Thread: VOLVO S80 CarPC Work in progress

I'm making some tests now, but all the posted (and even more) pictures could be found in better quality in my gallery here
There are sub galleries of any sub projects I'm working now, or I'm done with.
Fell free to check for new stuff there, because sometimes I upload pictures, but I'm writing the post with explanations a couple of days latter. Other thing: there is similar threats listed in Bulgarian CarPC forum and in VOLVO Club Bulgaria's forum.

There you could find some of my first ideas.
I was planning to make my own mechanism for the LCD. I've made a full scale model of the dashboard, so I could easily work without damaging the car and more and more. But all this is past. Here I'm showing you mostly the last idea. But who knows - every "last" idea could become penultimate, you now

I'll keep you informed as soon as I got some new stuff.

Meanwhile:
I've ordered a PSU for my mobo:

Module parameters
Module Properties: non-isolated step-up module (BOOST)
Input voltage :10-32V
Output voltage: 12-35V (adjustable)
Output Current: 10A (MAX)
Input Current: 16A (MAX) (more than 10A, please enhance heat dissipation)
Output power: natural cooling 100W (MAX), to enhance heat dissipation 150W (MAX) real power
Conversion efficiency: 94% typical (for reference only)
Output Ripple: 2% (MAX) 20M-bandwidth
Operating temperature: Industrial grade (-40 ℃ to +85 ℃) (ambient temperature exceeds 40 degrees, lower power use, or to enhance heat dissipation)
Full load temperature rise: 45 ℃
No-load current: 25mA typical
Load regulation: ± 0.5%
Voltage regulation rate: ± 0.5%
Dynamic response speed: 5% 200uS
Short circuit protection: None (Please enter the installation of fuses or protection circuits)
Enter the reverse protection: No
Wiring: free solder, terminals
I plan to set it to 16V as DN2800MT is working on 9-19V DC. I'll be 3 volts bellow the maximum and 1.5vots above the car's max (14.5). This way I think I'll be fine.
What do you think?

Other ordered stuff:
Two USB HUBs. You all know these - they are very popular:

High-Speed USB 7-Port HUB Powered

And two PSUs for them:

Double-sided wiring, at the bottom of a large area of copper to ensure excellent heat! Rated long-term expansion in the 2A, maximum output power to 20W, and more convenient plus the radiator output more power!

Input: 4.5-30V

Adjustable Output 1.25-26V (input voltage greater than the output voltage)

Clockwise adjust the on-board potentiometer output voltage to increase, counterclockwise adjustment potentiometer output decreased.

They are rated to 2A, but the hub's need just 1, so i got an one amp extra for each.
Why i need two hubs - because the PC will be in the trunk. In the centre console I'll place the first hub (3 metres cable to PC). To him I'll plug an Bluetooth dongle and the connection for the second Hub. My GPS is Bluetooth and is powered by 5 volts, so it will sit there too - close to the Bluetooth dongle and powered by the hubs PSU in the same manner I power the whole system (ohhh powering - i got a lot of things to write about that ... manual, auto, allays on ... PIC controller (made by friend) and many more, but all this - latter)

After that will be the next hub, connected to the first in roll. I guess there the cable will be max 2 metres. There will be connected the touch panel, the Sony HID Remote (He-he) and some fabricated in the dash ports + a card reader maybe, who knows ... This will be the main hub. The first one I place just to ensure proper strength of the signal avoiding cables wilder than 3 metres. I know that theoretical I could use max 5 metre usb cable, but there will be a lot of devices connected there and it's possible to have problems with connectivity. Secure way is better way according to me.

Tell me your opinion. Thanks.

Originally Posted by VolvoCarPC

did you get these thru ebay or another seller? i'm looking for similar stuff so thank you in advance

Here you are:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2004690012...84.m1497.l2649
and
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1607874393....m1497.l2649Ad

I have only set my motherboard (same board as yours) at 12v input from the converter, but am curious if it will work well at the higher voltage.



Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

Hi,
I know you got the same mobo as me
To be honest - I haven't test it whether it will work fine on 16V or no. I believe that Intel won't risk their reputation writing a fake characteristics for some of their products. The mobo is rate to work on:
"The board supports wide-range voltage input by either of the following power supply
types:
• External Power Supply – the board can be powered with an 8 - 19 VDC external
power supply though the DC jack on the back panel. This connector accepts dualbarrel
plugs with an inner diameter (ID) of 2.5 mm and an outer diameter (OD) of
5.5 mm, where the inner contact is +8 (±10%) through +19 (±10%) VDC and the
shell is GND. The maximum current rating for this connector is 8 A.
• Internal Power Supply – the board can alternatively be powered via the internal
1 x 2 power connector, where pin 1 is GND and pin 2 is +8 (±10%) through +19
(±10%) VDC. The maximum current rating for this connector is 10 A."

8 - 19 VDC. That's the main reason to buy this motherboard. For now I'm powering it with regular PC PSU using the 12V. When the mentioned PSU from e-bay arrives I'll make the tests and hopefully everything will be fine on 16V.

Update for Sony Remote KBD USB Mod:
I got an old KBD - fine
I opened it, and traced the sheets.
Here is the result:




Before doing that I was planning to connect a "Key" from Sony remote to hit Ctrl+Alt+Kay to the KBD. But latter I realized that if I'm gonna do that only based on hardware I'll need 40-50 (or more) diodes. Huh!
So I asked uncle Google for "mapping keys" and found a great scripting utility - AutoHotkey. It's GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE which is great.
So what is my plan - to make a script which will transform F* keys to any needed hotkey but only if the FrontEnd is active. This way, I'll got an F2 for entering BIOS while booting and the same key when in CF will act as "next song" for example.

Question: Do you think I will ever need "up" "down" "left" "right" keys under Centrafuse (a got a touchscreen). Why I'm asking - this is my first CarPC project. I've never drove a car with CarPC and by this moment I'm just imagining "what would I do If a wont to do ***." So tell me guys - have you ever needed "up" "down" "left" "right" keys for navigating (or anything else) in Centrafuse or I can live without them mapping them to prev/next song and vol.up/vol.down?

If I do that, I'll be able to have prev/next song while I'm in CF, but when not - I'll have up/down key which would be great (I guess).

I got a good news and a bad news ...
Bad news is that one of the buttons of the Sony remote gave up. It won't make contact on push. I tried with aluminium foil, with pencil and some other repairs but it's too bad. I'll live without it anyway.
Good news is that everything is tested and is working property

This is the KBD controller:

I used a sandpaper to clean the pins:

Then i soldered a wire on every pin:

There was an incident, but it's fine now (the extended wire on right).

Both units connected onto a breadboard:



I'm glad that I found combination that fit 1:1 between the remote and KBD. It was hard doing this without a single diode.
For now everything is working fine. Latter I'll make a video.

I started making a PCB so that i could free my breadboard for something else.



All that is left to do is to repeat the connections from the breadboard.

Very nice

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Nice trick with the sony remote,i have a similar model,but it's wired not wireless,still it's the same volume of work to make'it a "usb sony remote"
I was thinking to use a multimedia keyboard,and use only the multimedia keys(play,pause,next,previous,volume ,mute etc).
Good luck!