Tips/Basics to installing / running a Car PC

Contributed by seamonkey420 September 1, 2004  
Tagged: Windows

This is another of my ingredients lists. I, being a geek, tried the car pc project. The learning curve for it was a bit high and i got confused on many things like voltage and just the basics. This recipe will give some tips to running your own car pc project and some good links at the bottom to further your project.

Seamonkey’s Car PC Tips:

1. First things first; plan!
first ask your self, what do you want your car pc to do? how do you plan to interact with it (touchscreen, keyboard, keypad, voice recon)? Also remember size issues and power issues too!

I’d recommend sticking to the mini-itx form factor for installs you plan to put in the front seat area… since you’ll have to do some major modding/fabricating to get it to fit…

for trunk mounted car pc’s, you can do whatever you want, just so it fits and you have enough power to run i…

2. How do you control your pc.. safely??
another important thing to consider… this is actually the reason why i abandoned the project, i feared the accident.. ;-) be careful!!

there are three main options:
1. Touchscreen interface (more expensive but very convenient, Lilliput, Xenarc branded ones are excellent, usually can get for about $300 on ebay)
2. Keypads/Mini keyboard/Trackballs (also a bit spendy but can be cheaper than a new Touchscreen LCD, look into ones that come with programming software to setup hotkeys)
3. Voice Recognition (cheapest but not the most efficient and useful)

3. Power / Startup / “Crank”
so you have a pc now, how are you gonna power it??
you have a few options here.

first off, you’ll hear people refer to their pc’s not making it through crank. Crank is when you go from the AC position [car off, but radio, accessories on] to starting your car, that moment where power fluctuates since the car pulls juice to start.

1. dc to ac inverter (big, no wiring required, do not always withstand crank but most will since of the backup battery)
2. mini itps board (cheap, fanless, but do not put out much power at all)
3. Opus powersupply (expensive but QUALITY and feature laden!!)

also if you want a relay switch (a board that tells your pc to turn on when you turn the car ignition to AC or start car)

and a shutdown controller, this usually works with a psu, this tells the psu to stop drawing power at a certain time after the car is turned off. one would want one of these if you want to be able to just turn off your car and the pc will shutdown automatically. (windows and the motherboard power management options work with the controller to sense this

4. Mounting and Installing

Now where do you put things??
lots of people do dashboard mounts of LCD and then install the PC into the glove box and under the passenger side area…

this is all a matter of what your willing to put into your car pc/project and your skills… i mounted my pc in my center console for easy access to put dvds in…

5. Actually using your car pc

using windows as is on a 7 inch touchscreen can be .. difficult to say the least….

you can go the route of using thirdparty software; there is someone that has a freeware program that make things easy to read and easy to access

or you can use something like DesktopX to create your own custom GUI for windows.

Also weigh the advantages of VGA vs RCA/S-VIDEO monitors.
with a PC VGA is superior to RCA/S-VIDEO output but will cost more

6. LINKS!
http://www.geocities.com/daseamonkey420 - my geocities website, has my carpc page (incomplete but what lists what i used for parts..)

http://www.logicsupply.com - seller of PS for car pc projects!!

http://www.mini-itx.com/ - great site for pc mods/m-itx formfactor

http://www.mp3car.com/ - site dedicated to car mp3 players via pcs and car pc projects

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_topics.asp?FID=9&PN=0 - great forum site for power related questions on installs

http://www.carnetix.com/ - another site that sells psu for car pc projects]

have fun, and of course, BE SAFE!!!