Thread: [DEAD]Project Turtle: 1993 Toyota Tercel/56K=FAIL

Originally Posted by freeflashstuff

HEAT!! The problem this whole time was heat. . . Now, I'm ditching the Morex case . . . and relocating everything to under my front seat. (Not as much direct sunlight) Hopefully that will solve heat issues. We'll see...

I don't know what the ambient temperature around the case was, but good cooling fans can handle a lot of heat. Inadequate fans will let all sorts of stuff burn out. Maybe you needed a lot more airflow . . .

Moving it to the interior of the car will help, and underseat installs are nice because they get the flow of air conditioning (since cooler air sinks).

I wonder how many of the problems you're having come from using an inverter. If you use a lower-power-draw motherboard, like something running an Atom processor, you need far less power, and produce far less heat in whatever case you choose.

We've progressively introduced lower-power-use boards in our systems, and they seem to get more and more reliable. I don't know if there's a direct (inverse) correlation between power usage and reliability, but that's what our experience indicates.

Originally Posted by rdholtz

I don't know what the ambient temperature around the case was, but good cooling fans can handle a lot of heat. Inadequate fans will let all sorts of stuff burn out. Maybe you needed a lot more airflow . . .

Moving it to the interior of the car will help, and underseat installs are nice because they get the flow of air conditioning (since cooler air sinks).

I wonder how many of the problems you're having come from using an inverter. If you use a lower-power-draw motherboard, like something running an Atom processor, you need far less power, and produce far less heat in whatever case you choose.

We've progressively introduced lower-power-use boards in our systems, and they seem to get more and more reliable. I don't know if there's a direct (inverse) correlation between power usage and reliability, but that's what our experience indicates.

I agree with rdholtz..... Cooling is a huge thing you have to take into effect when building your PC. My install was a perfect example. I also had a Morex case and my setup would over heat. I then tried to mod the case, but then realized it was garbage and built my own case. Well kind of, I built mine into my cars seat frame for the second row. Then I built a case that slips over the frame. I built it specifically for maximum are flow.

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

I agree with rdholtz..... Cooling is a huge thing you have to take into effect when building your PC. My install was a perfect example. I also had a Morex case and my setup would over heat. I then tried to mod the case, but then realized it was garbage and built my own case. Well kind of, I built mine into my cars seat frame for the second row. Then I built a case that slips over the frame. I built it specifically for maximum are flow.

Well, I have to take part of the blame here. I was the one who suggested a Morex case. We've had a couple at the store and they seemed okay, but the one you had pretty clearly didn't provide enough airflow to keep those boards from burning out.

I'd suggest that you get rid of the inverter. If you keep it, at least make sure it's well away from everything else. It changes 12VDC to 120VAC and then feeds it to a power supply that changes 120VAC back to 12VDC, and also outputs 5VDC and 3.3VDC. Both directions of conversion produce heat in quantity, and that means the temperature of the surrounding area is affected, to say nothing of your fuel economy. We've used a variable-speed inverter, and were amazed to hear how often it spun up when the computer was working. It worked a lot more just to power Josh's 15-inch touchscreen.

Inverters are only the low-cost approach initially. And the quality of some can be low enough that you pay dearly in roasted parts. Having a pure sine wave inverter is different from having a good pure sine wave inverter, and there's not really a decent way to tell what you have without reading reviews.

Caveat emptor is still the rule: Let the Buyer Beware. There's no way to know if eBay sellers are honest; some people sell junk because there's a market for it and they can make money, and some others sell what didn't work for them but fail to mention that. There are honest sellers. But reputation is most often built on excellence in making the transaction and quick shipping, even if the product ends up being flaky; very few buyers go back and burn a seller because the product sucked, and, not long after the auction closes, there's no mechanism to complain as long as the transaction went well. If it worked for the first 30 days, you pretty much are stuck with it.

Having a very powerful system in the car sounds really cool, and we've done that. Josh has a more powerful system in his car than anything in the house. But it isn't what I want; I want something relatively fast, but I treasure reliability above all else. To run most entertainment-type stuff, it takes a pretty powerful system, but there is a price for that power: big heat. That means big airflow is necessary. And big airflow generally means big noise, unless you invest in very nice fans.

A good analogy for sizing systems is sizing a truck: you can carry more in a dump truck than a pickup truck, but it's going to cost more to buy, cost more to operate, cost more to maintain, and you'll trade handling for load capacity. I used to drive a Ford F-250 Diesel pickup, and it was a wonderful truck. But it had heavy-duty everything, and just changing a tire was hard work. It was great to have -- I enjoyed it for 11 years and 267,000 miles; I still miss it. Overall, though, I'd have been better off financially to drive an SUV, tow a trailer when I needed it, and rent a hauler for the few heavy-hauling times. Most days, that 3/4-ton truck's primary load was me and my briefcase.

This is not to say that powerful systems (and powerful pickup trucks) don't have their place. HiJack is building a rolling entertainment empire, and he's putting out significant money to do it. I just want a carPC that works reliably every day. Neither approach is particularly cheap. I'll be the first to admit that I've thrown money and time away at an astonishing rate by changing my build several times. And there were a few times where I caused parts to fail because I wasn't paying attention -- like my Lilliput 10-inch monitor. Oops.

Heat kills.

I apologize for the long post. If I'd had more time, I'd have been more concise . . .

rdholtz, don't beat yourself up. I should have gone with the original idea with the resin impregnated cardboard box. I'm going with a full sized case under my front seat. That eliminates multiple things. (Extensive wires, not in constant sunlight, hidden) But it poses new problems. (Antenna relocation, extension cable for inverter). Hopefully I can get it all sorted out by Saturday(3-21-09) so I can have the Navi for my trip to Odessa.

Originally Posted by freeflashstuff

rdholtz, don't beat yourself up. I should have gone with the original idea with the resin impregnated(sp) cardboard box. I'm going with a full sized case under my front seat. That eliminates multiple things. (Extensive wires, not in constant sunlight, hidden) But it poses new problems. (Antenna relocation, extension cable for inverter). Hopefully I can get it all sorted out by Saturday(3-21-09) so I can have the Navi for my trip to Odessa.

Just remeber not to rush. What kind of seats do you have in the back? Or better yet, why not build a case out of MDF and metal and place it in the trunk. If you run the wires through the floor, it wont be that noticable at all. Even with my massive setup with enough wiring to wrap around the car twice, you dont know its there.

Just working on a temp. solution for now. I stuck the HUGE case behind the driver's seat(cables wouldn't reach passenger side) and I can still adjust my seat comfortably. HiJackZX1, the seat in the back is one solid seat bolted down, with no space underneath. I want to put it under the driver's seat, but sadly, ATM is too big. The processor in this one is too much of a downgrade for my digital TV tuner to run smoothly(choppy decoding). Maybe I'll just go back to my original idea of using my Dell Inspiron B130(40Gb HD, 512Mb RAM, Intel Celeron M Processor 740 (1.73GHz/2MB Cache/400MHz FSB), but no WiFi can be fixed with USB WiFi adapter.) But I think this case can be stripped down to fit a smaller case I have(NOT THE MOREX!!!!!) but similar. Gotta see how much time I have today after school. My trip is tomorrow. I think I'm gonna install all of my drivers tonight and leave it like it is. I need to relocate my WiFi antenna now, but that's another job for another day. Maybe while I'm gone....

Got it all installed. Sloppily, but installed. I'll post pix when I get back from Odessa.

Well, my sloppy install did a heck of a lot better than I thought it would. XM held out the whole trip. GPS, abso-freakin-lutely awesome! Helping find my way around Odessa. Sitting at the Toyota dealership now cause my airbag light came on, but they have WiFi, so it's a blessing in disguise, I guess. My dad doesn't have Internet so I'm getting caught up on things while I can. I'll post pix when I get home. I've been playing with CF since I've had some free time. Figuring some things out slowly but surely. I'll try to post when I find out why the light came on...

Well, I didn't post after I got the light checked, but I'm back at home in Artesia. The airbag ECU is malfunctioning and it'll cost $800 to get it fixed. I'm trying to find another case that is small enough to fit under my seat. I'll get dimensions tomorrow and post them up. I have been trying to get my USB TV tuner stick to work with my carpc, but I think I messed it up testing it on my laptop. I'm gonna restore it's factory image and see if I can embed it into CF. CF has blown my mind at how far it goes in everything it does. I used iGuidance inside CF(plugin) for my trip to Odessa and on
the way home. Being able to pause XM is awesome, as is the Bluetooth integration.