Thread: Rod's Rig Car PC (2007 Toyota Hilux)

Some days everything goes wrong. Earlier in the week, I pulled out the DVD out of the lap top and blew it up while I was testing it out of the car for no apparent reason.

Today I had planned to wire in an ON-OFF-ON switch I bought a while ago so I can run the CarPC continuously from the 80 amp hour auxillary battery under the hood. Damn, I had lost the switch. Shops were not open, so I decided to mount the GPS puck somewhere permanent instead. I thought the best place for my GPS receiver would be here near the windscreen wipers because plastic is opaque to radio waves from the satellite:



I knew there was a 5.0 metre cable limit on the USB spec, and I was well within that. So I cut off the USB connector, stuffed the wire through the firewall, removed the windscreen wipers and lifted the cowling up a bit. Plenty of room under there so I decided to put it right under the curved bit in the pic above. I wiped both surfuaces with Methylated Spirits and covered the top of the GPS mouse with double sided body moulding tape like this:



The I pushed it up onto the plastic cowling to make it stick:



Then I soldered an extended USB lead onto the other end in the car and plugged it into my hub behind the back seat. Bugger! it didn't work! OK, after some troubleshooting, I could isolate the device was not coming up. So cut off the end, round up a 4 port hub lying around and solder it onto the cable from the back of the car and run a 5 volt power lead from the Opus in the back up to the hub. I ended with something like this whh I cable tied up under the dash.:



Beauty, it worked! Found 5 Satellites while I was parked under a tin roof. Anyway it will be handy to have USB ports up in the front and I will add an extension lead from the hub up ito the glove box or some other handy place.

Went off to buy a new switch hen turned my attention to the wireless network. Because I have a Ute (some call it a Pickup) with a fibreglass canopy which I had tested and found was reasonably opaque to radio waves, and becasue I did not want to have an antenna getting in the road of my roof racks, I decided to mount it in the canopy at the back corner beween the tailgate and the side window.



There is actually a hollow section in the canopy corner which must be there for strength and it is open at the bottom, so I decided to mount the antenna there, Sorry I did not take a pic of it, but it is a good quality 5 db internal antenna about 8 inches long. I had a some self adhesive tabs designed to attach cable ties to, so I cable tied these to the antenna and poked it up into the little hidey hole like this inside the canopy:



You can just see the gold pigtail connector at the base of the antenna sticking down. I was able to route the coax for the antenna through some conduit that was already in place for the light built into the canopy, so I did not have to drill any more holes in the car. I routed the coax back to the laptop under the vehicle and back in the cab and encased it in some corrugated conduit. Getting a bit crowded under there now with canopy power, fridge power, reversing camera coax, aftermarket diff breathers and now a wireless antenna. In the process, I broke the end off the pigtail connector. Not a major drama but annoyed that I have to go back and buy another connector as Jaycar is 20 minutes drive.

Finished just on 5:00 and went for a quick drive and the thing would not start up after I shut it down. PC has its knickers in a knot. Mucked about for ages, tok th ePC out of the car and mucked about some more. Found that while I was mucking baout with the coax, I had broken a wire of the startup and shut down switch. Very annoying! Ah well, another thing to fix tomorrow! Still have not fitted the switch into the dash yet.

I really think I need to extend the status LED on the Opus and wire in a LED that is patched into the USB 5 volt feed so I can see what is going on with the gear that is hidden behind a back seat that is bolted down and not easy to get in behind.

Gets a bit tiring becasue just about every job I do on this project ends up getting done twice becasue something goes wrong. Quite a journey of discovery it has been! Anywasy, getting close to done. Let me see what's left
1. Reflash the OPUS BIOS when the correct programming header turns up from Opus so it works in laptop mode.
2. Mount the ON-OFF-ON switch and the manual laptop power on/off button.
3. Install a DVD player in the console
4. Sort out the Monitor switches and remote control sensor
5. Mount some status LED's in the dash
6. Tidy up the wiring

Never mind, the list is getting shorter.

Made a bit more progress today. Mounted the on-off-on switch inside the glove box so I did not have to carve a huge rectangular hole in the dash. Also mounted the laptop on/off switch up on the dash. Also mounted a USB port just below the dash board in a handy position so I can plug things in easily. Will post some pics some time but am out of time today.

Out with my wife today and stumbled on a USB slimline DVD RW drive so I bought it. Had a bit of a play, but need to provide it with 5 volt power for it to be useful in the car.

Decided to bolt the rear seat down, as I am feeling more confident with the install now. Teh seat has been rattling around for a few weeks now.

Well, here are the pics I promised. This is the on off on switch tucked in under the glove box. This pic is looking straight up and the blurry black thing at the top is the glove box catch.



The position selected (I) is normal ignition mode. In this position, the Opus power supply is enabled when ignition is turned on. If II is selected, the Opus power supply is turned on all of the time. The centre posiiton (O) is you gueesed it Off! The Opus will never wake up. The Opus Power supply always draws power from the auxillary battery regardless of which setting. It is just the IGN wake up signal that is switched in this circuit.

Here is where I mounted the laptop power switch, to the left of the clock in the console. Eventually, a few more car PC related items (mainly LED's) will end up beside it.



While I was at it, I cable tied a USB extension lead up under the glove box. Might look a bit dodgy in this pic, but it is totally out of sight.



I don't need to worry about flattening the second battery. A truck sized heavy duty 80 amp hour battery is shoehorned in under the hood. See below:



You can see my nearly full power distribution block on the left front, and the Amp fuse in the right rear of this pic. Still got a few more things on the drawing board like an on board hot water system (plumbed into the heater coolant line), pressure pump and an air compressor. By the time I get them in, I think I will be a couple of fuses short in the distribution block pictured. Anyway, the main thing is that the fridge inthe back will keep the beer cold for a week without driving anywhere!

You can also see for insurance that between the distribution block and the battery is a 100 amp Maxi fuse in a waterproof rubber case along the rear side of the battery. If you stick both batterys in my rig together, there will be enough current to arc weld with, so can't be too careful.

A dual battery isolator looks after the charging. You can see it just behind the battery where the red battery lead terminates. The second battery is isolated from the starting (cranking) battery until the isolator sees 13.8 volts coming from the alternator. This tells it the cranking battery is fully charged, and then it connects the Aux battery to the charging circuit. When the engine stops, voltage falls and the aux battery is disconnected from the other battery so the cranking battery is never discharged by accessories.

Cheers

Hey Rod,

I'm back from my vacation, anyway I can't seem to get the Touchscreen to work at all. How did you install the software and set it up?

I first had my main monitor hooked up to VGA and the USB input for the Xenarc hooked up - and I installed the CD, but it never detected the Touchscreen controller.

Finally when I uplugged my Monitor and hooked up the Xenarc VGA and USB it detected it and installed, but the touchscreen functionality does not work.

I can't open any programs or do anything in RR with just the Touchscreen - did you have any issues?

I'm hoping I don't have a defective unit. This has been sitting in my room for a while and I hacked it open, so its not like I can return the thing.

Originally Posted by Minoritydan

Hey Rod,

I'm back from my vacation, anyway I can't seem to get the Touchscreen to work at all. How did you install the software and set it up?

I first had my main monitor hooked up to VGA and the USB input for the Xenarc hooked up - and I installed the CD, but it never detected the Touchscreen controller.

Finally when I uplugged my Monitor and hooked up the Xenarc VGA and USB it detected it and installed, but the touchscreen functionality does not work.

I can't open any programs or do anything in RR with just the Touchscreen - did you have any issues?

I'm hoping I don't have a defective unit. This has been sitting in my room for a while and I hacked it open, so its not like I can return the thing.

did you try downloading another TouchKit driver?

Dan,

Sorry been distracted from the Car PC for a while and have not looked at my own particular Xenarc problem.

But anyway, the hot water system, pressure pump and shower system is in, the 10" bitumen melting spotlights are installed and the air compressor for tyre inflation is done. While I was at it, I also replaced the suspension with a 2" lift kit and a snorkel. However, they are all topics for another forum I think.

Next weekend, I'll get back to the Car PC problem.

I had no problems with the touch screen installation. I just ran the CD and it came up straight away when I plugged it in. I recalibrated it once I had it fitted in the dash as the orientation had changed a bit.

I still have the buttons flapping around. I turned it off a while ago and now I can't turn it on again. The power switch light remains on red and no matter what I press, it stays that way, so no picture. Like you I'm concerned and being out of the US, I might end up buying a new monitor which is an expensive fix. I can't see that there is anythig on the daughter board the buttons are mounted on that could short out. I have to unbolt the rear seat to access the car PC and just have not got to it.

Also, Opus promised to send me a programming header and the extended ribbon cable fo rhte monitor off eBay has not turned up after 4-6 weeks. I've been a bit slack chasing this all up.

Originally Posted by rodweb

Dan,
I still have the buttons flapping around. I turned it off a while ago and now I can't turn it on again. The power switch light remains on red and no matter what I press, it stays that way, so no picture. Like you I'm concerned and being out of the US, I might end up buying a new monitor which is an expensive fix. I can't see that there is anythig on the daughter board the buttons are mounted on that could short out. I have to unbolt the rear seat to access the car PC and just have not got to it.

I got my issue resolved - for yours, try unplugging the 12v from the input box when the monitor is on, then plugging it back in.

I noticed the same issue with mine at times (my buttons are exposed at the moment too (until I get a replacement casing since I lost the buttons I trimmed off).

That is an expensive fix! (buying a new one to fix your issue)

Originally Posted by lacning74

did you try downloading another TouchKit driver?

The issue was with how I was doing the configuration.

It was asking me to "touch the blinking X until is stops blinking" - and I was just tapping the screen on the blinking X - what I needed to do was Press and hold the blinking X until it stopped blinking. That resolved my issue.

Good Dan, I think I remember trying the same technique.

Will be looking at the Monitor over the wekend when/if I get a chance.