

At least his case is a drawer.

My case is a mutilated plastic trash can!

kmkestell · 06-09-2004, 08:54 PM

Thanks everyone for the replies. Yeah, it sort of does look like a drawer. The small lip you see is so that, when covered with the automotive carpet, the lid will stay closed by the tension of it against the lip. If that makes any sense at all. (the lid will hinge on the other side of the box (hinge on one side, that lip on the other), so when you close the top, the edge of the lid, which will be covered in the fabric, will press snugly against the lip, which will also be covered in fabric. This lets me have the box close tightly without using any kind of cheesy latch or anything).

Toadster:
Right now, I'm running Windows XP and winamp using an IR remote plugin and a HD44780 LCD plugin. This is just a temporary hack though (WinXP, IMHO, has far too much bloat for an in-car application. Although it's easy to setup, and works reasonably well, it's over kill when all I want to do is play mp3 music, and eventually, videos, and ODBII.) Currently, I'm working on a custom linux distro, which uses a mysql database to store your media library, lirc for IR input, mpg123 for mp3 playback, and lcd mod to handle the LCD, all with a perl frontend to glut it together. I think I can get the thing booting pretty quick, and by rolling my own linux distro, I can avoid all of that unsightly XP bloat. I do eventually plan on wiring up a graphical lcd to the unit, but (and no offence to anyone that uses these), I am VERY unimpressed with the software selection (MC, ME, FP, that stuff), so I'll probably roll my own software to drive the thing. This is still a ways off, though, but for now, all I'm really interested in is playing mp3s and oggs, so the setup I've got should be more than enough.

binary.h4x, huh?

toadster123 · 06-16-2004, 08:17 PM

yea i have a somewhat similar idea... except i'll probably use dos and MPXPlay ...sincei dont know anything about linux....

this is all of course because im too cheap to buy a graphical lcd /monitor.... and when it comes down to it.... DOS will load faster than anything i know... and all i really want to do is listen to music.... im not going to be watching videos or anything while driving....

Batmanatthenewb · 06-16-2004, 10:15 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by toadster123

and all i really want to do is listen to music.... im not going to be watching videos or anything while driving....

As of now..... "all i really want to do is listen to music.... im not going to be watching videos or anything while driving"

Give yourself some more time in the forum, that too will change. Once you get the bug, it gets bigger and bigger. Pretty soon you'll have gps, gas calculators, etc....

Batman