Carputer, car pc, woteva, I'm sourcing components...

R

Rtaxerxes

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Messages
108
Reaction score
0
Location
Cape Town
I am looking at importing some components for car pc's. I have sourced Mini-itx boards, Lilliput touchscreen LCD's and the car PSU's. I plan on building my own cases. Anyone interested in adding their name to the shipment?

I am bringing in the screens soon, the 7" lilliput touchscreen LCD should go for around R3000. Let me know here or mail me at matthew at solveur dot co dot za. Or else if someone already has the stuff locally, please let me know so I can avoid going through all the hassle.
 
Last edited:
Rtaxerxes said:
.. I have sourced Mini-itx boards, Lilliput touchscreen LCD's and the car PSU's.
Click to expand...
DO (please!) tell what you're sourcing (details, we wants details!) ..*ahem* - sorry, I get ..well, excited about things like this. :o

Or else if someone already has the stuff locally, please let me know so I can avoid going through all the hassle.
Click to expand...
..and here's why we want details: there's no way of being able to tell you what may be available locally/via another channel without knowing what it is you're already organising! ..QED!
-bdt
 
What can't you do?

1) All your media in the car. Music, DVD's, photos etc.
2) Office stuff, mail, documents, spreadsheets, presentations etc.
3) Wifi - Link to the net from your car, sync with your home PC, new media etc.
4) GPS navigation - guided nav like in the expensive cars, find wifi hotspots, places of interest, restaurants, etc.
5) Bluetooth - software links your cell and the pc so your PC is your carkit, automatically gets contacts, can show pictures of who's calling etc.
6) Net access - either by wifi or EDGE or HSDPA, whatever.
7) Car information - link up to the Engine computer and it will tell you everything that the car's computer knows about, from revs to fuel consumption to average speed to high speed, to door open alarms etc.
8) Car security - link it to you security system at home and check the status of your house, view IP cams, control things with home automation.

The point is all of this in one for probably about R6000.
Individually: GPS is about R2000.
Laptop is about R6000
Bluetooth Car kit is between R700 and R12000
iPOD - R3000
In car DVD player - R2500
You see where I'm going. Its not for everyone, but I certainly can't wait. Check www.mp3car.com for some more info on what guys have done.
 
What I'm building

I plan to build this machine and have sourced these components:
VIA M10000 Epia motherboard.
Lilliput 7" widescreen touch screen LCD or 8" 4:3 Touch screen LCD.
M1-ATX 12V DC-DC power supply for the car.

Not sure about keyboard/mouse/trackball yet and I will be building my own Perspex box.

I have to confirm shipping costs, but I'm hoping to get the screens here for about R2500. The others I am still getting final pricing on.
 
Looked at quite a few of those, they have come a long way.

Check this one out....
https://www.timekiller.org/carpc/index.php

The other bonus is you can have the PC start up by remote, so you could switch on the machine by using your key remote, then log into it by wifi and update your media, your maps or sync your e-mail you collected during the day.
 
Rtaxerxes really interesting myself and a lot of people on the opelownersclub forum have also looked into this . Only problem I thought about was the computer hdd wont it give trouble with all the shaking of the car ??

And are u sure it will all be total of R6000+- ?
 
We would use laptop hard drives firstly, a lot of them have shock protection built in. I have had a laptop in which everything has died from banging or dust or something except the hard drive.

R6000 I think would cover most of the accessories, for instance the GPS receiver alone would be in the region of R700. We might be able to make cheaper ones using a bit of a slower motherboard which should work fine...
 
I'm ordering today

I'm ordering the screens today. I can get 7" widescreen 800 x 480 resolution touchscreens with remote or an 8" 800x600 touchscreen. Both will be R2400, but if we order quite a few I'm sure we can get the price down.

Let me know ASAP, I'll be ordering it 31/5/06.
 
DigitalSoldier said:
Rtaxerxes really interesting myself and a lot of people on the opelownersclub forum have also looked into this . Only problem I thought about was the computer hdd wont it give trouble with all the shaking of the car ??

And are u sure it will all be total of R6000+- ?
Click to expand...

dont panic too much:-) hard drives are more robust than you give them credit for. i have had a 3.5" hdd in my car for 4 years now, still fine etc. not shock mounted or anything (besides rubber grommets for the screws)..sure, it may be a timebomb, but it has lasted longer than drives which lived in my pc:-)
laptop drives are even more robust...the g's they can withstand (non-operational) are unreal, and the g-shock they can take in their stride while operational arent really experienced in a car.
look at www.ssiamerica.com for a product MEANT for car use, which uses a desktop type hdd and no hassles.
 
werner said:
.. look at www.ssiamerica.com for a product MEANT for car use, which uses a desktop type hdd and no hassles.
Click to expand...
heh, nice as that is, it's just/only an mp3 player. That's not to say it (looks like) a good/interesting product, but still, it does rather fall short of the stated aim of a car PC. (not that your mentioning it was A Bad Thing(tm), werner!) :cool:

Actually, that thing looks a LOT like a product we had briefly in our market a few years back: it's the way one can move the device 'tween one's PC and car that reminds me ..can't recall what it was called now tho'.
-bdt
 
yes, but the purpose wasnt to compare with full car pc's, just merely to point out that desktop hard drives survive in cars pretty easily, as this product demonstrates.
 
I can't but help wonder how that setup/a homebrew solution that doesn't include all sorts of interesting damping would do with my barreling up and down dirt roads - which I DON'T do at 40km/h, I go ..somewhat quicker than that. Reason being, of course, the question of LOTS of (comparitively) high frequency vibration that doesn't happen on tar roads (that don't include our .za potoled and speed-hump infested offerings!)
-bdt
 
Rtaxerxes said:
I am looking at importing some components for car pc's. I have sourced Mini-itx boards, Lilliput touchscreen LCD's and the car PSU's. I plan on building my own cases. Anyone interested in adding their name to the shipment?
I am bringing in the screens soon, the 7" lilliput touchscreen LCD should go for around R3000. Let me know here or mail me at matthew at solveur dot co dot za. Or else if someone already has the stuff locally, please let me know so I can avoid going through all the hassle.
Click to expand...

www.short-circuit.com
www.mini-box.com
http://www.magicitx.com/mythtv/installation.html
Arrow-altech imports the mini-itx m10000

Shortcirc sells the 7" monitors for $215 and DC-DC converters that can
handle the inductive kickback of an engine crank.

To find further links and applications for GPRS/GPS connected to an onboard
mini-itx mother board just do a search on my name captainwifi.

I made a post elsewhere on extracting GPS coordinates from Veza software and storing this in a database so you can do route plotting and send out an instant alert if a car deviates from it's route or even if the truck driver just
slows down at the wrong spot. :cool:
 
Last edited:
captainwifi said:
.... if the truck driver just slows down at the wrong spot. :cool:
Click to expand...

The GPS automatically activates and sends back snapshots of the residential
driveway or dangerzone via GPRS. In the www.lowvelder.co.za there was an article about a farmer in the lowveld who drove into an ambush this week. The assailants laid rocks unto the road forcing him to a stop. With the M10000 mother board connedted to GPRS/GPS he would have had enough time to activate a panic button. The GPRS streams JPEG snapshots of the dome camera on the roof to the basestation for realtime verification and false alarm elimination and provides added urgency and incentive to the police and fellow farmers to rush to a distressed person's assistance.:cool: :)

Depending on the resolution of the GPS had the farmer just slowed down at the wrong coordinates a GPRS jpeg snapshot of the roof camera would have been sent to the base. GPS can determine the speed at which a vehicle is moving to a high degree of accuracy.

Via GPRS the operator at the basestation can actually take realtime control the of the pan/tilt/zoom functions of the
dome camera on the roof of the vehicle. And you use bog standard Windose XP to do all this, no need to do Linux hacking....

Lets take a danger zone in residential areas - entering your driveway at 5pm. Implement VOIP over GPRS. The GPS
will inform the basestation that you are arriving at around 6pm at your driveway. The operator will be in voice contact
with you until you are safe inside your house via VOIP over GPRS. Hijackings take place with such speed that all you will be able to do is to inform the operator that six goons have just surrounded your car. The operator then remotely GPRS's the dome camera's images on your roof to him to confirm your story etc..... You see if you can actually e-mail Netstar or
www.eblockwatch.co.za of the actuall hijackers then you will get a much better response - becuase it can now proved that you were hijacked.

Hijackings take place at robots and stop streets. If we could have a database of everysingle Robot's GPS coordinates
it would reduce the incidenc of hijackings. The moment your door opens at a robot a distress is sent to the basestation
from the mini-itx m10000 motherboard with the operator knowing that your door should not have opened at the stop street.
 
Last edited:
Rtaxerxes

How about you try to get stand alone psu's that will convert 12V dc straight to the required voltages. That way we won't need to use these pathetic noisy 12V to 220V inverters available on the SA markets.

I tried to build one myself. It worked, but with limited success (a bit unstable), since we only have limited parts readily available.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X