Thread: another e39 install- this one has a budget :(

Heres what I have done: bought an empty dell optiplex case- dimensions are roughly 14" wide x 12" deep x 4" tall. Slightly bigger than most laptops. I had a pcchips M741LMRT micro atx lying around so I decided it would suffice for now. Running a celeron 433 and 384 mb of ram. Mobo has onboard vga, audio and a via chipset. This motherboard is ok however it will not recognize larger ide drives and I cannot reflash the bios for some strange reason- will be replaced shortly after funds recover. The case has been completely gutted of its dell junk and now the mobo i/o backplane shield thing is where the cd drives were, and the dvd/cdrw is located in the old i/o shield position. Alot of the parts here are old things I had lying around and some stuff came from fleabay. The case opens like a clam and everything fits nice, all my spliced connections shrinkwrapped and ready. Note I am using the dreaded pw-200-m dc-dc converter. These suck because you have to run a power switch, they arent regulated, and I ended up having to adapt a 20 pin power lead to mine because the psu was designed to fit a mini-itx rig... The key to longevity with this psu is to connect it somewhere in the car- not directly to the batt. Fingers crossed: Pics of case

the red and black wires in the first pic are the "power switch" for now- touch together to start pc, hold together to stop pc. I have to source a nice looking switch to wire to these leads. The case will be mounted in the trunk, below the rear deck so that the dvd drive faces the rear and all wiring will be out of sight.. pic of my fuse holder for the dc-dc and xp legitamacy- gotta have it.

heres the usb apparatus: ide to 2.0 converter to utilize large drive with old mobo, bluetooth for phone control and internet access, webcam for cool captures (titties). The input will be via touchscreen and ps2 touchpad, which I had to add some length to, my cat loves this thing, hopefully it makes it to car. touchpad to go on ashtray lid.

screens: I bought a bad xenarc, a 700v, which is not vga. I will use this on tv out for passenger monitor- text sucks at any resolution and is not acceptable- paid 70 bucks for it so no big deal. I fashioned a visor clip out of a car tissue holder and attached it to the xenarcs slot- works like a charm although the xenarc is too fat to let the visor close all hte way- my new monitor for my side of the ride will be a lot thinner....

audio to BMW is handled via the car2pc adapter. Hate me if you must but I was their first ebay customer ever and won mine for 9.99+ shipping. It sounds awesome, hooked it up the other day and tested with a friends ipod. gotta get my pc in... finally I have purchased a 8" touchscreen with vga input which should be here next day or two, as well as a bunch of cables, a pci to usb 2.0 card and riser- this is the touchscreen I ordered- 175 bucks shipped (from usa no doubt).

and finally the phone and hands free system: the sony ericcson t608 is paired with the pc and using sprint pcs carrier I am connecting at 115kbps to the internet. I am also tinkering with phone control.net and although my phone ios only partially supported it looks like I will be buying a license from zorro very soon I went the extra mile on hte phone, I wired a sony ericcson car kit to the stock bmw "prewired for phone" wiring, and now have the phone mute the stereo when a call comes, as well as tell me verbally who is calling if they are in my phone book with voice tag. I want to check voicemail, I simply turn down radio via steering wheel and say "wake up" voice menu prompt replies options, I say "voicemail" - it calls voicemail and audio is output through stock speakers. once phonecontrol.net is fully intergrated I will have a pic of callers in phone book pop up as well as mute winamp or media player once call is answered... pimp ****.

oh and the car I'm working with- just got it in january.

it's been a long time since I added to this. The system is in, and powers up religiously now that the original motherboard was replaced. I have ditched the idea of visor mounted screens- I was going to pull down the headliner to run wires but pussed out. The pc now sports the 100gb WD hard drive as originally planned. I have a touchpad sitting atop my ashtray but now that I'm using a touchscreen I may lose it. This car was hard as **** to hide the bigger wires once inside the passengers cabin. I ended up going under the rear seats, under the carpeting and finally coming out under center console. I used a coat hanger to pull the wires through. (mobile internet rant My car will not be online as I had hoped due to my ****ty service provider (sprint/nextel) charging me .02 per KB despite me adding their data solutions to my plan. Pardon my french but sprint pcs can go **** themselves, I will not be honoring ANY of the contracts me or my company signed or agreed to. I was outright lied to, as well as disconnected from my service for days due to the overages, and that does not sit well with me. (end rant) So the tm-868 8" TS works good, despite its low resolution it looks great and is useable in broad daylight. What else, what else, oh the car2pc adapter is hot ****- I have not tested the windows Media player plugin yet but the winamp plugin works great and the track up/down buttons on my steering wheel switch winamp playlist tracks- sweet. That was the "purpose" of this install, get my mp3s and bands music in my ride and control without looking away from road (or buying an apple product, yuck) pics 2 follow.

heres a pic of the initial setup/configuring windows. Step into my office, huh?