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

    • I did end up getting it sorted, as GTSBoy said, there was a corroded connection and wire that needed to be replaced. I ended up taking out the light assembly, giving everything a good clean and re-soldered the old joints, and it came out good.
    • Wow, thanks for your help guys 🙏. I really appreciate it. Thanks @Rezz, if i fail finding any new or used, full or partial set of original Stage carpets i will come back to you for sure 😉 Explenation is right there, i just missed it 🤦‍♂️. Thanks for pointing out. @soviet_merlin in the meantime, I received a reply from nengun, and i quote: "Thanks for your message and interest in Nengun. KG4900 is for the full set of floor mats, while KG4911 is only the Driver's Floor Mat. FR, RH means Front Right Hand Side. All the Full Set options are now discontinued. However, the Driver's Floor Mat options are still available according to the latest information available to us. We do not know what the differences would be, but if you only want the one mat, we can certainly see what we can find out for you". Interesting. It seems they still have some "new old stock" that Duncan mentioned 🤔. I wonder if they can provide any photos......And i also just realized that amayama have G4900 sets. I'm tempted too. 
    • Any update on this one? did you manage to get it fixed?    i'm having the same issue with my r34 and i believe its to do with the smart entry (keyless) control module but cant be sure without forking out to get a replacement  
    • So this being my first contribution to the SAU forums, I'd like to present and show how I had to solve probably one of the most annoying fixes on any car I've owned: replacing a speedometer (or "speedo") sensor on my newly acquired Series 1 Stagea 260RS Autech Version. I'm simply documenting how I went about to fix this issue, and as I understand it is relatively rare to happen to this generation of cars, it is a gigantic PITA so I hope this helps serve as reference to anyone else who may encounter this issue. NOTE: Although I say this is meant for the 260RS, because the gearbox/drivetrain is shared with the R33 GTR with the 5-speed manual, the application should be exactly the same. Background So after driving my new-to-me Stagea for about 1500km, one night while driving home the speedometer and odometer suddenly stopped working. No clunking noise, no indication something was broken, the speedometer would just stop reading anything and the odometer stopped going up. This is a huge worry for me, because my car is relatively low mileage (only 45k km when purchased) so although I plan to own the car for a long time, a mismatched odometer reading would be hugely detrimental to resale should the day come to sell the car. Thankfully this only occurred a mile or two from home so it wasn't extremely significant. Also, the OCD part of me would be extremely irked if the numbers that showed on my dash doesn't match the actual ageing of the car. Diagnosing I had been in communication with the well renown GTR shop in the USA, U.P.garage up near University Point in Washington state. After some back and forth they said it could be one of two things: 1) The speedometer sensor that goes into the transfer case is broken 2) The actual cluster has a component that went kaput. They said this is common in older Nissan gauge clusters and that would indicate a rebuild is necessary. As I tried to figure out if it was problem #1, I resolved problem #2 by sending my cluster over to Relentless Motorsports in Dallas, TX, whom is local to me and does cluster and ECU rebuilds. He is a one man operation who meticulously replaces every chip, resistor, capacitor, and electronic component on the PCB's on a wide variety of classic and modern cars. His specialty is Lexus and Toyota, but he came highly recommended by Erik of U.P.garage since he does the rebuilds for them on GTR clusters.  For those that don't know, on R32 and R33 GTR gearboxes, the speedometer sensor is mounted in the transfer case and is purely an analog mini "generator" (opposite of an alternator essentially). Based on the speed the sensor spins it generates an AC sine wave voltage up to 5V, and sends that via two wires up to the cluster which then interprets it via the speedometer dial. The signal does NOT go to the ECU first, the wiring goes to the cluster first then the ECU after (or so I'm told).  Problems/Roadblocks I first removed the part from the car on the underside of the transfer case (drain your transfer case fluid/ATF first, guess who found out that the hard way?), and noted the transfer case fluid was EXTREMELY black, most likely never changed on my car. When attempting to turn the gears it felt extremely gritty, as if something was binding the shaft from rotating properly. I got absolutely no voltage reading out of the sensor no matter how fast I turned the shaft. After having to reflow the solder on my AFM sensors based on another SAU guide here, I attempted to disassemble the silicone seal on the back of the sensor to see what happened inside the sensor; turns out, it basically disintegrated itself. Wonderful. Not only had the electrical components destroyed themselves, the magnetic portion on what I thought was on the shaft also chipped and was broken. Solution So solution: find a spare part right? Wrong. Nissan has long discontinued the proper sensor part number 32702-21U19, and it is no longer obtainable either through Nissan NSA or Nissan Japan. I was SOL without proper speed or mileage readings unless I figured out a way to replace this sensor. After tons of Googling and searching on SAU, I found that there IS however a sensor that looks almost exactly like the R33/260RS one: a sensor meant for the R33/R34 GTT and GTS-T with the 5 speed manual. The part number was 25010-21U00, and the body, plug, and shaft all looked exactly the same. The gear was different at the end, but knowing the sensor's gear is held on with a circlip, I figured I could just order the part and swap the gears. Cue me ordering a new part from JustJap down in Kirrawee, NSW, then waiting almost 3 weeks for shipping and customs clearing. The part finally arrives and what did I find? The freaking shaft lengths don't match. $&%* I discussed with Erik how to proceed, and figuring that I basically destroyed the sensor trying to get the shaft out of the damaged sensor from my car. we deemed it too dangerous to try and attempt to swap shafts to the correct length. I had to find a local CNC machinist to help me cut and notch down the shaft. After tons of frantic calling on a Friday afternoon, I managed to get hold of someone and he said he'd be able to do it over half a week. I sent him photos and had him take measurements to match not only the correct length and notch fitment, but also a groove to machine out to hold the retentive circlip. And the end result? *chef's kiss* Perfect. Since I didn't have pliers with me when I picked up the items, I tested the old gear and circlip on. Perfect fit. After that it was simply swapping out the plug bracket to the new sensor, mount it on the transfer case, refill with ATF/Nissan Matic Fluid D, then test out function. Thankfully with the rebuilt cluster and the new sensor, both the speedometer and odometer and now working properly!   And there you have it. About 5-6 weeks of headaches wrapped up in a 15 minute photo essay. As I was told it is rare for sensors of this generation to die so dramatically, but you never know what could go wrong with a 25+ year old car. I HOPE that no one else has to go through this problem like I did, so with my take on a solution I hope it helps others who may encounter this issue in the future. For the TL;DR: 1) Sensor breaks. 2) Find a replacement GTT/GTS-T sensor. 3) Find a CNC machinist to have you cut it down to proper specs. 4) Reinstall then pray to the JDM gods.   Hope this guide/story helps anyone else encountering this problem!
    • So this being my first contribution to the SAU forums, I'd like to present and show how I had to solve probably one of the most annoying fixes on any car I've owned: replacing a speedometer (or "speedo") sensor on my newly acquired Series 1 Stagea 260RS Autech Version. I'm simply documenting how I went about to fix this issue, and as I understand it is relatively rare to happen to this generation of cars, it is a gigantic PITA so I hope this helps serve as reference to anyone else who may encounter this issue. NOTE: Although I say this is meant for the 260RS, because the gearbox/drivetrain is shared with the R33 GTR with the 5-speed manual, the application should be exactly the same. Background So after driving my new-to-me Stagea for about 1500km, one night while driving home the speedometer and odometer suddenly stopped working. No clunking noise, no indication something was broken, the speedometer would just stop reading anything and the odometer stopped going up. This is a huge worry for me, because my car is relatively low mileage (only 45k km when purchased) so although I plan to own the car for a long time, a mismatched odometer reading would be hugely detrimental to resale should the day come to sell the car. Thankfully this only occurred a mile or two from home so it wasn't extremely significant. Also, the OCD part of me would be extremely irked if the numbers that showed on my dash doesn't match the actual ageing of the car. Diagnosing I had been in communication with the well renown GTR shop in the USA, U.P.garage up near University Point in Washington state. After some back and forth they said it could be one of two things: 1) The speedometer sensor that goes into the transfer case is broken 2) The actual cluster has a component that went kaput. They said this is common in older Nissan gauge clusters and that would indicate a rebuild is necessary. As I tried to figure out if it was problem #1, I resolved problem #2 by sending my cluster over to Relentless Motorsports in Dallas, TX, whom is local to me and does cluster and ECU rebuilds. He is a one man operation who meticulously replaces every chip, resistor, capacitor, and electronic component on the PCB's on a wide variety of classic and modern cars. His specialty is Lexus and Toyota, but he came highly recommended by Erik of U.P.garage since he does the rebuilds for them on GTR clusters.  For those that don't know, on R32 and R33 GTR gearboxes, the speedometer sensor is mounted in the transfer case and is purely an analog mini "generator" (opposite of an alternator essentially). Based on the speed the sensor spins it generates an AC sine wave voltage up to 5V, and sends that via two wires up to the cluster which then interprets it via the speedometer dial. The signal does NOT go to the ECU first, the wiring goes to the cluster first then the ECU after (or so I'm told).  Problems/Roadblocks I first removed the part from the car on the underside of the transfer case (drain your transfer case fluid/ATF first, guess who found out that the hard way?), and noted the transfer case fluid was EXTREMELY black, most likely never changed on my car. When attempting to turn the gears it felt extremely gritty, as if shttps://imgur.com/6TQCG3xomething was binding the shaft from rotating properly. After having to reflow the solder on my AFM sensors based on another SAU guide here, I attempted to disassemble the silicone seal on the back of the sensor to see what happened inside the sensor; turns out, it basically disintegrated itself. Wonderful. Not only had the electrical components destroyed themselves, the magnetic portion on what I thought was on the shaft also chipped and was broken. Solution So solution: find a spare part right? Wrong. Nissan has long discontinued the proper sensor part number 32702-21U19, and it is no longer obtainable either through Nissan NSA or Nissan Japan. I was SOL without proper speed or mileage readings unless I figured out a way to replace this sensor. After tons of Googling and searching on SAU, I found that there IS however a sensor that looks almost exactly like the R33/260RS one: a sensor meant for the R33/R34 GTT and GTS-T with the 5 speed manual. The part number was 25010-21U00, and the body, plug, and shaft all looked exactly the same. The gear was different at the end, but knowing the sensor's gear is held on with a circlip, I figured I could just order the part and swap the gears. Cue me ordering a new part from JustJap down in Kirrawee, NSW, then waiting almost 3 weeks for shipping and customs clearing. The part finally arrives and what did I find? The freaking shaft lengths don't match. $&%* I discussed with Erik how to proceed, and figuring that I basically destroyed the sensor trying to get the shaft out of the damaged sensor from my car. we deemed it too dangerous to try and attempt to swap shafts to the correct length. I had to find a local CNC machinist to help me cut and notch down the shaft. After tons of frantic calling on a Friday afternoon, I managed to get hold of someone and he said he'd be able to do it over half a week. I sent him photos and had him take measurements to match not only the correct length and notch fitment, but also a groove to machine out to hold the retentive circlip. And the end result? *chef's kiss* Perfect. Since I didn't have pliers with me when I picked up the items, I tested the old gear and circlip on. Perfect fit. After that it was simply swapping out the plug bracket to the new sensor, mount it on the transfer case, refill with ATF/Nissan Matic Fluid D, then test out function. Thankfully with the rebuilt cluster and the new sensor, both the speedometer and odometer and now working properly!   And there you have it. About 5-6 weeks of headaches wrapped up in a 15 minute photo essay. As I was told it is rare for sensors of this generation to die so dramatically, but you never know what could go wrong with a 25+ year old car. I HOPE that no one else has to go through this problem like I did, so with my take on a solution I hope it helps others who may encounter this issue in the future. For the TL;DR: 1) Sensor breaks. 2) Find a replacement GTT/GTS-T sensor. 3) Find a CNC machinist to have you cut it down to proper specs. 4) Reinstall then pray to the JDM gods.   Hope this guide/story helps anyone else encountering this problem!
×
×
  • Create New...