Newbie Ideas

codyman · 03-14-2005, 08:25 PM

Hi.. new to mp3car. I just came across this site and its got some great ideas. I just bought a new laptop except it has the sweet AMD64, wifi, and other things I added. In my car, I'm not sure exactly what I want to do but I have some ideas:
1. Definately want to hook my laptop up to my head unit to play iTunes Playlists (easy, requires $15 cable adapter for my head unit, Blaupunkt San Jose MP41)
2. *Maybe* make myself a MegaSquirt since I am into always tinkering with performance, then I could use my laptop to on-the-fly change air-fuel settings.
3. *Maybe* by some LCD screens (I love how cheap they're getting).. probably 2 head rest units and maybe one on the dash... only thing is how can I hook all 3 of those screens up to my laptop to mirror it?
4. Maybe some USB GPS system (I hear those are pretty cheap now)
5. Need a laptop mount.. I see them on eBay for ~$30

Any answers/suggestions/ideas? One thing I love is tweaking performance, anymore ideas on how I could do that via computer (unfortunately I don't have OBD-II, I have an 89 Ford Probe.. yeah not the greatest name scheme there).

Thanks for listening to my rambling!

Bugbyte · 03-14-2005, 09:07 PM

Welcome. The LCD screen you reference is not VGA. It will be suitable for viewing DVD or video in the headrests for your passengers, but it won't be as sharp as a VGA screen.

You'll need to consider how you are going to start/shutdown the laptop. Use the search box to look for how to do this. I assure you it has been discussed on the forums.

You can also find out about GPS in the same way.

Have fun!

codyman · 03-14-2005, 09:25 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Bugbyte

The LCD screen you reference is not VGA. It will be suitable for viewing DVD or video in the headrests for your passengers, but it won't be as sharp as a VGA screen.

That's fine.. I would only turn on the lcd's for movies or maybe iTunes Visualizations

. Question is how can I go from VGA --> 3 RCA Video Outputs?

Bugbyte · 03-14-2005, 10:03 PM

I

"VGA to RCA Adaptor" and got this: http://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/30h1-50300.htm

Google and the Search box are your friends here.