Starting Car Computer build

[kengeroo]

going to start a car computer build,,,

initially to facilitate tuning of Apexi power l-jetro,, sick of hauling the laptop around...,, using copilot software

I plan to expand on GPS/navigation and MP3 library, etc....

...has anyone ventured down this road...????

[dah_hunter]

you going mini itx fully custom?

http://www.mini-itx.com/

With Android/ Windows 8 (Next Spring) Advanced Touch Interfaces you could make a pretty sweet Touch Screen Interface with some Powerful hardware running it.

[cobrAA]

I'm interesting but scared about the sound quality of the radio.

[kengeroo]

With the world of
Mp3s
Who need radio?
Was planning on just tethering wifi with iPhone to get live radio content when needed

[BlackAura]

Heh, I started down this road, never really finished. I had a working setup on my bench which at the time had Win7. Looked into Android after I got my Android phone, but haven't put much effort in recently.

I started with an Intel Atom board. It worked great, however it ended up replacing my old home server as a nice low power setup. I'm thinking I'll look at the Tegra boards next (although I don't know how well they run Android).

Check out the mp3car.com forums, lots of good info there.

[kengeroo]

How did you address the issue about power down/hibrenate when ignition was cutoff to it??

Heh, I started down this road, never really finished. I had a working setup on my bench which at the time had Win7. Looked into Android after I got my Android phone, but haven't put much effort in recently.

I started with an Intel Atom board. It worked great, however it ended up replacing my old home server as a nice low power setup. I'm thinking I'll look at the Tegra boards next (although I don't know how well they run Android).

Check out the mp3car.com forums, lots of good info there.

[BlackAura]

(grrrr, GTRC just erased the response I wrote...second attempt below )


If you get a special automotive power supply, it generally has three power connections, similar to a car stereo. Constant power (sometimes called battery), ignition power (only on when the car ignition is on), and of course a ground.

Ignition power is (generally) never used as a voltage source, it's only used to check the ignition status. The power supply and computer are powered via the battery source. Also, the other reason to get an automotive rated power supply is that they are built to smooth out voltage spikes and drops, so your components don't get fried.

The power supply I got also has a motherboard power header connector, and an amplifier remote cable.

When ignition power comes on, it sends a power-toggle signal to the motherboard (just like when you hit the power button on your PC).
Once the computer has started, it powers on your amplifier via the remote cable (otherwise you get a lovely crack sound through your speakers when your computer powers up).

When ignition power is turned off, it sends another power-toggle signal to the motherboard (although some can be configured differently). You can setup windows (or whatever OS you have) to handle that power signal however you'd like, i.e. suspend, or hibernate. Once the machine turns off and stops drawing power, I believe it then turns off the amplifiers.

Check out Mobile Computing Solutions, I bought a few things from them (shipped to my friend in the states though):

http://www.mo-co-so.com/

or Automotive Grade Power Supplies

Don't expect to run the latest and greatest Intel / AMD processors with these though. You'll be looking at low power systems (Intel Atoms, nVidia IONs, etc). Thankfully integrated video has come a long way (and the Ions are running GeForce mobility type setups).

correction to my last post: Ion is what I meant, not Tegra