1993 Toyota Calica... First Car PC

**cjrokke** · 11-13-2009, 03:52 PM

Fabrication Discussion:

Well, its about that time. I am beginning my very first Car PC. I ordered my parts yesterday and all of them except the monitor and PSU are out for delivery as of earlier this morning. So I decided to begin some fabrication before it gets here.

I will be installing this Car PC into my first car. A 1993 Toyota Celica.

My Car:

This is where I'm currently thinking that the whole thing is going to reside:

Fabrication of my "Case":

Next step is going to be mounting the motherboard to the base and connecting all the components with a temporary PSU and monitor then load up some software.

I am going to fabricate a fiberglass cover for the whole unit and make the screen recessed a bit so there wont be that much sun getting to it. I am most likely going to attach the whole thing to the vent/clock assembly so it will be removable. My dash is covered in vinyl and is all one piece and I don't feel like cutting it up and recovering it (I have no confidence in my fabrication skills) so this will let me be able to keep my dash as is. When I go to sell the car, I can just buy another vent assembly off ebay for like 30 bucks and it will look stock again.

**cjrokke** · 11-13-2009, 03:52 PM

General Hardware Discussion:

Update 13 Nov, 2009 at 10:00 PM:

I am losing trust in Newegg with this last order.
I received it extremely fast (~1 day with std. ground shipping), but that has come to be expected of them by me.
I bought a slot load DVD drive and when I went to hook it up, I noticed that its a different power cord (slimline) than normal SATA.
I had no idea of this and it was not mentioned anywhere in the description.
Now I have to wait for shipping AGAIN (most likely going to be a minimum of 3 days this time because its the week end now and that's if it ships from their CA warehouse) so the project is on hold for the most part until I get that adapter.
I tried hooking up my 2nd DVD drive out of my desktop, but it wont go past bios because of a disc read error.
I'm also thinking my IDE adapter isn't going to work. That one is my fault, but I still blame Newegg for this being on hold lol.
I will probably continue working on the housing of this whole thing, but that's going to be the hardest part for me (never worked with fiberglass before).

Update 13 Nov, 2009 at 11:40 PM:

After some more playing with it and my bios settings, I got my IDE USB adapter to work.
Now I need to get a PCI-E 1394 card so I can hook up my front panel Firewire.

Update 16 Nov, 2009 at 5:00 PM:

Took some new pictures. Have some things to say. Here it goes:

My tiny USB Bluetooth adapter.

USB number pad (Was going to be for entering passwords and addresses and such, but I couldn't get it to work. Hopefully Newegg will take it back)

Card Reader (I still need to figure out how to get some extra pins like what are on a motherboard for USB and 1394 to get full functionality out of this thing)

This is the Wifi adapter that came with my mobo (I think it might be external antenna capable, but what do I know)

Cheapo microphone for bluetooth and voice control (Has a hell of a lot of delay...)

Slot load DVD Burner (currently not in use because of Newegg not mentioning the necessary adapter)

This is why I'm not using this thing at the moment (Newegg never told me that I'd need a special adapter to get power to the darn thing!)

USB IDE adapter (probly not gonna use this cause it wont work for what I hoped it would)

M2-ATX PSU!

GPS Reciever!

Update 17 Nov, 2009 at 11:50 AM:

Uploading a few more pictures of the whole setup.

Whole setup

My workbench (Dinner Table)

Update 17 Nov, 2009 at 2:40 PM:

Got my Slimline power adapter today. Slot-Load DVD burner works great so far (except for the fact that it has cost me over $55 now...)

Update 21 Nov, 2009 at 6:00 PM:

Found an old 4 GB Flash drive.
Decided I'd use it as Ready Boost memory!

**cjrokke** · 11-13-2009, 03:53 PM

Software Discussion:

Update 16 Nov, 2009 at 5:00 PM:

Cant seem to get my USB number pad to work AT ALL with windows.
No drivers came with it and the entire support section of the manufacturers website says "Under Construction".
Something tells me that they aren't planning on finishing the construction any time in the near future.

Update 17 Nov, 2009 at 11:50 AM:

I'm having a few issues with the software, but overall it's coming along nicely.
Issues Include:
1. BT audio not playing through speakers in CF.
2. 1.5 second delay from when I speak to when other person hears me with CF BT.
3. Sleep settings aren't working like I had hoped they would.

My background (It was a Hyundai background inside one of the Centrafuse skins. I redid it for my car

)

Update 17 Nov, 2009 at 10:30 PM:

Resolved my sleep setting issues.
All I had to do was change the power setting in the bios to S3 to get the Hybrid sleep option to show up in the advanced power settings.

I've found an additional problem:
I can't for the life of me get CF to import ALL of my music (~21,000 tracks).
It says it does, but then when I go to play something (Linkin Park Meteora for example), it won't show all of the songs (4 out of 12)
I'm thinking that this is because not all of them are in MP3 format.

Someone know of a mass audio file type converter?

Update 21 Nov, 2009 at 1:00 PM:

Because of my CF problems, I figured I'd give Road Runner a try today.
That FE is sooooooo complicated to me.
I had very similar issues with it that I had with CF (Wont import all of my music) along with some problems of its own.
I think I'm going to stick with CF for now.
Hopefully I can get all the kinks worked out.

Update 21 Nov, 2009 at 3:00 PM:

Computer was slowing down a bit today.
I figured that I had too much stuff on it already and my network settings weren't what I wanted them to be, so I reinstalled Windows.
Everything still works just like it did when I left it! (As far as I can tell that is)

Now I'm in the process of converting ALL my songs to MP3 format with iTunes (the only program I know how to do it with).
This is going to take forever...

**cjrokke** · 11-13-2009, 03:54 PM

Completion Images/Other Thoughts:

Update 13 Nov, 2009 at 10:00 PM:

My system specs as of now are:
ZOTAC GF8200-C-E AM2+ GF8200 Motherboard
running a:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual Core CPU
cooled by a:
Stock AMD Phenom X4 CPU Heatsink and Fan
1 GB DDR2 667 Super Talent Memory
LITE-ON DL-8ATS Slot-Load DVD Burner
200 GB Maxtor IDE Hard Drive
M2-ATX PSU
Lilliput EBY701 7" Touchscreen Monitor

Accessories:
Cirago BTA-3210 Bluetooth Adapter
Cyber Acoustics ACM-1B Microphone
Syba CL-KBD20006 Numeric Keypad (For passwords so I don't need a whole keyboard)
NMedia ZE-C98 Card Reader (Mostly for its USB ports)
Rosewill RCW-618 IDE/SATA - USB Adapter (May be useless now)
GlobalSat BU-353 SiRF III USB GPS Receiver

As of now I am in the hole: $568.80
By days end, I am going to need a new IDE adapter (I hope they make PCI-E IDE adapters) so lets just call it $585

Edit: Well the PCI-E IDE card proved to be more expensive than expected, so the current tally is $588.55

Update 13 Nov, 2009 at 11:40 PM:

It seems I fixed the problem with my IDE USB Controller.
I had to order the power adapter for my Slimline DVD burner.

New Total is $584.10

**hexxamillion** · 11-13-2009, 09:52 PM

I'm interested to see where this is going. So your PC will not be in the dash? You could also do an under-the-seat mount. At least it will be out of sight..unless I'm not understanding your plan completely..

**cjrokke** · 11-14-2009, 12:34 AM

I think you're understanding it. I am putting it smack in the middle of the dash. I am doing it this way for various reasons:
1. I don't want to put it in the hatch because that would require purchasing a butt load of extension cords
2. I cant put it under the seats or in the dash because there simply isn't room. Amps under both seats and I'm keeping my head unit which is the only space in the dash I could possibly put it besides the glove box, but I use my glove box!
3. It is going to be easy to cool on top of my dash.
4. I dont want my screen where the head unit currently is or lower (the only other reasonable spots it could go) because it would get in the way of my shifter and i would have to look way down to see it (my head sticks out the sun roof as it is!).
5. it would look wring if I just had a screen sticking up on my dash with a fiberglass case around it (I dont just want to mount the screen up there like my current GPS) unless i made it form to the dash and go towards the windshield at an angle (then theres all that wasted space behind it.).
6. etc.

**hexxamillion** · 11-14-2009, 02:03 AM

Well it all sounds odd where you are mounting it at first but I'm interested to see how this goes. It may be more clear to me once you start building. Have fun!

**cjrokke** · 11-14-2009, 02:18 AM

Heres the first sketch I mead of what I thought I was going to do with it:

Front view is top and the bottom is a side view in case you cant tell

I'm just as interested to see where it goes as your are lol. It's already giving me a headache, but im sure I will have lots of fun on this project. Thanks!

**hexxamillion** · 11-14-2009, 03:18 AM

Originally Posted by cjrokke

Heres the first sketch I mead of what I thought I was going to do with it:

Front view is top and the bottom is a side view in case you cant tell

I'm just as interested to see where it goes as your are lol. It's already giving me a headache, but im sure I will have lots of fun on this project. Thanks!

Thanks for the picture..we like pictures. Now it makes sense to me.

**cjrokke** · 11-14-2009, 03:34 AM

Yeah I didn't post that one earlier cause the picture of it with the digital camera was terrible. I had to scan it in and it has been tied up all day.

Glad it makes sense now