After that was done, it was time to hook up the console monitor to the carpc on the test bench and cross my fingers
that everything still worked.
Great! Everything worked like a charm but I ran into my first glitch. I was using a motherboard from a
Shuttle SS51G with a 2.8G P4 processor and 1G of ram. What a piece of junk. Talk about slow and a power hog.
My old mini-itx board used to bootup in my other carpc setup in under 25 seconds using an nLite'd version
of XP that I created. This hog takes well over a minute and unfortunately, the 150W Opus power supply I am using
cannot power the motherboard, the Lilliput and the usb devices so I had to cob up a separate power link using
an old Morex 60W power supply I had laying around. You can see that on the cutting board between the keyboard
and the cup holder. I was very pressed for time getting ready for the 3SI Gathering in Michigan so I had to
use this cob job to get the job done. Using a thick plastic cutting board, I mounted the Morex, usb hub and
slim dvd drive under the passenger seat (I epoxied a plastic 'cover' over the Morex).
It fit perfect! I put the passenger seat back in and checked all the connections.... CRACK!
Damn, I never saw the metal 'wing' under the passenger seat so when I moved it back, it literally
ripped my slim dvd drive to shreads! With only 3 hours to go before we were leaving, I just took it out,
threw it in the garbage and forged on.
Luckily, everything worked although it can be a pain using 2 separate power sources because I couldn't trigger the
Morex from the Opus. Simply using the Opus 12V lead to trigger the Morex to turn on would cause the Opus to shutdown
completely so I had to use 2 separate toggle switches.
Here's how it looked installed and up and running.
And a few screen shots running RoadRunner and the fantastic DigitalFX front end
And lastly, a shot from the back. My amplifier and carpc are mounted under the extended hatch area, under the grates.
This setup worked fantastic going out to and returning from the National 3SI Gathering in Stevensville, Michigan (12 hrs each way)
and gps saved our butts several times when we hit a few traffic jams but now that I am back, there are a few things I am going to fix
like getting rid of that crappy Shuttle motherboard and getting another mini-itx board so I can power everything with just the Opus.
I also need to make a better venting solution so I can get rid of the grates which removes the entire purpose of extending the
hatch area because we needed the luggage room. I also need to hook up and program my Shuttle Express and a few other odds and ends.
Overall, I am about 70% happy with the project but made a few mistakes that need to be fixed maybe this winter when I put the car
in storage. I forgot to take into consideration, the vinyl clips that go between the console and the dash. They don't line up
correctly and it bugs the hell out of me. I should of put the entire console back into the car before I let the Dynatron dry overnight.
Hacking the console up so much made it weak in a couple places which basically made the form slightly out of whack so the
abs form and the Dynatron were also slightly out of whack. Other than that, it was a good learning experience for me.
Where did you get your Dynatron plastic?
Linear Mode
