Carputer — powering the LCD’s
I managed to pull power from the PSU on one of the hard drive connectors for the GPS antenna power. It takes 4-AA batteries, or it can be powered via Pin 9 on the serial cable. I ran 5 volts to pin nine on a patched serial cable, and it worked!
Now I want to do the same for the video monitors. They both run on 12V and draw not-much power. I have the 12V solder lugs ready; I just need to get around to pulling power.
The rear monitor seems to have a problem with engine noise. Hopefully the PSU power will clean this up.
The front monitor (touchscreen) is on a regulated power cord, but I want to wire it permanently to the car. If I feed it from the PSU, it will have a clean power input and also will be powered up whenever the PSU is powered up. That’s my main goal for that monitor. I can also wire the power switch to power it on whenever the PSU comes on, but I’ll have experiment with that some.
As you can probably tell, this is all future-speak right now. I have the monitors powered nicely on their stock power inputs for now. This is just on my future list. I’ll probably get to it after I get the software tuned up better.
Update: While repairing the touchscreen cable (and reinstalling everything) I went ahead an wired the Lilliput 8″ Touchscreen directly to the Opus PSU 12v output. Works like a charm! The LCD now stays powered after the car is off and the signal is cleaner.