Thread: 2003 Saturn L200 In Dash Touchscreen Carputer

I'll post here what I posted in the Newbie forum a few days ago, as my project is well under way now. Some modifications to the plan below will follow in the next post.

Hey all:
I've made the decision to build my first carputer project in my new (well, new to me) 2003 Saturn L200. It has power just about everything, minus the sunroof and leather packages. I'll post pics in here later, but here's where I am starting from:

Dash: Fabricated dash mount for single DIN aftermarket deck. It was fabricated by Circuit City because the dash on this model does not take kindly to the premade dash kits being used with motorized flip down faces. For this, they had to make a dash kit using bondo on the back side of the dash and a cut-away plastic panel with the DIN sleeve inserted into it.

Audio: Infinity 4 Channel Amp powering seperates (woofer+tweeter) speakers in all four doors. Phoenix Gold Amp powering 10" Rockford Fosgate HE subwoofer in a .75 cubic foot ported box.

My ordered "carputer" equipment from Short-Circuit:

Car PC Kit M-12
VIA EPIA MII 12000 C3 E-Series (1.2 GHz)
M2-ATX Power Supply
VoomPC Car Enclosure
512 MB DDR Ram
60 GB 2.5" Notebook Hard Drive
VM7100 7" TFT-LCD XGA/VGA Touchscreen

I will be loading TinyXP Rev4 and using iTunes as the first boot-up program for now (not sure I like any of the frontends available now without significant modification).

For the install, I will be removing the single DIN sleeve mounted inside the fabricated dash kit. I will not remove the fabrication, as it is just what I need in order to disassemble the LCD touchscreen and mount it flush with the dash. The back of the mounting has .5" squares notched into it to help with measuring and cutting them out. I will install some type of metal clips on the back of this mounting that will swing down and hold the touchscreen panel in place. This is so I can remove the touchscreen at a later time if I need to.

As for the computer itself, I will mount it in my glove compartment. There is a hole already drilled between the glove compartment and the inside of the dash to put my iPod interface cable through, so that will serve as the pass-through for the VGA cable, power cables from the factory wiring harness, and the USB cable for the touchscreen interface. I will remove the glovebox for this part, and also cut out a large square hole in the top of the compartment to mount a large computer fan. Since the box itself is a fanless setup, this fan will serve just as an auxillary airflow that will hopefully boost performance just a bit.

For expansion, I will be installing a Logitech Cordless Wingman controller (for emulation games), a USB WiFi adapter for wireless music database synchronization, and my USB Bluetooth 2.0 adapter to interface with my phone for handsfree capability.

Let me know what you all think so far.

Also, one big question that will give me the green light for this install if it works: can I use the power and ground wires from the factory stereo wiring harness to power the computer's power supply? Thanks a ton!