lummox

I am a relative noob to all this, however, I have read a few of the threads in the forum and I'd just like to say what a great job you guys are doing! Thanks!

I have a SAAB 9000 with a tape player that is on it's last legs, so i though now was as good a time as any to think about a carputer.

For the display and input, think i will go with a 7" lilliput touchscreen from cartft.com, does any one know of the quality of these screens, do the suffer from the jurrassic park effect i've been reading about on those from ebay? This screen will be mounted in the expansive centre console below the ACC unit.

I have access to an unwanted AMD 1000+ PC, I believe the computer has on-board sound but not graphics. My plan was to build a case out of some form of Perspex-esque material that housed the mobo (with chip/ram etc) and the graphics card and LAN in the pci slots. I would probably buy a Mastero DC-DC power supply which would be housed in the original psu case, but outside the Perspex one. I want to put the PC case vertically below the screen on one side of the console, leaving enough space to mount the DVD and HD drives.

otherwise i was thinking of utilising the large and unused tape holder next the handbrake, or possibly behing the rear armrest.

will i need to used rubber grommets or springs to mount the drives? will i need to add extra fans inside the dash for extra cooling?

how easy will it to hard wire the lcd and the PSU (for the pc) to the car battery?

for sound i think i will connect the output from the PC dirrectly to an amp, to do away with the need of a stereo, and possibly in the future buy a FM card, any recomendations?

can you recommend gps hard- and soft-ware, preferably with speed camera alerts?

does anyone have any suggestions before i get started?

Thanks very much

MP3Car.com

 

samc

Everything you said will for fine.
-no don't use rubber grommets or springs to add "shocks" to the drive.
-extra fans are always a good thing, I like to find the quietest possible <21 dB
-"hard wire the lcd and psu".. sinch, just like wiring an amp or lighting
-Rca to amps is just fine. Some people get that hauppage TV/FM tuner but the TV reception does not work well in a car.
-Copilot and Street Atlas are two of the best gps softwares out there. I don't know about speed camera alerts though, its a GPS not a miracle software.
-Make sure you have 2x the amount of money you intend to spend before starting

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Mine needs to be updated.

lummox

Thanks for the advice.

Will the dvd drive not skip when going over bumps?

Are the GPS mouses universal? ie can you use any software with any mouse, or are they specific?

When using a touch-screen, do you need to use a stylus, or are fingers ok?

Audio Bandit

1. I have never heard of anyones dvd skip in the car,usually laptop drives are used as they can be gottin on ebay for cheap and interfaced with an adapter.
2. Depends, on the software. routis doesnt work with delorme gps, and from reviews its one of the best naviagation software on the market.Co-pilot (pricey), used to require you to use there GPS that came with the software. Ive heard thats not true with the live version. Usually you would check for NMEA compliance.
3. Im not aware of anyone using a stylus.

Any more questions and before posting to eliminate flames, also their is a section dedicated for "newbies".

owenjh

This thread is in the section for "newbies" unless it was moved

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