My CarPC and Audo Install (long)

[sajc]

I've had a few ppl ask me about how I did my Car PC, so here's the details. If you're not interested in how it was done, you can skip all my blabbing, and go stright to the links... they're the pics

Currently, it's a WindowsXP Pro PC, Boston Pro 6.5" splits, Audison LRx amps (one for splits and one for sub) and an Infinity Perfect 12" sub.

The system is suspended below a false floor that I'd previously built for my amps. The boot floor was cut from a single MDF sheet, using the original boot carpet as a template. The amps are on one side, in a box, and holes are cut in the false floor for ventillation. The holes are counter-sunk with a router, inlayed with some black mesh grille, and carpeted over the top.

Underneath, there's a motherboard, power supply, power inverter, shutdown controller, and hard drive. I opened the power supply, removed the board, and screwed it's case to the underneath of the false floor and put the top back on it's case. Same with the inverter. The PC has no case.

This is the false boot floor, upside down, testing the PC parts and shutdown controller.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/PCConstruction.jpg

The motherboard and hdd were screwed to a metal panel (taken from a PC case), and the panel was earthed to a bolt in the boot. The panel was mounted on closed-cell (CC) foam to insulate it from some vibration. I drilled large bore holes through which I put screws, so the screw shanks would not actually touch the panel at all. To hold it there, I used wide-head screws with washers on, and some more CC foam between the panel and the washer so the screws dont directy touch the panel at... supposed to be DIY vibration insulation devices. Dont know how effective they are, but they're on there anyway I think the foam is too thin and they're screwed up too tight.

HDD mount and insulated screws.
http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/HDDMount.jpg

If I lift up my false boot floor, this is what it looks like. Pretty messy, but hey, it's under the boot floor! Who looks there?!

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/UnderFalseFloor.jpg

The false floor sits on the plastic-coated metal rail that runs behind the back seats, and near the hatch opening, it sits on the rail and two metal loops that are there (dont know what they're actually for... the cargo net maybe?) I have two bolt shanks (tops counter sunk and carpeted over) which kinda 'clip in' to the boot hooks.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/BoltAndAmp.jpg
http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/BootHookThing.jpg

The system is based on an AMD Duron 2600, 512MB RAM, 200GB SATA HDD, all running from a Gigabyte micro ATX motherboard. These boards are bigger than the mini-ITX boards, but not too much (22cm square).

Power from the battery runs down the back of the engine bay, through the bonnet release plug & is fused close to the battery. The small wire running from the battery is to power the CD player directly (also fused).

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/Power.jpg
http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/Fuse.jpg

I drilled the bonnet release plug which has 2 spare holes in it. The cable runs under the passenger seat carpet and down the side of the car under all the trim, where it emerges in the boot space. From here, it runs to a fused distribution block that splits it into three. A power cable runs to each of two amps in the box under the false floor, and the other cable runs to the power inverter.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/Distro.jpg

All the gear, include the MB, the power inverter, was earthed to the chassis using the large bolts at the back of the seats. They're the ones that hold in place the metal bar that supports the false boot floor.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/Earth.jpg

I kept my CD player just in case i wanted to play CDs, and I also use it as a mixer, radio and master volume control (the main volume control is through the PC). Since the screen is now where the CD player would be, I relocated the CD player to the glove box. I never use my glove box, and when I have needed to use it, it was too small anyhow lol!

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/GloveBox.jpg

It's an Alpine CD player, so it has an AINet interface. This means it can control a stacker, but more importantly, it can be hacked to work as an auxillary input. This was needed for getting the sound from the PC into the amps, via the head unit. I could have payed Alpine $89 for a 10cm stretch of wire and two RCA plugs, but instead I decided it was a rip off. I converted my AI-NET interface to a set of RCAs by grafting a left-right-ground wire onto the board.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/Graft.jpg
The grafted wire

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/InsideCD.jpg
After tidying up

The glove box conveniently has a small panel that pops out, allowing all the cables (and there's lots) to get int here easily. The head unit has it's own power cable which also runs directly from the battery, although I'm almost certain that this isnt required if you're not using the built-in amp in the HU - I'm not, but I ran the power anyway. Better to be safe than... well... on fire!

The display for the PC is a unit that has a 7" TFT screen and also has a USB touch screen interface. It also has a TV tuner, two video inputs (for reversing camera etc), RCA audio in and out, and an RGB input. I'm not using the TV feature, so I didnt run an antenna wire from it. I ran video wires and just left them under the carpet, just in case I want to use them for something later. I also didnt run the audio out leads, since they're used only for the TV anway. When it's closed, the screen looks pretty ugly, but that's OK... it means people are less likely to steal it!

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/ScreenClosed.jpg
The screen when it's closed.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/LoginScreen.jpg
The screen when it's open.

To control the starting up and shutting down of the PC, I ran some CAT5 cable from the boot to the back of the dash. My RSC only has the instrument panel dimmer knob on the right-hand side of the steering wheel, so I popped it out and cut a few holes in it with a dremmel. I put in a couple of momentary switches for reset and the ATX power button, which are connected directly to the motherboard pins as they would be in a PC case. The toggle switch is connected through the same CAT5 cable to the power inverter. This way, I can manually shut off the power completely. I just cut the switch off the inverter and extended the cable using the CAT5 (and no, incase you're wondering, it doesnt carry 12V from the battery or 240V from the inverter! It's just a controller!).

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/ShutdownButtons.jpg

I also have a (currently non-working) shutdown controller. Basically, this is a set of two relays which is connected to the car ignition, the inverter power supply (12V from the battery), and the computer serial port. When the ignition is on, the relay turns on the power inverter. When the ignition is off, the caps and resistors give a 90 second delay before the power is cut completely. This is designed to automate the process, but physically shut off the power if the PC fails to shut down within 90 seconds. Saves a flat battery if the computer hangs I borrowed this idea from others that I found on the web.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/SDC.jpg

The audio from the computer runs up the opposite side of the car to the power cables. They run through shielded, heavy gauge, good quality microphone-type cable. I made up the cables with headphone jacks on one end to come out of the PC sound card, and with RCAs on the other end to connect to the (newly constructed) aux-input of my cd player. The audio out from the CD player runs through RCAs to the amps and from there, to the speakers and sub.

The system runs Windows XP pro. On it runs some front-end software that I've found to be pretty good called Centrafuse. This manages audio, DVD, radio, GPS, internet connection... just about everything. It can accept voice commands, it's dimmable for day/night driving etc. Lots of nice touches, such as fading in and out of the music when GPS commands need to be given, and fading between tracks when you skip between songs and when you turn the audio on and off. It has a good support community and people are developing things for it all the time. It's also skin-able, so you can make your own skins and customise it to look like whatever you want. I'm in the process of making a nice renault based skin for it Plenty of crap pontiac, accura, nissan, mitsubishi ones out there lol

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/MusicScreen.jpg

The GPS sits on my dash or on the back ledge. It cant see through the metal film windscreen very well, so it has to go right in the middle next to that little clear window. But it's OK on the dash. It's just hard to stick it there! I dont know if it's a feature of all RSCs... but I cant stick anything to my dash! It's like it's teflon coated or something! The GPS is a wireless bluetooth one, so it talks to the PC through a USB bluetooth adapter.

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/GPSWindow.jpg
http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/GPSFullScreen.jpg

Centrafuse keeps the music going while you have the GPS on, and vice versa.

I get things on & off my CarPC using a wireless G network card. It seems to get through the car and my garage wall without any problems.

My boot space now looks like this (without my sub):

http://www.scientia.com.au/Other/Install/BootSpace.jpg

I have to straighted up the grille, since it's a bit bent now, and also tidy up the carpet a bit.

Scott.

 

[Nik]

Good work mate! Looks like a huge amount of work has gone into that.

 

[Hotshot]

yeah so im just oging to give you a wedge of money to do mine now. Thanks

 

[shaunyboi]

thats very very very good, but i would never want to sell the car after doing that lol

 

[Alan]

A lot of money spent there, nice work mate.....are you an ICE fitter?

 

[M1TCH]

Skim read and looked at the pics. Awesome build and very well thought out. excellent work there!!!!!

 

[RafChandler]

so how much did all this cost to put together? Without the AMPS and Speakers, so just like the computer parts and power supply, etc.

 

[Jonesy]

Will it not have any problems with the roads being bumpy and uneven, like will the parts not fall out? Im sure its not good to shake your computer. Looks wicked tho. Nice 1!

 

[LegoHead]

Very nice work!Would like to do something like this for my car, as long as i was keeping it for a while.

One question, is there any way of powering the pc direct from car battery? Instead of stepping it up to 240 then back down to whatever it is?

I dont know what sort of power the pc requires.

 

[jonesyx]

how much did the screen cost?

 

[Dink]

Very nice work!Would like to do something like this for my car, as long as i was keeping it for a while.

One question, is there any way of powering the pc direct from car battery? Instead of stepping it up to 240 then back down to whatever it is?

I dont know what sort of power the pc requires.

alot more exspensive to use the car's "12v" supply

i hope you mounted your hd vertically

 

[Daz]

alot more exspensive to use the car's "12v" supply

i hope you mounted your hd vertically

I did mine like that.
£150 the PSU was as I imported it from America - wasn't in this country at the time.

Ran off of 12v.. and used ignition to boot/hibernate the PC..
Also, if it was running on ignition and I started engine, PC stayed on.. was worth it.


Good work sajc - looks top notch!

 

[sajc]

alot more exspensive to use the car's "12v" supply
i hope you mounted your hd vertically

Yeah, that's the main reason that I used an inverter... in Australian dollars, it's the difference between a $40 inverter, and a $400 12V power supply! Also, the 12V supplies are usually very low power. I'm running a Sempron 2600, rather than a VIA 1300.

One question, is there any way of powering the pc direct from car battery? Instead of stepping it up to 240 then back down to whatever it is?
I dont know what sort of power the pc requires.

Yes there is, but as I said above, it's quite expensive. You dont get a very high power output and the power on each of the rails is usually lower than for a normal ATX power supply. If you're interested, do a search for 'Opus' power supplies.

Will it not have any problems with the roads being bumpy and uneven, like will the parts not fall out? Im sure its not good to shake your computer. Looks wicked tho. Nice 1!

lol no, there certainly wont be any 'parts falling out'! They're all well attached, believe me! With regard to vibration and shock... I was worried abou that. But when it comes down to it, the solid-state components dont really care about shock in the realms that will occur in a car. The HDDs can also survive shock quite well, believe it or not. It's mainly vibration that causes them problems. That's why I tried ot insulate it with the closed cell foam. I think it'll be OK. It's been fine so far, and I've been examining the XP harware logs to check for read or write errors, and I/O retries.

so how much did all this cost to put together? Without the AMPS and Speakers, so just like the computer parts and power supply, etc.

Hmm... in terms of parts... not much. I think I paid about AU$400 for the processor, motherboard and RAM. The screen cost me about AU$500. The power supply I already had from another case. The boot floor is just MDF and a couple of pieces of pine, so that was practically nothing. Maybe AU$20 or so. A few tacking nails, a few hex-head screws, a few bolts etc I already had. Cables and wire cost maybe AU$50 (not including the RCAs, since I bought them before, with the amps). The electronics was probably about $30 all up including switches, relays etc. Mounting brackets and other bits and pieces I pirated from some old computer cases that I already had.

A lot of money spent there, nice work mate.....are you an ICE fitter?

Nope, just like trying to see what I can get done Basically, I just read everything I could find, and worked it out as I went through it. I had already installed the amps, sub, HU and speakers previously, so I had a good idea of how to get all the trim off and route the wires etc. Just had to do it again to convert it to a PC based system. It's easy if you're not afraid to have a go at it

I did mine like that.
£150 the PSU was as I imported it from America - wasn't in this country at the time. Ran off of 12v.. and used ignition to boot/hibernate the PC..
Also, if it was running on ignition and I started engine, PC stayed on.. was worth it.

Yeah, I was going to buy one of those type 12V supplies, but decided it was too expensive. It is good though how they have the shutdown controllers built in. I made my own for that, although it's not working quite right yet. THat's one of the things I have to fix.