Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

There are quite a few places in Australia, USA and UK that you can get complete computer systems specifically for cars...

A Complete ready made system works out cheaper and easier at the end of the day, but you can save money by building and sourcing parts yourself but not that much and that is a heap to do to catch up to the specifically made car pc systems out there, in built everything...

http://www.incarcomputers.com.au

http://www.in-carpc.co.uk

http://www.gizmosis.com.au/

http://www.mini-box.com - complete bare bones systems including internal car specific power supplies

http://www.downtown.com.au/hpc1013.htm

http://carcpu.com/

http://www.xenarc.com/product/index-pc.html

http://www.cappuccinopc.com/ - just mini pc cases and systems

http://www.cartft.com/ - Car Computer Parts & software - A system builder matrix - Best layout and most complete systems...

Edited by 75coupe
  • Replies 136
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

And also a quick question on monitors.

Has anyone found a good place, bar ebay, to source 7" touchscreen lcds, be it lilliputs, xenarcs or others!

Thanks

I got mine from pandainnovations.com, i think they were a bit cheaper than other online stores.

yay this thread is alive again!

Hydie, may i ask what you are using for GPS if you are!

Cheers

And also a quick question on monitors.

Has anyone found a good place, bar ebay, to source 7" touchscreen lcds, be it lilliputs, xenarcs or others!

Thanks

Haven't even tried GPS yet, but will be using either iGuidence4, or MapMonkey. MapMonkey is apperently easier to integrate with RoadRunner, the frontend that i'm using. Up-to date Australian maps will be the largest hurdle im expecting.

As for LCD's, I highly recommend Vastute.com or Mobile Computing Solutions. Both usually have sales on eBay, which is where i got my Lilliput through Vastute for $269 delivered. :)

I have been in contact with MCS, they are an international company, BUT, they have got a sales person in Australia, so you can email them and ask for his details, which in turn, im sure you could get it cheaper without paying some of postage costs from the USA.

Haven't even tried GPS yet, but will be using either iGuidence4, or MapMonkey. MapMonkey is apperently easier to integrate with RoadRunner, the frontend that i'm using. Up-to date Australian maps will be the largest hurdle im expecting.

I'm running RoadRunner with MapMonkey... give me a hoy if you need Australian maps. ;)

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

Apologies for bumping an old thread, but the images were still on the server, I just had to edit all the BBcode. Since I did all that work, its going up here for future reference.

Hey hey,

Started this project a little while ago, and now that its done thought I'd put some pictures up...

Basically I originally wanted sat nav in the car, but when having a look at the prices I kinda thought that it was a bit much just for sat nav, and I checked out what other possibilities there were… GPS usb receivers :(… I then decided that I’d just get a computer in the car and that could run everything, as in sat nav, music and whatever else (if there would be anything else)… Used the MP3Car forums heaps to get a good idea of how others had done it and designed my own little PC…

Hardware:

Via EPIA Mini ITX Motherboard (1.3Ghz)

M2ATX power unit

1Gb Ram

80Gb SATA Hard Drive

USB GPS Receiver

7” Touch Screen

Software:

Windows Xp

RoadRunner

FreeDrive

Winamp

Started off with the screen… I bought another dash surround so that I wouldn’t have to drive my car around for weeks/months without a dash :P

gallery_22969_1095_401040.jpg7" Touch Screen 1

gallery_22969_1095_40527.jpg7" Touch Screen 2

gallery_22969_1095_60552.jpg7" Touch Screen 3

Took the screen apart so I could mould the front of it to the dash and once finished I could screw the rest of the screen straight to the dash, the idea was that I wanted it to look like one piece, and that the same time there is no way you could steal unless you broke the screen…

For it to fit nicely under the climate control I had to cut part of the dash at the bottom, also has to take a couple mm off each side.

gallery_22969_1095_434893.jpgDash 1

gallery_22969_1095_232526.jpgDash 2

gallery_22969_1095_19312.jpgDash 3

gallery_22969_1095_240718.jpgDash 4

Once I got it fitting nicely in the dash I used Araldite to glue it in and the used putty to bog up the sides and sand it back to make it look like one piece.

gallery_22969_1095_55681.jpgDash 5

gallery_22969_1095_300122.jpgDash 6

This came out pretty good, so I put it in for painting…

gallery_22969_1095_216735.jpgPainted Dash 1

gallery_22969_1095_271286.jpgPainted Dash 2

When I got the dash back, I popped the screen back into it and with the moving/playing around with the dash over the next couple days the front of the screen that was glued to the dash cracked and eventually with a little bit of force it came apart completely. Took some advise from someone in Bunnings and got it plastic welded to the dash… this time before I puttied it all up and made it look good again a gave it some severe testing to make sure it wouldn’t crack again (sorry no pics of this part…)

While the dash was getting re-painted I started to build the case. I wanted to build it in aluminium, but cost and putting it all together (or bending it) just put me off using it… I used persplex instead :)

I wasn’t too sure where I wanted to have the case, couple of options… in the boot, under the seat behind the screen (in the dash)… Decided to go with fitting it under the seat, so I made a model of the case and had it under the seat until I realised that every time I went over a bump I could feel the case, so scraped that and decided to put it in the dash… Took the dash apart and again made a model of what I wanted it to be like and made sure everything fit nicely then made the case…

gallery_22969_1095_106188.jpgCase 1

gallery_22969_1095_95853.jpgCase 2

gallery_22969_1095_462341.jpgCase 3

gallery_22969_1095_404202.jpgCase 4

Note that its actually sitting the other way around now, can see this in a later pic…

At some point in time while I was making the PC I got the dash back…

gallery_22969_1095_201391.jpgFinal dash

When I was happy that everything was going to fit nicely I finished the case and installed all the software on the machine… tested everything to make sure it would work. As I had the dash back and I’d put it all together I was running it on the 7” screen to see what it would give…

gallery_22969_1095_106412.jpgCase 5

gallery_22969_1095_165817.jpgCase 6

gallery_22969_1095_211877.jpgCase 7

gallery_22969_1095_363168.jpgCase 8

gallery_22969_1095_373178.jpg7" powered off car pc

Finally got to the stage when it was all ready to go in… spent a good couple hours messing around with it all to get it to fit like I wanted… (very tight fit J) cables everywhere in the pic but was nice and neat once it was all in…

gallery_22969_1095_403208.jpgmess!

Put the dash back in and bingo…

gallery_22969_1095_289938.jpgFinal setup 1

gallery_22969_1095_304041.jpgFinal setup 2

Pics aren’t the greatest and the glove box still on in on the pic… once I have given the interior a good clean might take a final pic and post it…

At the moment ironing out a few little issue… the main one is sound… playing only MP3s on the hard drive (have 2 USB ports so this is how I add music etc when needed)… the prob with MP3s are the recording levels they are recorded at.. some songs sound awesome, others sound like c#@p! just trying to find some other 3rd party software that will regulate the output of the sound… but yeah… apart from that everything is working sweet… :D

  • 3 weeks later...
I got win 7 on my incar pc, its doing good atm, might run into trouble because microsoft blows, haha

A very cut down, basic version of Win XP is all you need. I dont understand the point in putting a newer OS in there. It's not like you're connecting to the internet, or using any of the advanced functionality of Win7. WinXP is a hell of a lot faster, more hardware and software works with WinXP anyway..

Only legitimate reason I can think of is Vista & Win7 handle hibernate/resume a bit better and dont mind being run for 6 months without a full reboot, but thats it..? Any other reasons why you're putting Win7 on there?

its my compatiable with the mouse volume scroller i have, and the touch screen is more responsive with windows 7, the boot times and stuff isnt that different anyways cos i got such a high powered computer in there... i use to for internet purposes aswell so 7 is best for what i use it for

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Hey Dave, welcome aboard! Good to see another soon-to-be Stagea owner here. The wagons are awesome — plenty of space, still got that Skyline DNA, and loads of potential if you’re into mods. Definitely post up pics when you get it, everyone here loves seeing new builds. What model/year are you looking at?
    • See if you can thermal epoxy a heatsink or two onto it?
    • The other problem was one of those "oh shit we are going to die moments". Basically the high spec Q50s have a full electric steering rack, and the povo ones had a regular hydraulic rack with an electric pump.  So couple of laps into session 5 as I came into turn 2 (big run off now, happily), the dash turned into a christmas tree and the steering became super heavy and I went well off. I assumed it was a tyre failure so limped to the pits, but everything was OK. But....the master warning light was still on so I checked the DTCs and saw – C13E6 “Heat Protection”. Yes, that bloody steering rack computer sitting where the oil cooler should be has its own sensors and error logic, and decided I was using the steering wheel too much. I really appreciated the helpful information in the manual (my bold) POSSIBLE CAUSE • Continuing the overloading steering (Sports driving in the circuit etc,) “DATA MONITOR” >> “C/M TEMPERATURE”. The rise of steering force motor internal temperature caused the protection function to operate. This is not a system malfunction. INSPECTION END So, basically the electric motor in the steering rack got to 150c, and it decided to shut down without warning for my safety. Didn't feel safe. Short term I'll see if I can duct some air to that motor (the engine bay is sealed pretty tight). Long term, depending on how often this happens, I'll look into swapping the povo spec electric/hydraulic rack in. While the rack should be fine the power supply to the pump will be a pain and might be best to deal with it when I add a PDM.
    • And finally, 2 problems I really need to sort.  Firstly as Matt said the auto trans is not happy as it gets hot - I couldn't log the temps but the gauge showed 90o. On the first day I took it out back in Feb, because the coolant was getting hot I never got to any auto trans issues; but on this day by late session 3 and then really clearly in 4 and 5 as it got hotter it just would not shift up. You can hear the issue really clearly at 12:55 and 16:20 on the vid. So the good news is, literally this week Ecutek finally released tuning for the jatco 7 speed. I'll have a chat to Racebox and see what they can do electrically to keep it cooler and to get the gears, if anything. That will likely take some R&D and can only really happen on track as it never gets even warm with road use. I've also picked up some eye wateringly expensive Redline D6 ATF to try, it had the highest viscosity I could find at 100o so we will see if that helps (just waiting for some oil pan gaskets so I can change it properly). If neither of those work I need to remove the coolant/trans interwarmer and the radiator cooler and go to an external cooler....somewhere.....(goodbye washer reservoir?), and if that fails give up on this mad idea and wait for Nissan to release the manual 400R
    • So, what else.... Power. I don't know what it is making because I haven't done a post tune dyno run yet; I will when I get a chance. It was 240rwkw dead stock. Conclusion from the day....it does not need a single kw more until I sort some other stuff. It comes on so hard that I could hear the twin N1 turbos on the R32 crying, and I just can't use what it has around a tight track with the current setup. Brakes. They are perfect. Hit them hard all day and they never felt like having an issue; you can see in the video we were making ground on much lighter cars on better tyres under brakes. They are standard (red sport) calipers, standard size discs in DBA5000 2 piece, Winmax pads and Motul RBF600 fluid, all from Matty at Racebrakes Sydney. Keeping in mind the car is more powerful than my R32 and weighs 1780, he clearly knows his shit. Suspension. This is one of the first areas I need to change. It has electronically controlled dampers from factory, but everything is just way too soft for track work even on the hardest setting (it is nice when hustling on country roads though). In particular it rolls into oversteer mid corner and pitches too much under hard braking so it becomes unstable eg in the turn 1 kink I need to brake early, turn through the kink then brake again so I don't pirouette like an AE86. I need to get some decent shocks with matched springs and sway bars ASAP, even if it is just a v1 setup until I work out a proper race/rally setup later. Tyres. I am running Yoko A052 in 235/45/18 all round, because that was what I could get in approximately the right height on wheels I had in the shed (Rays/Nismo 18x8 off the old Leaf actually!). As track tyres they are pretty poor; I note GTSBoy recently posted a porker comparo video including them where they were about the same as AD09.....that is nothing like a top line track tyre. I'll start getting that sorted but realistically I should get proper sized wheels first (likely 9.5 +38 front and 11 +55 at the rear, so a custom order, and I can't rotate them like the R32), then work out what the best tyre option is. BTW on that, Targa Tas had gone to road tyres instead of semi slicks now so that is a whole other world of choices to sort. Diff. This is the other thing that urgently needs to be addressed. It left massive 1s out of the fish hook all day, even when I was trying not too (you can also hear it reving on the video, and see the RPM rising too fast compared to speed in the data). It has an open diff that Infiniti optimistically called a B-LSD for "Brake Limited Slip Diff". It does good straight line standing start 11s but it is woeful on the track. Nismo seem to make a 2 way for it.
×
×
  • Create New...