Project Car

I have already done the computer in my car thing. I is sweet what you should do is put a wirless hub in your garage and a wirless NIC in your carPC. Then write a script to DL all your MP3 that are new from your home PC. unless that is not what your doing. Then the only other useful thing would be a GPS type system. or are you just puting it in there for fun? there are keyboards that you can get that are PS2 and roll up they work well under the sunvisor. and trackballs are awsome in the car. it would be sweet to play warcraft3 dring down the road. or not. bad idea. i have an alpine CVA-1005 it works well for this porpouse. peace out.

Ah.. just came up with another idea for this project. Install some voice recognition software on the PC, and mount the mic in front of the driver side. "Computer play [insert m3 name here]". It'd be like night rider. heh... wow... I want $$$. I want to do this now! :)

jared:

I was talking with one of the electrical engineers at work about this, and they say it's rather easy on the electrical end, just have to get an inverter or something to tie into your fuse box (that way you dont worry about killing the battery).

Another one of my engineers who is a geek by nature also warned about being sure to shock mount your PC and maybe the HD as well. Just the thought of hitting a pothole (I live in PA, so they're about every 4 feet here) with a drive spinning at 7200 rpm....ouch! Or you could always look into some kind of solid state drive, which of course ups the $$ on the project.

Just thought I'd share my engineers' insights with the group, as this post has prompted me to look into it myself.

If you wouldn't mind, once you get some pricing ironed out, drop me a PM with some of the info you found out so I can see if I even remotely have the ching for something like this.

http://galls.com/shop/viewProductDetail.jsp?item=VP201

THis is a good DC to AC adaptor meant for heavy duty usage (like a laptop or a computer)....

I know that 10010101011 will agree that this is a good company to order from...

jezter6, thanks for checking that out for me.

I really don't think this project will be too expensive. I've been hearing I can get the LCD Screen for around $200 - $300. The small computer that is linked to above seems like it will run around $350 - $450. The adapter prices look like they average around $50. And it seems like a really easy project to do electrical wise. The one thing that may be hard is getting the LCD Screen mounted. If you get it done professionally it could cost a pretty penny, but it all depends what you want to do. I hear that there are LCD Screens that will just clip onto your visor so no installation is required. But of course all the prices I listed will vary depending on the quality of the product you buy. I think the whole project will run between $1000 - $1500. That is just my guestimate though. Once I start getting my hands dirty I'll make sure to post the details. If anyone else starts this project before me, details would definitely be appreciated.

Okay check it.. I've already planned this out for my ride as well. I'm getting an alpine in dash lcd screen with dvd player, cd, mp3 player in dash. That alone is about 2G's. I'm using my old box and drives and putting them in the trunk. I have been doing custom speaker, subs, amp installs since 92 for all my friends. I would suggest getting a monster CAP to lighten the electrical load from the battery, I would also look into getting a more powerful alternator installed in the car. this will give you the extra amps the system will need. (especially if you go with subs and a powerful amp) I'm getting a mini wireless keyboard for the system and a wireless trackball. Also I'm using the idea of the WiFi NIC to do transfers from my home sys to my car at night. Another idea I found was that I am going to buy a motorola cell phone that can be hooked up to the comp so I can check e-mail on the road. The biggest problem I have run into is the $$$ problem. The wireing is actually pretty easy. One thing you do have to worry about when you do the wiring is to always run power lines seperatly from signal lines. AKA. Run the power lines on one side of the car and the speaker/RCA wires on the other. If the power cables are run together with the signal lines you can get some interference in the sound.

Also remember. The shorter the ground, the better the sound.

Hope this helps. ;)

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Sounds like a sweet setup. :)

jared_c: but what if someone hacks your Honda Civic and turns off your air conditioning. Surely this brings about all sorts of new security issues ;).

there we go, need a good firewall...

heck, after I started going on this thread, I started thinking about a bogarted direcTV setup so I could have sat in the car...but how would you keep the sat pointed in the right direction....

still sounds sweet...i'm looking into it myself now. once the price list comes in from jared

You say you want satellite in the ride eh? Now your talkin my language. :bigpimp:

Okay.. Yes it is possible. There are currently two systems that are able to keep a sat tv connection while on the move. But the systems are kinda big and a bit ugly for a car. I wish I could get one and see if I could modify it to hide somewhere. But alas I'm not rich and can't afford it. But here are the links to the two types. Enjoy...


http://www.galaxymall.com/technical/...edish/kvh.html


http://www.turbosurf.com/DatronMobile.html

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