Phil online

I chose the Opus 150w PSU because I couldn’t wait for the Carnetix 1280. The Opus is currently the recommended power supply to get. The reason: it works. It always works. It is intelligent enough to handle the carputer power up, graceful shutdown, and low-battery detection.

It doesn’t handle standby like I want, though. It keeps my drives, USB devices and fans powered in standby. I want all those to lose power. Just keep my memory powered. The new Carnetix PSU should address this. Maybe I’ll trade up when it’s shipping.

I used an amplifier install kit (from Circuit City) to bring power to my PSU. I tried to buy the parts separately since I didn’t need everything in the kit. But the fewer parts cost more than the kit. And I wound up using most everything in the kit anyway. Highly recommended. Just check your power drain and get the kit that’s designed for that size amp. 12 gauge wire worked for me.

Things I still have to do on my Carputer:

• Wire the rear monitor to pull power from the Opus PSU. (I wired the Touchscreen already.) This will give it a cleaner signal and keep it powered after the ignition is turned off. Also, it will survive crank.
• Install the DVD-ROM drive
• Replace the DVD-ROM drive (doesn’t seem to like CDs)
• Switch power-off timer to 60 minutes (now at 40 minutes)
• Replace the Opus with a Carnetix so standby can become useful
• Better GUI. Experimenting with FrodoPlayer now. Looks pretty sweet so far. Needs more tweaking.
• Trick out the Lilliput to power up automatically.
• Create playlists for all my multi-VOB file DVD rips.
• Reorganize my ancient music collection
• Build a frame for the DVD-ROM and the extra USB ports.

I’ll update this list in this blog entry as time goes on.

Got the carputer installed last weekend. We took the car out on the road for the first time. I still haven’t decided on a decent GUI, though. The Windows Desktop is all I have right now. I see Frodo is coming out with a new release — I’ll have to try it.

For now, though, I find that I can easily play a DVD movie from the hard drive using WinDVD on the rear monitor while I run the GPS app on the front monitor. Sweet!

I added NetStumbler this week. It plays a little alert when it detects a wi-fi access point. Man, those things are everywhere!

Gotta get something better than Windows for a GUI, though. The desktop is not very touchscreen friendly.

I got a 10.4-inch flip-down monitor for the “main passenger cabin” — the back seats in the van. Installing it was exciting, seeing as how I had to cut actual holes in my very expensive van to do it. I posted a list of tips elsewhere to help others get through this, and I’m going to list them here as well. (more…)

The simple way to get the audio out of the carputer and into your ears is to plug an FM transmitter into the audio out. There’s lots of options for this, and you can get one that’s computer-powered from any local stereo store for about $20. The only problem: they suck. The signal is weak, the audio is modulated to FM and back, and it’s just not clean. I got one as a temporary hack and hated it.

The real answer is to patch into your head unit (that’s your radio in your car). Most of them (more…)

1999 Honda Odyssey minivan

I need a place to install this carputer. I need a place for the motherboard, the hard drive, the power supply, the video, and so on. Here’s my story… (more…)

I was expecting to build my carputer for about $1000. I wanted to be closer to $300, but realistically I understood that the special LCD displays would cost a tad more. Unfortunately, I still underestimated by about 30%. (more…)

I want to have two separate video outputs from the carputer so I can play movies on one while GPS-navigating on the other. I am happy to say I succeeded. It wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped, but it wasn’t as hard as I feared. Here’s an install shot of the flip-down monitor playing Star Wars from the hard drive while the front touchscreen monitor shows my current location on a live GPS map.

Both of these displays are being driven by the same computer. In fact, they both are coming from the same (dual-head) video card. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The motherboard I chose (Via EPIA M-10000) has an embedded MPEG-2 decoder chip. This is essential for watching DVD movies without using up all your CPU cycles. Unfortunately, it turned out that I couldn’t use this chip.
(more…)

These are the features I want in our computerized in-car entertainment system: (more…)

For some insane reason, I’ve decided to install a computer in my minivan. Why the minivan? I never even drive the thing! My wife, who does drive it, hates technology and especially hates computers. (more…)