Mac Mini + external battery + OPUS power supply

naaman · 05-25-2005, 05:57 PM

Hi all,

I've been contemplating the prospect of using a Mac Mini in lieu of a Mini ITX board as a carputer.

As such, I'd like to avoid the process of having to boot the computer every time I start the car and hell, it would be fun to be able to ssh or telnet or ftp or whatever into my car so I'd like for the Mac to be "up" most of the time. It looks like it is indeed possible to run the mini on Li-Ion batteries:

http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/307.html

I would like to have a similar setup, but without removing the DVD drive.

So here's how I'd like to connect things up:

Car battery -> OPUS -> lion-ion battery -> Mac Mini

But ... I'm not much of a hardware hacker so ... does anyone here have hints/tips/suggestions about how to go about doing all of this?

Any feedback you provide will be appreciated!

Also note that I'm trying to squeeze all of this stuff into a WRX and will create a web site for it (http://wrxputer.blogspot.com) which will contain links and pics and everything else I can think of as the project evolves (just created it yesterday night before going to bed so there's not much there, yet, aside from a "mission statement"

Thanks in advance,

Alex.

Bugbyte · 05-25-2005, 06:23 PM

Welcome naaman. You need a Carnetix P1900. You also need to head over to the Mac Car forum on this site. You'll find lots of stuff about how to hook up a Mini to your car.

You should also check out the Carnetix site and look at the P1900 forum.