loginfailed

I haven't done much posting here, mainly reading. But I figured I would share my little project I've been working on.

A little disclaimer before I begin my rant about the Carnetix 2140. I've installed car audio professionally from 1994-2005. I've installed for a variety of businesses. Ive worked at Eagle Distributors, Mobile One Autosound, Best Buy, Circuit City and Car Toys over the years. So I know a little about what I'm doing.

If you have a Carnetix product (1900, 2140 etc) and you like it, it is working great for you, that is fantastic. Stick with what works best for you. Everyone has a different setup, system and situation.

I originally bought the 2140 to run my laptop but more recently I had the 2140 unit running an mini ITX machine. Ive always had one problem or another with the 2140.

The DLYON output is a weak beotch
I hooked up two small Alpine amplifiers and one MTX amplified Thunderform to the DLYON output. It wasn't able to turn on 3 amplifiers. Amp turn on inputs take mere milliamps to activate the amplifier, wtf? So I figured I would use a simple SPDT relay and maybe the 2140 would do it then. WRONG! The relays I use require about 100 milliamps to activate them. I only had one relay hooked to the DLYON output and guess what? It fried the DLYON output. Again, WTF? So I ended up getting the unit swapped out (Thank you MP3car.com!) and bought a PAC TR-7 to get the new DLYON to work. In my professional experienced opinion, the DLYON output needs to be re-designed.

So it cost me an extra $15 (for the TR-7) on top of the price of the 2140 just to turn on my amps. Pretty much any headunit with a remote out can activate 3 amps (my Alpine did it no problem, same three amps too). I have never had a problem ever with a remote out not being able to turn on three amps or even activate a relay. I assumed since the 2140 DLYON was designed to turn on amplifiers that it would behave just like a head unit remote out. Thats what happens when you assume, lol.

The 2140 could not consistently keep my machine in standby.
About every 4th or 5th time I started my car, the machine would start from a cold boot. I set the thing to standby and it would work only about 80% of the time.

I installed a dedicated battery, a Kinetik HC800, thinking voltage might be getting too low. I never had a problem starting the car, but what the heck, lol. When the ignition goes off, it disconnects the carPC battery from the main battery. So the PC can standby as long as it needs to and wont affect starting the car. This didnt help and the problem still prevailed. I ended up temporarily installing an Autometer Phantom series volt meter I had laying around and ran two long wires back to second battery. That way I could look at the voltage the 2140 was seeing before I start the car and the charging system takes over. The lowest voltage I ever saw was about 11.5 volts and that was even after the car sit all weekend without me driving it. Keep in mind also that in the psumoni application I set the shut down voltage on the 2140 to 10 volts.

Maybe it was heat related. I live in Houston and its hot here. But the weird thing is. These symptoms would occur at night and early in the mornings when it wasnt even that hot out. I work night shifts, four nights a week, I would get to work at 7pm. Shut off the car, come back at 10pm to go to lunch. The PC comes out of standby just fine. I get back from lunch. The PC goes into standby. I come out to the car at 5am to go home and I get a cold boot. Wtf? You know what you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinocerous? L-F-I-NO

It could have been heat due to the 2140 having to keep the PC energized during standby. But come on, there isnt that much current required to keep a PC in standby. I figured if powering the unit during standby was causing heat shut off, then why wouldnt that happen when the PC was on? It takes a lot more current to run it than have it in standby.

I gave up. Maybe it was some error on my part, but I couldnt stand it anymore and started looking for something different to handle what I purchased the 2140 to do.

Three PAC TR-7's, three SPDT relays and two 120 watt mini-ITX power supplies
Im sure there are lots of other neat (and cheaper) ways to solve this problem. But I have a lot of relays and wiring laying around from my car audio days. I like these kinds of projects because it lets my flex my car audio muscle. I picked up a couple more TR-7's and got to planning.

So here is what Ive got.

TR-7 #1
Handles the remote turn on for the amps. Feature #12 (delayed on) in TR-7 instructions. I programmed it to turn on the amps 20 seconds after the ignition comes on. This gives the machine time to come out of standby before turning on the amps which eliminates turn on thump that would occur when the sound card initializes. (this can be easily adjusted from 1 second to over 4 minutes)

TR-7 #2
Handles turning the PC on and off. Hooks into the power button on the PC. Ignition comes on, sends a pulse to a relay that "presses" the power button. Ignition goes off, sends another pulse to turn it off. Using feature #9 (door lock pulse generator). The TR-7 thinks it is locking the doors when the key is on and unlocking the doors when the key is off. We wont tell it otherwise.

TR-7 #3
Not really needed but Im using this one to keep the monitor on for 30 seconds after the ignition turns off. I like to see the screen showing that Windows is standing by so I can see as Im getting out of the car if there is any problems. This isnt really necessary but I had an extra TR-7 and found a use for it, lol. (this can also be adjusted from 1 second to over 4 minutes)

The relays
One is used to "press" the power button so the machine goes in and out of standby.
One is used to turn on a secondary mini-ITX 120 watt power supply
One is used to turn on the amplifiers

Two mini-ITX power supplies
The mini-ITX case I bought came with a 60 watt power supply. Pretty weak but it never was a problem. But recently I found these 120 watt power supplies for $18.99. I bought two of them. I used one of them to replace the 60 watt unit that came with my mini-ITX case. And the other one I used to power my screen and extra USB peripherals up front (extra hub and a slot load DVD-R).

Now my screen has its own dedicated 12 volt rail and the slot load DVD-R and USB hub have their own dedicated 5 volt rail. So the power supply running the PC doesn't have to compete for power at all and everyone is happy.

I know this probably seems pretty complicated to wire all this stuff up, but its not as bad as it sounds. This type of setup wouldn't be for everyone but some of you may find it interesting.

Does it work?
Absolutely perfect so far. I will report back if there are any hiccups. The cool thing to me is, I know exactly what is doing what, how it does it, why it does it and when its going to do it. With the Carnetix 2140 I was at the mercy of the person who designed it and if I encountered any problems, I had to beg for support. I don't know if any of you have been on the Carnetix support forums, if you have then you probably know what I think about that.

MP3Car.com

 

JC-S60

Nice info and good solution!

One question though: what happens if you need to move your car a bit? You start it, and before the PC is started up, you cut ignition again... Does it still shut down or doesn't it react to the pulse because windows isn't loaded yet?

This is a problem that occurs with all shutdown controllers I've seen so far.

Joachim

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loginfailed

I know that can potentially be a problem. As long as I wait until the PC is out of standby before turning off the key, there are no problems. Owning a carPC, you have to be aware of what you are doing and what effect it will have on the PC.

But on my system it only takes about 15 seconds from the time the key is turned on for the PC to turn on and come out of standby.

If I move my car a short distance, I just wait ~15 seconds until I see that Windows is out of standby before turning the key off. Then it will just go back into standby.

OR.. Say for instance, I am resetting my airbag light, or programming features or remotes on my alarm system. Those types of things require the key to be cycled back and fourth several times within a certain time frame.

For things like that, I have a switch I can turn off that interrupts the ignition signal going to the PC. I can just toggle the switch to the off position until Im done with whatever Im doing.

I suppose there would be a way to wire it so there is a minimum on time before sending the standby command. Or there might be some sort of software I could use to send a signal out the serial port when windows is done booting up, then I could send that signal to make the PC shut down if it also sees the ignition off. I havent really looked into it though. My goal was to keep every thing stupid simple.

DaveDog

login,

do those power supplies survive cranking?

nice find.

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loginfailed

According to the webpage where the power supplies are listed for sale, the unit is capable of operating with a 9v-15v input range. http://store.mo-co-so.com/120-watt-1...pply-p-49.html I haven't had any problems with cranking.

Generally what I have seen with car batteries is if they go below 9 volts during cranking, the battery either needs to be charged or replaced. This can vary though depending on the vehicle in question. Most modern vehicles will not go below 9 volts during cranking.

In my opinion, if the power supply works down to 9 volts, it should be fine in most cars. Some units out there say they work down to 6 volts, so you have to decide for yourself I suppose. But for $18.99 what do you have to lose?

I have had no problems with them at all. But I cannot guarantee engine cranking survival for a few reasons.
1) Every car/battery/starter/charging system is different
2) In my case, I have a second battery installed.
3) I dont crank my engine while the computer is on.
4) The PAC TR-7 has a few second delay (engine is running by the time the TR-7 "presses" the power button).

BUT, I would think that in most modern vehicles the voltage isnt going to get down below 9 volts during cranking. In my case, a 2002 Honda Accord V6, it doesnt go below 9 volts.

daclothe

dumb question but what outputs do these units have? is that one 12v and a 5v output as well?

loginfailed

The power supplies I used from the link above are just like any other pc power supply. They have 12v, 5v, and 3.3v.. See pic


The power supplies come with an ATX jumper harness that is supposed to go from the power supply to your motherboard. There is a 4 pin plug that branches off of the harness that is supposed to go to your drives (hard drive, CD ROM, floppy, etc).


I used the red & black pair of wires to go to external USB hub and external slim DVD-R drive (5v). And I used the yellow & black pair of wires to go to the screen screen (12v)

To turn the power supply on, you have to join the green & black wires together (pins 13 & 14)

Mazda6gp

Will this power supply be able to run a normal P4 pc.

loginfailed

I dont know, I dont have a P4. Im using a VIA mini ITX system (VB7001). You may want to ask the seller at the link I posted above.

Lovecraft

Very nice system, I can tell you are comfortable and know your stuff with 12V car electrical!

Any chance of getting a photo of some parts of your install? I'd like to see how you placed your relays. Are they all next to the particular component or mounted on something together?

SentraVIP

I think if one setup up his comp for HORM, it will even eliminate the need for shutdown controller.

This is definately a viable solution.

Good stuffs there.

S4Per

loginfailed - what type of sound card are you using?

I ask, because I've been using a P2140, had a P1900 before. At one point (NOT when I first started using the P1900) I got the same symptoms as you in terms of it not holding standby. I battled with it on and off for 5 months, and at this point, I'm 99% positive it is my onboard sound (Realtek HD Audio on my Aopen i945gtt-vfa).

So, I'm curious: which sound card are you using?

loginfailed

I dont currently have any pics of it, but if you are wondering how I found room for everything? I actually built my own case out of 1/4 MDF and part of a Morex 3677. The case has plenty of room to spare. I can still fit the 2140 in there if I wanted to,


I agree that HORM would work pretty good. At least for my purposes it would. Im not really 100% sure how to set that up. Its something I plan to tinker with in the future. I just have had too much going on to tackle that yet. Plus when I do my next overhaul on the car PC, I want to use a Solid State Hard Drive. So Im sort of waiting for the price of SSD's to come down a bit before I do it.

But I believe you would still need something to "control" shutting down & starting up as well as turning on your amps and stuff.


Hmm thats an interesting thought. Im using the VB7001's on board sound. But I dont understand how the onboard sound would cause that type of problem.

Could you explain why you think that the on board sound causes standby issues? Im not saying I disagree, Im just asking because Im sort of ignorant to a lot of things when it comes to how a computer works. Im more of a car audio nerd than computer nerd if that makes sense, lol.

S4Per

just becaues of trial and error...somewhere i saw someone post some issues with the realtek stuff in terms of standby and hibernate. i then experimented with using just the OS drivers which made the system stay at 'preparing to standby' forever, i then loaded various drivers and the problem got better but not totally. I then finally disabled the onboard sound in the BIOS, and didn't run into the problem again. I say 99.5% sure, because it has always been intermittent. I did the final test for 3 days without issue.

loginfailed

Oh I see.

Im pretty sure my machine is going into standby like its supposed to because I have the screen set to turn off after a 30 second delay so I can actually see the machine shutting down. Plus, if I hook the amp remote to constant, I can hear the thump when the MB shut off the line outs of the sound card.

I may try to get the 2140 running again in the next couple weeks to see if I can isolate the problem. Everything is working really well right now with the current setup.

Only hitch Im having right now is Im running down the second battery. Ive been driving my Civic all week because it gets 35mpg and the Accord only gets 22mpg. With the machine in standby, it eventually drains the second battery.

I wish there was some way to make a unit that would sense the voltage getting low and then wake the PC from standby and initiate a proper shut down. That would be killer. I havent seen anything like that. Im sure it could be done, but I havent really put much thought into how to do it yet. I need to do some brainstorming I guess. The way the 2140 does it is just pull the power when the voltage gets too low (no proper shutdown)

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