Need some advice? CAR PC Short Life

bklynkaos · 02-23-2004, 08:07 PM

I just creamed my hard drive and cd-rom on my carputer in an unfortunate short stop and pothole incident. The hard drive has become so damaged that it is not even being detected and the cd/dvd-rom is not reading discs properly. The mobo ps and everything else works fine. I enjoyed my car pc for almost exactly 2-3 weeks. ;p. Problem is I drive a Hyundai Tiburon and drive thru the streets of all 5 boros of new york. Anyone that lives or visits here knows a carputer is playing in dangerous waters with all of the *****ed up streets and potholes. This winter inparticular has done quite a toll on the roads here. I can only assume many others have experienced problems like these. What are people doing for mounting of hard drives etc? This single incident alone has me wanting to just sell off everything and drop the carpc project alltogether. I may have to wait out for solid state media storage. The PC didnt make it through 3 weeks and those 3 were pretty rough for the hard drive and cd-rom obviously.

cdm · 02-23-2004, 08:12 PM

off topic, but i would be more concerned what all this is doing to your car... might wanna try to avoid the bad stuff.

shakes · 02-23-2004, 08:32 PM

how was your hard drive mounted?

I plan on mounting mine vertical as that should help a lot with bumps and whatnot.

If your roads are that bad you may want to look into some sort of dampening system for the HD or the whole PC. Not something springy, you want to avoid oscilations ... but something that works like a shock to dampen the impact.

bklynkaos · 02-23-2004, 09:31 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by shakes

how was your hard drive mounted?

I plan on mounting mine vertical as that should help a lot with bumps and whatnot.

If your roads are that bad you may want to look into some sort of dampening system for the HD or the whole PC. Not something springy, you want to avoid oscilations ... but something that works like a shock to dampen the impact.

It was mounted inside of a morex 3688 case. I experimented w/ both verticle and horozontal mounting of the case which meant the hard drive was mounted both ways. It crashed the least when it was horozontal but it was mounted that way when it came to its screaching death. It was velcro'ed to the back of one of the passenger seats in the back. I would fold down the seat while driving. The case was sitting on top of foam, which did not seem to help much if at all.
p.s. it was a laptop hdd. I dont know if that would contribute to its failure being more sensitive and all.

STIdev · 02-23-2004, 09:50 PM

I've been running mine without problems for about 8 months now in Maine where the roads are loaded with frost heaves this time of year and my suspension is pretty tight. I have my laptop hard disk mounted horizontally but no screws just stuck to a 1/2" thick piece of sorbothene foam. Its never even acted up from a bump or just being cold. My touch screen is sometimes a little fussy when its been sitting in really cold temperatures for a few hours but other then that no problems.

partyd · 02-23-2004, 10:53 PM

I notice that the suspension of a cd changer don't move that much because the unit is in the air hold by 4 oil suspension springs

The idea is to take a defective cd changer out of the case and put the HD inside
i hope it works i will let you know

greaper007 · 02-23-2004, 11:06 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by partyd

I notice that the suspension of a cd changer don't move that much because the unit is in the air hold by 4 oil suspension springs

The idea is to take a defective cd changer out of the case and put the HD inside
i hope it works i will let you know

sounds like a good idea

check it out http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...39747.....Only 2 bucks. You can't beat that. Anywaz, what brand of hard drives does everyone have. Which ones seem to be the best, and which seem to be the worse. I've heard that some of the Maxtors have a type of fluid dynamic bearing that doesn't respond well to low temperatures. However, if you can find a maxtor without this I know that they seem to be the best product, and they offer the best return policy. (ie they won't ask you if you had your hard drive mounted in your car when it broke).

kalito · 02-23-2004, 11:09 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by bklynkaos

dent. drive thru the streets of all 5 boros of new york. Anyone that lives or visits here knows a carputer is playing in dangerous waters with all of the *****ed up streets and potholes. This winter inparticular has done quite a toll on the roads here.

***** .. i know how you feel... or how the streets in nyc feel... brooklyn here...!

none · 02-23-2004, 11:21 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by partyd

I notice that the suspension of a cd changer don't move that much because the unit is in the air hold by 4 oil suspension springs

The idea is to take a defective cd changer out of the case and put the HD inside
i hope it works i will let you know

My whole system is built inside of an old Nakamichi 7 disc changer. Works great. Holds an EPIA, 3.5" HD, laptop cd, Sproggy, and ITPS with room to spare. The drives are mounted to a tray that is fully suspended by 4 springs and rubber dampeners. I don't really think the suspension is necessary with a properly mounted case, but the changer chassis was too perfect and the tray was already there.

The setup has already made it through the worst Utah winter in anyone's memory, so I think it's a solid design.

Audio Bandit · 02-23-2004, 11:52 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by greaper007

. I've heard that some of the Maxtors have a type of fluid dynamic bearing that doesn't respond well to low temperatures. However, if you can find a maxtor without this I know that they seem to be the best product, and they offer the best return policy. (ie they won't ask you if you had your hard drive mounted in your car when it broke).

If your looking for BB drives, instead of the FDB. A simple way to find out which is looking at the model number 4R060J0, this hard drive uses ball bearing, instead of the fluid. The J denotes ball bearing drive in the DIAMOND MAX 16 series. The 4R060L0, is an FBR drive.

http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentati...data_sheet.pdf

The Diamond max series 9 is wierd the 16 is much better documented.

Confused · 02-24-2004, 03:06 AM

Dayum...inside a CD Changer casing...that is an awesome idea! I've got a busted 10 disc changer in the loft...that's my next carputer case

Sorry to hear about the death of your carputer. I too would be worried what has happened to your suspension/steering if you've screwed up a hdd/cdrom that much!

Garry

sxpert · 02-24-2004, 05:43 AM

another idea in your case is to use a big compact flash instead of a hard drive...

bklynkaos · 02-24-2004, 05:47 PM

I didnt know that the cd changers had the 4 springs. I think i have one, its a 6 disc i bought it from some dude who musta stole it for like 20 bux i never used it. Im going to crack it open tonite. That might just be the saving grace for the whole project. other thing is i just hooked my stereo back up (because i cant deal w/o music) and i have all my speakers wired thru my amp instead of the speaker outs on the source unit and it sounds awesome. Quite better than the epia m-10k's onboard sound. Do you think this is because i did not adjust my eq well on my winamp or just cuz the sound sux onboard that mobo? thanks for all of the replies i was really about to sell off the entire thing until i got all of these positive responses.

Cherub211 · 02-24-2004, 05:53 PM

well that sucks... hope the cushy ride on my car that I hate so much actually has some use when I get that computer in

bklynkaos · 02-24-2004, 10:17 PM

I tried mounting inside my jvc 10 disc cd changer its about an inch too short. sucks. I did scavenge those oil suspension doo-hickeys and the springs. Seems a bit tuff to mount inside the morex 3688 case. I may try no screws at all and just squeeze it between some foam pieces. Any ideas what potential problems that may incur? Unfortunately laptop hdd's are a bit expensive and I am a bit reluctant to purchase another. Maybe I'll fabricate a wood box and do it that way so i can get a full size hdd and get a real mounting home for my opus which is suspended from the bottom on the cd/hdd tray inside the case. :P This will be the 3rd attempted case ;p.

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