1999 Hyundai Coupé 1.6 SE Car PC on the cheap!

So now I have an old car that I don't mind too much about messing up a little and an old netbook that is in such a sorry state that it's not really useful as anything OTHER than a car PC, I've decided to take the plunge. Always wanted to do this. I'm a software person, not a hardware person and definitely not a DIY person so don't expect anything amazing from me :) The aim of this project is do have as much fun as possible at the least amount of cost, and to have something that works well at the end of the day :D

The Car: 1999 Hyundai Coupe 1.6 SE, Silver
The Computer: Samsung NC10 (£0, already owned)
The Screen: Cheeapie £75 touch screen from Hong Kong. Cheapest I could find :)
Other Hardware:
USB GPS reciever - £20
Reversing Camera - £30
USB 3G Dongle - £0 (Given to me by my dad)
Arduino - £0 (Already owned)

First step was the software. I have Windows 7 installed on the netbook which allows me to use specialist WPF touchscreen controls in .NET. I have written a replacement shell and changed the login screen.
My lovely girlfriend designed the interface, and I have written the code behind it. The software controls the following:

- Music, selecting by song, album or playlist, display current artist/title
- GPS Speedometer
- GPS Lat/Long position
- Reverse geocode of current position
- GPS clock

There is also a background service running that silently logs the GPS coordinates, speed, etc to a remote website for vehice tracking.

Then there was the question of how to mount the screen into the car. The bit I knew I would have problems with since I know next to nothing about DIY. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty and learn though, and I'd seen others do it with ABS/Acetone so I thought I give this route a go.

The screen came with a separate outer bezel, I just had to mount this into my car somehow and I was set. I removed the plastic surrounding the radio/ashtray from the car and got to work cutting a vague 7" screen shape out. I kept all the offcuts and shards of plastic for my ABS sludge.

I mixed the plastic offcuts into some acetone and got to work applying it liberally around the bezel. A lot easier than I first thought, but very messy. Now onto the sanding part, then painting!

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This may be among the lowest out-of-pocket expense builds yet. I'm concerned that screen will disappoint, though.

-Zack
via Droid Charge

I would have been inclined to agree with you before I ordered it but I'm actually quite impressed (as far as £75 can impress a girl anyway!) It has all the right inputs for easy connecting, the quality isn't bad (terrible if you were using it for something text-heavy but perfect for a Car PC interface). Touch responsiveness works well - the WPF controls make it more than useable. Not had to contend with what it looks like in direct sunlight yet but I live in the UK, so I doubt that will really be a huge problem! It's going to be mounted quite low in the dash too so that will shield it somewhat.

Anyway some more pics:
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The Car

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Software Interface

More or less complete :)

The fabrication job isn't perfect and the colour doesn't match perfectly, but hey - this is my first time and I never claimed to be any good at this sort of thing!

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