What screen did you use??

Pictures or other details????

 

there are some write-ups in the audio/visual section.

I will be doing one eventually.
7" screen, dvd writer, large HD, and a decent graphics card.

 

search for posts by dj55b in the 1st gen section.

He's done a lovely job with the install in his FB. Its no 2nd gen, but should have some pertinant info.

 

7-8" seems to be the most popular (cause it's the easiest to fit and find, usually). if you wanna get creative i bet a 10" wouldn't be too tough if you did a custom panel replacement.

you ever done something like this before? not trying to be the antagonist, but i've done it enough to know it's only worth it if you're just that into cars and computers.

i've mounted the motherboard&accessories in all kinds of places, so i know how much work goes into these kind of projects. heck, i almost had a car catch on fire because a wire ended up having some of the shielding cut and the bare wire to carpet created enough heat to make it smoke and start melting...thankfully i caught it before it caused any real damage

i'd like to hear what you plan to do w/it. for my 7, i plan to do a very low-power computer (either gumstix or just a pico-itx board for x86 programming ease) and then write an iphone/ipod touch-type interface application for a 4-5" lcd and embed it where most people have the power window switch in the middle (at least, that's where I assume the power window switches would go) and have it read from media card. i tried the xp+7" touchscreen but it just seemed like too much of a hassle since i never really watched movies on it as much as i thought i would (plus, thanks to a faulty lcd, it ended up frying the connection pins to where the touchscreen part doesn't work and it fried the usb on a motherboard i had in there).

plus, booting pico-itx/gumstix w/linux into a basic environment will be leagues faster (boot times) than xp could be (and i've stripped xp down to <150mb install, so i think i can speak for barebones xp )

 

My current plan.

I can get an intel duo core mac mini for @ $400 (dual boot xp, osx, blue tooth, 802.xx), add a 7 inch 1 din pullout touch screen in the stock stereo location, put the mac mini where the stock computer went, or under the drivers seat.

Keep my current alpine MP3 deck to control sound (has multiple inputs) and provide radio functionality (basically set it up like a receiver in a home stereo system.) Or possible upgrade it, if the intermittent rotary encoder gets any worst.

Added peripherals, USB to rs232 adapters, X 2 for haltech and innovative products.

USB HD TV tuner card (hooked up in parallel to stock antenna), USB GPS antenna.

That covers most of it

Regarding the XP boot time issue... Who says you gotta shut it down, hybernate or standby mode is pretty fast if supported by the hardware.

 

PC dont like to be in sleep mode for a extended time. I've left my mac on for months at a time and it's never had a problem. But the PC likes to be restarted every day or two.

 

change it too week or two and your correct, but then it really depends on what your doing with it, any kind of installs even ones that don't require a reboot are going to make it happen sooner, same with memory intensive applications that use lots of virtual memory.

Running what are ultimately simple applications, won't have the same effect, Ive left my work pc on for weeks with no issues.

Often servers running 2k and 2k3 are reboot only every week as regular maintinence.

 

Yea, I guess sleep mode is one possibility. For some reason leaving electronics that I installed with power running to them the whole time scares me a little. The M2-ATX does wonders as a dc-dc power supply and shutdown controller.

I also did mine so I could have 5.1 surround. The best time I've had w/my carpc was driving to ATL from NC and watching 2Fast2Furious (didn't have a ton of movies to choose from, it was a quick decision to take a trip), and hearing the cars drive from front to back, speaker-wise, and feeling like they're flying by me.

...of course, I was scared every time I heard police sirens coming from the movie. I guess my foot accidentally resting down and having me accelerate to 90mph didn't help, either.

 

I may have actually been the first to do this in an FC...No screen, only voice control:
http://www.aaroncake.net/projects/mp3player.htm

Originally I did the project in late 1998 and it ran fine until last spring at which time the hard drive crashed. I decided at that point not to repair the carputer since for a few hundred dollars I could get a head unit that plays MP3s.

Probably the best source for car computing is a forum that I used to admin, http://www.mp3car.com

 

Consumer technology sure has come a long way, that is one enormous IPOD

 

A bit off topic, but I don't know where you work, but around here that's considered unacceptable. My old NT4 server (which has been continuously running since 1995) has only been shut down due to power outages and hardware failures. My Win2K3 server (runs my website) has not beens shut down since I installed it (previously the site was running on the NT4 machine) early Dec. of 2006.

Back then, iPods didn't exist and any MP3 player was a wussy 64/128 MB flash model. Personally I think my player was far better then anything available commercially mainly because I could expand it any way I wanted. If there was something I wanted different about it's behaviour, then I would just change the program. It took years for commercial players to catch up in capacity and functionality, though obviously now my player is quite an antique. Most of the case is empty space so it could have been made much smaller.

 

I havn't selected the screen yet, nor have I addressed the mounting and the case, but I expect that I will use a touch screen.

Currently I have a Core2Duo mounted in a mini-itx board and dual booting Linux and Windows 2000. I have an AM-FM radio connected with USB and driven by software on the PC. Currently having trouble with AM under Linux. Hoping to need nothing but an amp. Halwin could be so nice wo a laptop.
Fitting in the old radio-sterio space so it looks good, will be a challange for me.

As far as PCs needing to be rebooted, I have a server with *zero* case sitting on the floor of my garage running a pre-release of Windows2000, that runs many months with no reboot.