Thread: Scion xB '06, in-dash Atom 330, Lilliput 889GL; details, pictures, links. Index: pg 1

nLite'd XP Pro -- Version 1

I did the first pass at getting an nLite'd version of XP Pro SP3. This was a pretty light pass, mostly to set preferences and eliminate languages I won't use. I'll do the installation test tonight. If this goes well, I'll be ready to add Centrafuse and all the other stuff.

With a little luck, I'll finish the new touchscreen mount, too, so I'll do a final fit check with everything assembled.

If both hardware and software work, I'll leave it in and do a couple days of road testing. But that's a stretch, I think. I'll be pretty happy just to get one or the other another step toward completion.

Originally Posted by rdholtz

nLite'd XP Pro -- Version 1

I did the first pass at getting an nLite'd version of XP Pro SP3. This was a pretty light pass, mostly to set preferences and eliminate languages I won't use. I'll do the installation test tonight. If this goes well, I'll be ready to add Centrafuse and all the other stuff.

With a little luck, I'll finish the new touchscreen mount, too, so I'll do a final fit check with everything assembled.

If both hardware and software work, I'll leave it in and do a couple days of road testing. But that's a stretch, I think. I'll be pretty happy just to get one or the other another step toward completion.

I did the same thing. Its amazing how much smaller the install CD is once you get rid of the language packs. I think mine was like 350 MB with SP3.

Love the case. I cant wait to get my d@3n screen back from this vendor. I cant do anything with my install :-(

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

I did the same thing. Its amazing how much smaller the install CD is once you get rid of the language packs. I think mine was like 350 MB with SP3.

Mine came in at 319 MB with SP3 and just English. I'd be happy to have other languages in there if I could use them, but I only know some German and enough Spanish to say "Lo siento, yo no habla Espanol."

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

Love the case.

Me, too. And if I could dig up some more aluminum material, I might build Version 2 using all the stuff I learned. I keep getting closer and closer to Blk02si's design. I'd say that means his experience has taught him well, and mine is teaching me many of the same things. I've found I like working with aluminum much more than with steel.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

cant wait to get my d@3n screen back from this vendor. I cant do anything with my install :-(

It's tough to stop and wait for someone else so you can proceed. Luckily, my Lilliput seems fine, so far, but I'll wait 'til I give it a run in the car to make an in-use judgment.

How's the console coming?

Originally Posted by rdholtz

Mine came in at 319 MB with SP3 and just English. I'd be happy to have other languages in there if I could use them, but I only know some German and enough Spanish to say "Lo siento, yo no habla Espanol."

I use to be fluent in German but when we moved from there to here, my Mom felt that we should only focus on English, which I really regret.

It's tough to stop and wait for someone else so you can proceed. Luckily, my Lilliput seems fine, so far, but I'll wait 'til I give it a run in the car to make an in-use judgment.

I'm sure yours will be fine since you are using a different model. I have not heard of the self destruct button being on any other model except the EBY701. Just in case though, never use the auto adjust button. With your install though it doesn't matter if you blow that resolution because your setup only has one screen right now. My issue was that I have have 3 screens right now with 5 more on the way and to try to run multiple resolutions would be h3ll for my GPU.

How's the console coming?

My A.D.D kicked in and I decided to stop the console and have Nexson physically add an extension to the existing front console. That was a bad idea because it turns out it not level because of the cars frame, carpet and all the wires running through it. I have now decided to make them separate again and then have nexson fiberglass that. Im sure he thinks I'm crazy for flip flopping.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

I use to be fluent in German but when we moved from there to here, my Mom felt that we should only focus on English, which I really regret.

Well, if you were fluent in German once, you could pick it up again, and I recommend it. I believe being multi-lingual is a huge advantage, because it teaches the brain to think along multiple tracks at once (and that's probably great training for our A.D.D. brains). I learned some German in high school. I'm mostly German and English, but my ancestors lost both those languages, and now we only speak American English, which can be very different from British English. I suspect George Bernard Shaw had it right when he said "England and America are two countries separated by a common language."

American English has evolved differently, at least in part, because we're a polyglot country; Americans are almost all descendants of immigrants. We've had a lot of expressions from other languages added to the American lexicon. And we've happily added terms from engineering and science (debug, for instance), changed terms (like making "parent" into a verb), and accepted improper uses (like using "reticent" -- which means reluctant to speak -- to mean simply reluctant). Maybe at least part of it comes from focusing on being productive rather than on being proper.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

My A.D.D kicked in and I decided to stop the console and have Nexson physically add an extension to the existing front console. That was a bad idea because it turns out it not level because of the cars frame, carpet and all the wires running through it. I have now decided to make them separate again and then have nexson fiberglass that. Im sure he thinks I'm crazy for flip flopping.

I think it's a good plan to have them separate; cars are modular because it makes them easier to design, easier to build and easier to repair. Once upon a time, you could buy almost any part for any car. Nowadays, the parts frequently come in assemblies. For instance, try to buy one little bushing for a window regulator; you'll end up buying the entire regulator mechanism, because the parts aren't sold individually. It's frustrating for the buyer, but it makes inventory control a lot easier for the parts people. It also results in us having to scrap 95% good parts to get the one little one that broke.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

Im sure he (Nexson) thinks I'm crazy for flip flopping.

I wonder if partly crazy isn't a requirement for building a carPC.

More Testing Coming Up

The testing Wednesday night was successful only on a very basic level. I got started pretty late. I wired everything up, plugged it in, and got a startup / instant shutdown. It had worked fine before I tore it apart, so I hoped it was just a reassembly error. There's no speaker in the system, so there were no beep codes to decipher (hmmmm -- maybe I want to stick a little speaker in there for testing, eh?)

I opened the chassis and checked all the cables, made sure the on / off cable from PSU to mainboard was installed right, and tried it again. Same issue. Power to mainboard: check. Power to hard drive: check. Try it all again. Same problem. Then this little light went off in the back of my head, and -- sure enough -- I'd left the P4 power cable out. No power to the processor = no boot.

Then the system booted fine, but not from the installation CD, even with USB devices (the DVD system) set first in the BIOS boot priority. I wasn't sure at that point if it was the CD or the DVD unit that was hosed. It's been many moons since I did an nLite CD, and I may have missed something.

A little more troubleshooting, and the evening was gone. And I didn't finish the screen mount, either.

Thursday night was mostly family time, but I was able to get the DVD system checked. It's fine, so the trouble is in the nLite'd CD. Using a regular XP SP3 disk, I got the drive repartitioned and reformatted. I tried installing XP from the first nLite pass, and there's definitely something amiss (it wants the SP3 CD), so I'll do another pass at that.

One Screen Mount, Coming Up
I expect to make the finished version of the much-revised screen mount Friday. I'll have pictures.

The Fans Work Fine
One test went great: the fans. I have two 40mm fans in the case. These are are 12V units plugged into the 5V fan header on the M4-ATX (Mini-box made the change from 12V fan header to 5V in April, 2009), so they're really not pushing a lot of air out of the case. After 8 hours of idling, the exhaust air from the fans is barely above room temperature. If I find they need to move more air, I'll hook them to 12V, but they're doing fine on 5V right now.

If all you did was take out the language packs and slipstream SP3, then it should be fine. It could be the burn process was messed up. I know with my PC I have a burn speed of like 52x.... To be safe though I always set it to a low number like 12x when burning. Maybe there was one little hick up when you burned the CD and its corrupted.

I can wait to see how the screen mount turns out. On a happy note, my screen is on the way back. It turns out that the guy was finished with it for about a week. I really bad email to him and ebay got my screen sent out yesterday. Even though I have no speakers, Amps, or the replacement HDD, I'm going from SSD back to HDD, the SSD just isn't stable because its a MLC version, and I just do not like the per GB amount of the SLC. What I did decide to do is use it to hold my image for the main PC, and the new units. I may also use it for holding the installers for everything.

Is this with bench testing for the fans? I find that bench testing is pointless because once you install into the car, the environment is just to different. Seeing though that you case is in the dash, which will have the A/C running most of the time, you should be fine.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

If all you did was take out the language packs and slipstream SP3, then it should be fine. It could be the burn process was messed up. I know with my PC I have a burn speed of like 52x.... To be safe though I always set it to a low number like 12x when burning. Maybe there was one little hick up when you burned the CD and its corrupted.

Well, I started with the same base that I built the EeePC from, and I could tell from the start that some things aren't quite right. I think I'd be wise to just start from Ground Zero in a new folder and build a whole new implementation of it. But I'll do more than just strip the language packs; I want a completely unattended install, even including the license key.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

I can't wait to see how the screen mount turns out.

It's done, at least for now. I'll get pictures and pop them up here. There are still things I could change in the next version, but it's working well.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

Is this with bench testing for the fans? I find that bench testing is pointless because once you install into the car, the environment is just to different. Seeing though that your case is in the dash, which will have the A/C running most of the time, you should be fine.

Yes, this is just leaving the system to idle on the desk overnight. The real test will be running it in the car. Before I do that, I need to do two things: (1) get the 12V power lines run in the Scion, and (2) get the install done, so the PC does more than sit there and spin its fans.

A Little Fastener Change

I'd originally intended to use permanently-mounted rivet nuts instead of loose hex nuts. I used the loose nuts as a part of the build-it-with-simple-tools plan. I think it's pretty much proven that we can build this chassis with very simple tools, so now it makes sense to see how I can improve on it and make it work even better.

Reaching the 6 hex nuts that hold the end panel and touchscreen on required that I tear the whole chassis apart to make minor changes. That's not very handy. So I went back into the end panel, moved the top and bottom brackets a bit closer together to allow for the rivet nut flanges, and put rivet nuts into the brackets.

Here's how that looks:

Click images to enlarge.

I had to make the side brackets a bit shorter, because the top and bottom brackets are closer together. The scratches on the inside surface are from filing the brackets down. I finally drilled out the rivets and did the filing in the vise.

When I reassembled it, I replaced the big-head rivets with 6-32 nuts and screws, because I really didn't like the way the giant pop rivets looked. Then I decided that using screws and nuts was a waste of good removable fasteners when I'll never need to remove them, so I went back again and replaced them with standard-head rivets.

Here's its new, less lumpy look:

Now the end panel is easy to put in, because I don't fumble with nuts at all; I just put the screws in and I'm done. The rivet nuts work so nicely that I'm tempted to go in and replace the ones for the top panel screws. That would make getting into the chassis a snap.

For now, I'll call the chassis done and concentrate on getting it working in the car, but -- the first time I need to take that lid off -- I'll make the change to rivet nuts and small-head rivets there, too.