2005 Nissan Xtrail

tja · 11-22-2005, 05:17 AM

22/11/2005

Have been working on this sporadically for some months now... have finally made enough progress to start a work log.

Bits n pieces:
Xenarc 700TSV
Opus PSU
DFI 855GME-MGF Pentium M Mobo
Pentium Celeron M 1.4Ghz
200Gb SATA
sony rm-x2s wired remote

The xtrail has a nice dash panel which covers the double din stereo, Air Con, vents and compartments which comes off nice and easily. Pulled this off leaving the internal bits floating around loose in the dash for a few months while I fabricated the bezel into it.

The screen bezel was attached to the dash with JB Weld... hopefully it wont crack!

Please note this is the first fabrication of this kind i have ever undertaken! Some pics:

Mounting Bezel in dash:

Filled and sanded the edges:

Final coat of paint after 3 layers of primer and 3 layers of top coat:

Close up of above:

Screen mounted:

Rear of dash piece:

Test Run:

In the last pic you can see the mobo and opus in the case, with the sata hdd sitting on top of the temporary 240V PSU. The plywood case (from ikea) might be replaced soon with a white acrylic custom case... depending on cost.. have been quoted AU$150

Update
28/11/2005

Have started making a clear perspex case. Materials are 3mm perspex (not much room under the passenger seat so the thinner the perspex the bettter), and Acrifix 192 glue.

It has been quite a challenge making the case, as I live in a 1br apartment without a garage, and my work bench is my coffee table, much to the dismay of my girlfriend. Tools are limited... the perspex was cut by scoring with a stanley knife, then snapping along the score line. this produced a straight enough "cut" to assemble a box out of. The glue is activated by fluorescent light, which I only found out after researching the product on the internet.. i couldnt work out why the glue wouldnt cure!

I am still to install two fans (one on either side of the case for cross-case air flow), and the lid is cut and just need to glue hinges to it. If i ever need to use the PCI slots i will dremel some holes into the case in the apropriate place.

The hdd is mounted horizontally, because there wasnt enough room to mount vertically... will see how it goes.. if it fails i will look into mounting it vertically. It is suspended on anti-vibration pnumatic pump feet which i found lying around at work. it seems to work ok so far!

Here are some photos:

3/4 view of case

HDD mounting method

close up of HDD mounts

close up of OPUS case ventilation

Update
05/01/2006 and 06/01/2006

Progress has been slow.. but to motivate myself i ripped out the original radio, and installed the dash/screen unit back in the car. So now i have no radio/cd, so hopefully ill get my arse into gear and install the rest of the hardware! Sorry about the dark photos. Will take some better daylight ones tomorrow.

Finally got around to installing all the power wiring for pc, xenarc and amp.

4G to distro block and then 8G x 2 for pc and amp.
Tapped into the accessory power for the original stereo for the remote line for opus and amp.
Ran fig 8 power wire from pc up to xenarc (powering xenarc from opus)
Ran usb and vga extension leads from PC up to xenarc.
(PC is going under front passenger seat.)

Photos in the morning hopefully after i get the pc in and do a first test run in the car! exciting. well for me anyway!

Hellcat · 11-22-2005, 05:25 AM

Looks awesome! Good job.

Cant wait to see it in the car.

tja · 11-24-2005, 02:33 AM

cheers... i cant wait either!! this has been a long project.. well too long for the progress made ("ur spending too much money on that thing... ur spending too much time on that thing... spend time and money on ME" said the gf)...

yesterday i went down to bunnings and bought some clear acrylic, and some Acrifix 192 acrylic glue. cut up the pieces last night and have started gluing the box together tonight... it's a long process as the glue im using is cured by exposure to light! Fluorescent to be precise... so i had to go to kmart and buy a fluro lamp to get this glue curing! It still takes around an hour it seems to cure to a useable state.

the acrylic is only 3mm as i'm doing this on a tight budget and its cheaper than 6mm! Also it's all bunnings stock. but its pretty tough stuff and should be fine for this purpose.

Photos to come when its stuck together.

ArthrDent · 11-24-2005, 02:38 AM

Looks great!

i love the clean fit of the lcd! Look forward to seeing more!

BIzFlawless · 11-24-2005, 03:32 AM

Nice Dash!

tja · 11-28-2005, 06:20 AM

updated first post with photos of PC case and hdd mounts.

pip · 11-29-2005, 01:07 AM

Might be me... but the hdd mounts only seem to dampen downward movement of the drive...upward movement of the drive is not dampened. I think you should put rubber/foam on both sides of the hdd bracket.

tja · 11-29-2005, 03:25 AM

well the rubbers that the hdd is mounted on can compress (downwards pressure) as well as expand (upwards pressure)... hopefully taking up movement in both directions... rubbers also allow for sidewards movement for fast cornering..

its just an idea anyway, and its the parts that i had available to me!

thanatos106 · 11-29-2005, 03:41 AM

Very nice... super clean dash pice!

Thanatos.

tja · 01-06-2006, 07:32 AM

update first post
- installing screen in car
- installing wiring.

tja · 01-08-2006, 07:03 AM

well its all in, and mostly working! One thing i found out is that Hibernating doesn't like almost flat cmos batterys... mine keeps resetting the bios and then it wont come back out of hibernation, so until i get the battery replaced i have to shutdown fully, which is a shame, as i had startup to music playing (using s3 hibernation) less than 15 sec which for me is good as it takes me longer than that just to get out of the garage!

the only other problem thus far is that my on board sound is only outputting one channel. crappy realtek ac97. i guess i shouldnt complain, it is a second hand mobo. good excuse to get a creative external usb one though.

took the car for its first test drive with it all installed and it kept working. carpc survives cranking.

so all that is left now is to add a new soundcard, my sony rmx2s remote, usb gps, and maybe wifi...

tja · 01-11-2006, 03:08 AM

well after various problems with on board sound cards and lack of ACPI support for proper hibernation with the opus (even thought my motherboard supports it - stupid microsoft), my carputer finally works.. i *****ing love this thing!

BiGGy · 03-03-2006, 01:36 PM

I like it, im going to use the hdd rail idea in my pc. I got a quote of $70 a sq meter for the 3mm stuff how much did you get it for? and how much of it did you get? My case will be smaller, prolly wont use more then 1 meter.

Did you glue the mobo face plate in or just quezzed it in?

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