Thread: 2003 Honda Accord Sports Coupe - a worklog

Quote - “ …. and it boots Win7 in 11 seconds. It cold boots from suspend to RAM to fully running in 2 seconds”.

Yes the Gigabyte mini ITX has around 15 seconds until Windows loads. After bios initialization, Win7 fully loads (no hourglass – instant response) in 11 seconds. So standard cold boot is 26 seconds.

A standard high quality 7,200 RPM SATA drive boots Win7 in 45 to 55 seconds compared to 11 seconds on the SSD. Post of course remains the same for both so the HDD takes 65s to cold boot (26s for SDD).

However, they have the S3 state really worked on this unit. From cold power on, to on screen HVAC display of status in 2 seconds flat. So far, all USB devieces have responded correctly for this state.

GA-H55MB-USB3, CORE i3-540/3.06GHz. 4G DDR3 Ram, 60GB SSD drive.

BTW. A nice feature of the GB MB is complete control to create any custom resolution for any screen.

So 800x480, being ideal for windows on a 7 or 8 inch widescreen LCD, is easy to do and no drivers are needed.

Wow,

It's been over a year since I last added anything here... So to make up, here some info on a GPS fix.

The problem: my GPS (Holux GPSSlim236) would not work when I started my car(mostly). It would, at times, start working after some time driving. After some troubleshooting, I identified a potential cause of the problem (still verifing this at the time of this writing). The GPS is powered from the battery, even when it is connected via USB. The battery would/should stay charged for about 10 hours (as reported by Holux). My car would sit for over 12 hours on a daily basis. Since I intend for this device to be a "fix it and forget it" solution, turning it on/off all the time wasn't something I intended to do.

The Solution: have a friend (John, the absolute man) who happens to be handy with a soldering iron and switches hook me up... Below are some pics of his handy work.

Here's the GPS layed out:


After taking the plastic housing for the on/off switch off, the top piece of metal needs to be pryed off to get to the actual points on the board.


The top piece actually needed to be desoldered -- and here's John doing one side of that effort.


So, Now we have access to the contacts:


Time to heat things up...


John, has some steady hands




The three wires soldered to the board.


Damn, these parts are small:


Since we removed the plastic On/Off toggle -- the space it vacated is perfect for running the wires out.


Time to solder on the 12V relay. Some more info on the relay from John: The closest match that Radio Shack sells now is 275-248. It is a Single Pole Double Throw relay, 12 Volt coil, and the contacts are rated for 10 Amps, but is still really small (9/16 x 5/8 x 5/32). 10 amps is way overkill, but it should last a long time. In fact, this one is more narrow than the one I used and would probably stick to the side of the GPS better. I don’t think Radio Shack sells the one I used on your GPS anymore.


Finally, the finished product...

So,

Here's my update trunk look (excuse the slightly out-of-focus pics) -- one can see I have moved the pc up under my deck.

Mounting the computer under the deck in the trunk was accomplished by using some holes already there. You can find them by getting a flash light and drop down the rear seats - look up at the deck and somewhere in the center you will see 4 holes (not evenly spaced -- that would make things to easy). I used these holes, bolts, nuts and washers to create 4 post. I then cut a piece of plywood to the shape of my carpc and drilled holes to match up to the post. Then mount plywood to the post and pc to the plywood. I used a lot of zipties to run the cable around.




And a little closer look at the modified gps device...

So, at long last -- I am going to install a sub (or so I hope). This is my first time working with fiberglass, so I expect a learning curve. First lesson -- don't wait until December to try a fiberglass project (more on that later).

So after doing some on line research at the following site:

http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=97522

http://chris.pfharlock.com/glass/makerings.htm

http://vipstylecars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19794

http://my350z.com/forum/audio-video-...ox-making.html

http://www.teamswift.net/viewtopic.php?t=4568

and gather supplies from Home Depot -- I started off by taping the area to be worked on. I used a base layer of duct tape followed by a layer of blue painters tape. Ending up with the following:



Having read up on fiberglassing I had seen suggestions of working on days that have ambient temps above 65 degrees... Well not going to see that until spring, so looked for a day above 40. Well this worked out for a 4 day weekend, so I thought this would be a great time to start. Threw on some work clothes, grabbed the newly purchased resp. mask, put on 2 pairs of disposable gloves, opened the garage door -- and off I went. After a bit I was left with this:



Early lessons: Yes, the resin does really smell. Yes, the resin/hardner mix is really sticky (making it a pain to work with). Both I was aware of by using the great tool called Google.

Now, I threw in a space heater and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Stupid stuff wasn't curing... Closed up all the car windows and trunk -- started the engine and ran heat on high till car is nice and toasty. Waited some more. It's sticky vs wet, now. Looked around garge for damn heat gun. Repeat car heating trick. Deal with spouse being unhappy about how strong the resin/hardner smells. Check and decided it looks cured *enough* (this was an error) to add on second layer. Put on working outfit again and go at it... More car heating and looking for heat gun -- followed by calling it a day and heading to bed.

Here's some more images of my work... I have tried it back in the trunk and it fits like a glove. However, I am having some questions -- asked on a separate thread.





If you look close there are some *issues* with my form... I started a thread about it here: http://www.mp3car.com/fabrication/15...iberglass.html

So,

I should mention what sub I am working with, which is shown below.




And here is the crappy speaker ring I put together to hold said sub in my upcoming enclosure. Good thing it's going to be hidden!



BTW: sorry for the out of focus pic... Also I have already installed t-bolts to match up with the speaker. A hint here, don't hammer them in -- instead drill the right size hole, add some wood glue and then *squeeze* them in using clamps. Seems to be holding up much better that way.

More updates...

Weather was kinda nice over the weekend, so I got some work done. That started off with trimming the excess off my form.



Then using my newly acquired glue gun I attached my *ring*. This took a while, mostly due to trying to get the position right for my trunk. The big problem with the trunk hinge. I hope I worked this out right.

It's been a bit since I posted an update on my subwoofer exploits... So, here's some more pics.
Here's me (with my 225lb frame) standing on the box and it not crumbling to pieces...


Here's where it's at now


from my last post to these pictures are a number of steps, which I didn't take pictures of. Mostly because I was working outside in the FREEZING code (and I do mean that literally). I would do some work on the box and then put it under a tarp/tent like setup with a heat gun going for a number of hours to get it to cure. Not the optimum way to get things to work, but it did. The steps not pictured included me cutting up (and then sewing together) an old shirt that I used as fleecing over the front of the box. Followed by more fiberglass and then cutting out the center. Fit testing, which of course failed (hinge hitting the box). Followed by cutting a hole out of the top of the box -- which was a lot of trial and error, so the hinge would slide through. Use an old tee shirt as a new fleece for the pocket (which was held in place by a stapler wrapped in saran wrap) and more fiberglassing. Drilled hole in the back for the speaker wire -- and that's were we are at...

As mentioned earlier,

I was having a hell of a time given the weather (even though it's been REALLY nice give Jan/Feb) and the overall fumes that were affecting members of the household. So I took my project up to this point and passed it off to Wyvon (he's done work for me before -- see some of the earlier post) to finish off. His comments when I dropped it off, was that it fundamentally was in good shape -- he just suggested some *tweaks*. As he was swapped with other work, my project was going to have to be done on a time available basis... He gave me some updated pics today to show were things are at:




One of the things he was going to address was to even/flatten things out a bit, using more smelly stuff...


One of the things I was thinking about doing was spraying the inside with rubberized undercoating -- which as everything else produces all kinds of fumes. I don't recall if we talked about doing it, but you can see he hooked it up with it (given I have plenty of air space).