How many here are using a laptop instead of.... - Page 3

Cookymonster · 07-14-2007, 07:16 AM

I already owned an IBM thinkpad that had a dead screen, I had a car power supply for it and the docking station. All I needed to buy was a motorized touch-screen. Fortunately my car has a double din space (Mark 5 'Lude) and my head unit is also a dvd player (with usb flash card and SD card support) and sports 5.1 surround. I mainly use the carputer for sat-nav, the occasional DivX, wi-fi web browsing and a few games (using a cordless pad). I do have music on it..but I mostly just chuck a dvd full of mp3's into the head unit tbh. I bought a usb freeview tv tuner, a usb bluetooth dongle, a pcmcia usb2 hub and i replaced the pcmcia wi-fi card with a usb one (the transceiver now resides inside the nearside wing mirror). The install was easy painless, quick and above all...cheap. I'd highly recommend using an old laptop if you have one lying around (or can find one on ebay).

breaker021 · 07-18-2007, 08:40 AM

i got an awesome deal on a tablet laptop with docking station BRAND FREAKING NEW for only $600 and i've been using that as my car pc since last year. true, it doesnt look OEM and i cant take it to a car show but i got better things to do than to waste months and mad cash on embedding a PC into my car that i drive only on weekends anyway...

this is my setup. im working on a nicer mount but what i have now does the job so im not complaining.

To me - a laptop is the ideal "PC" to use in a car setup. why? depending on what you get, you can buy a "used" laptop with a broken screen for a few hundred bucks. and it already has everything: wireless lan/nic, bluetooth and tons of other features.

as opposed to spending so much money on wires, usb hubs, usb bluetooth adapters and usb wireless nics if you went the mini-itx route...

im happy with my setup yet sooo many people call it ugly, stupid looking, etc etc etc. well, it does everything i want, i can remove my mount + laptop in maybe 20 seconds so i can hide it or take it with me to work or school. i didnt have to hack apart my brand new car. etc etc etc. i can take it into rental cars, etc etc etc. my car has an audio input right from the factory so all i did was connect my laptop to the input and wala - i have music + movie audio + navigation commands all going to my 6 speakers + sub!

some gorgeous and blurry nite shots of my setup

Ruffy · 07-18-2007, 08:31 PM

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Regardless of the power source, you will have to solder a lead to the power button on either your laptop or dock (will not work with a generic USB dock) to turn the computer's power on. If you have a dock, you will not have to risk drilling and soldering your (more expensive) laptop. I soldered a lead to the power switch on the dock (do a search for this topic) and connected it to a female jack that fit into the hole I drilled in the side of the dock.

A momentary switch in my dash is wired to the male jack that fits into the socket I affixed to the side of the dock. This allows me to power my lappie on from the dash, as well as hold the power button down for 5 seconds to hard shut it down when it crashes. I have it set to hibernate when the button is pushed for less than 5 seconds.

Soldering isnt "always" needed. But it's the method I prefer, USB and Wake on Link are available as well on most laptops now. And Carnetix rocks.

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4) You will need to secure your setup somewhere. Since I use my laptop for other purposes, I needed a secure, but easily removable setup. I mounted my dock into a plastic case (pistol case from k-mart: $9.99), drilled holes for all the wiring, and cut insulation foam to allow the laptop to fit snuggly, yet be removed. It may take up extra room, but the computer is safe and doesn't risk flying around.

If you make the laptop a dedicated solution then theres no reason to do that, you can simply find a way to mount/bolt it to the car. If you do want ot easily removable then yeah I can agree with it being more difficult.

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One day I'll post photos, as I think my install is looking pretty clean, with no stray wires and a pretty good sounding setup. Oh yeah, I can play music, watch DVDs, connect to the internet, run GPS software, and play games while doing 80 mpg

Good luck

Please post photos, My install is not clean since im still working on it. We need more laptop based setups shown off. Once my install is alittle cleaner i'll be taking pictures myself.

posicat · 07-23-2007, 04:01 PM

I'm using a laptop, my goal was to do as small a budget as I could manage.

Dell Latitude CPI, Docking station has a pad to solder a start switch to. It's only PII/300, but that keeps head down, and is more than enough to log GPS, and play MP3's, by the time I want more I'll be able to get newer laptops for the same price ($30 in a work auction).

Pez Are Yummy · 07-26-2007, 05:51 PM

I am considering doing a laptop install and my power supply lists the voltage as 19.5V. I can''t imagine that I have the only laptop in the world like this. Looking at the Carnetix options it seems that i would only be able to provide 19V or 20V. Has anyone else run into a similar problem?

Ruffy · 07-28-2007, 11:18 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Pez Are Yummy

I am considering doing a laptop install and my power supply lists the voltage as 19.5V. I can''t imagine that I have the only laptop in the world like this. Looking at the Carnetix options it seems that i would only be able to provide 19V or 20V. Has anyone else run into a similar problem?

Laptop chargers lie generally. they deviate by as much as 1 volt.

That being said the voltage doesnt matter much as almost every laptop out there accepts a fairly wide voltage range. You really have to find the detailed technical specs on the laptop to find out what it accepts. HP has some of them(which is how I found out my laptop doesnt charge the battery at <15volts)

My HP laptop will work down to 13 volts, but anything under 15 volts and the battery wont charge(protection circuit)

If your brick says 19.5 you run can almost always run 17.5/18/18.5/19/20 safely. Look up universal power bricks that support your laptops model. More often than not they wont be the same voltage as the OEM brick.

FusionFanatic · 07-28-2007, 03:48 PM

1 more vote for laptop (there should be a poll attached to this thread)...

I chose to use a laptop for a few reasons:

I already had one that I barely used
it's small/thin size is ideal for carPC applications
adequate cooling built-in
the components inside are built to withstand high temps and alot of moving around.
much easier to get going (since it's already built)
it has it's own battery (with the car off, you can use your carPC for hours without draining the car's battery)
and the biggest advantage IMO is it's portability/removability (when used with a docking station)

I chose to use a docking station with mine. this makes using a laptop even more pratical because you can easily remove it anytime to install programs, format/reinstal the OS, etc, etc. this also saves you from physically hacking into the laptop itself because you can hack into the docking station instead (to hook up the power control). I used a simple momentary switch on my dashboard to turn my carPC on and off. since I don't use my carPC every time I'm in the car I have no need to have it turn on and off automatically.

If you have a laptop that doesn't get much use, then that can make a great carPC. if you decide later on down the road that you want something more powerful then it's easy enough to replace it with either another laptop or a mITX/mATX/ATX system. after all, most the work involved with installing a carPC is the monitor/dash modification/fabrication and wire routing/running (the laptop/PC itself is the easy part IMO)

just my 2¢