Yay- My Carputer project just got off the ground

[low_bass_makker]

nice to see the setup is running fine.......

[ankur]

Good to see more PC setups coming along.

Watch out for the wiring and fuse of the lighter socket, they are not usually meant for high continuous current draw.

cheers.

[abhi182]

i mean 4 GB for the OS and apps
another 4 for the songs
another 4 for something else
that way it would be more stable more heat / shock resistant and tfring data between home / car would be a breze and the heat out put of the pc woyld go down aswell

Mounted on the ghetto silicone washers, the amount of vibration on the HDD should be fairly low.
Additionally, laptop drives are fairly well adapoted to handle vibrations..the kind of treatment my laptop's poor HDD gets in the house is far worse than what this one would undergo...

Tfring data from home is anyway not a problem as I can tfr files from my home wireless network without unplugging anything..And for voluminous data transfers, I can always hook up a pen drive/ipod in disk mode to the USB port on the PC

Watch out for the wiring and fuse of the lighter socket, they are not usually meant for high continuous current draw.

cheers.

I was having issues with cranking and it is a big pain to hibernate the PC for short stops hence I setup a DIY tank setup last night

I wired a Gel Type 7AH battery to the PC so the PC is running off the continous (and clean ) power off that...
The charging of the secondary battery is being taken off by through a Diode Isolator coupled with a Filter Cap....
So now, the peak current on the accessories line is limited to 4A by the Diode

To be sure though, I measured the current draw on the Car power line:

0 A when car and PC are off
100-200mA with Car off but PC running
900mA to 2A with car and PC running and the Gel battery charging

I would guess this is within tolerable limits

I ordered the Chennai Destinator map from Satguide since they claim to have built their maps ground-up by picking GSI maps and hiring a team of cartographers to go on location to calibrate the maps unlike mapking which apparently has just overlaid co-ordinates on a digital map without any onsite work or calibration.

Got a 25% discount on the order too

The instal should be finally done by the coming Sunday after which I'll post the pics

[metaphysical]

Hi Abhi,

I am trying to assemble a Carputer for myself. This one would be setup inside a Swift DZire VDi. I have multiple thoughts running before i assemble one.
Hope you could guide / help me thru this. Your install seems to be uber-perfect one.

Aim:

a) GPS / Navigation Guidance (later stage)
b) Entertainment. Mp3, Video etc etc.
c) War Driving :-)
d) OBD

What do i have currently ?
a) Toshiba Satellite Laptop whose battery works only ten minutes and the screen is almost dead. has a host of ports. Enough to serve the purpose
b) Dell laptop : Same as above
c) Licensed and unused copy of Win XP prof.
d) Free Frontend software e.g. Mobile Impact, Digital Dash, RoadRunner.

I spoke to the good folks at iride.in and they quoted me the parts. Their Intel D201GLY2A based install does not seem to be very facinating / powerful considering that the system will access the Internet, GPS, do real time .kmz generation and mapping and media capabilities along with backup camera support etc.

Could you help and guide me take the valid decisions.

FYI, Maruti has done it again. My car is delayed by about a 15 days. I now have the comfort of choosing the devices etc at leisure. Also suggest any business establishments that might help procure equipment for less.

Oh Yes, I am based at Delhi and firmly belive in safe driving.

Rgds
Dev
+91 98186 75851

[monty9991]

Originally Posted by metaphysical

Hi Abhi,

I am trying to assemble a Carputer for myself. This one would be setup inside a Swift DZire VDi. I have multiple thoughts running before i assemble one.
Hope you could guide / help me thru this. Your install seems to be uber-..........

we did a pc install in a swift vdi. here is the link. you can have preety much good idea how to do it. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/841992-post225.html (My First Car PC Install - Research and Planning Stage)

and more over if you keep your HDD 3.5" standin on its side, this will help you keeping from skipping. this how mine is done and i have been running my setup for more than a month now, not even a single skip problem occured even on bad bumpy roads.
here is the link. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/841983-post224.html (My First Car PC Install - Research and Planning Stage)

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by abhi182

I setup a DIY tank setup last night

I wired a Gel Type 7AH battery to the PC so the PC is running off the continous (and clean ) power off that...
The charging of the secondary battery is being taken off by through a Diode Isolator coupled with a Filter Cap....
So now, the peak current on the accessories line is limited to 4A by the Diode

Thats a cool idea. Dose someone has pointers to circuit diagrams / more info?

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by abhi182

... The charging of the secondary battery is being taken off by through a Diode Isolator coupled with a Filter Cap....

Did you measure the voltage drop across the diode? Shouldn't fall so much that this battery takes weeks to charge!
Are you connecting the diode & cap like this (pl. treat the extra .'s as spaces)?
--------|>|---.--------
From........... |.....To
Car............ ==...PC
Battery.........| ....Battery
---------------.--------

Originally Posted by abhi182

So now, the peak current on the accessories line is limited to 4A by the Diode. ...

Now how is the current limited by a diode? And which line is the 'accessories line'?

[gigy]

netfreakbombay, can you put up a schematic diagram for reference to your setup. which diode is this. whats the voltage out after diode, how are you controlling the 7amph battery from going dead when engines off.

[phamilyman]

just cruious, why not SSD flash drives instead of Hdd?

REST, fascinating - am tuned in

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by gigy

netfreakbombay, can you put up a schematic diagram for reference to your setup.....

Don't have any such setup so far, hence the question I posted.

Googling for it, will post if something useful turns up.

[gigy]

my mistake, i didnt see who it was.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by gigy

netfreakbombay, can you put up a schematic diagram for reference to your setup. which diode is this. whats the voltage out after diode, how are you controlling the 7amph battery from going dead when engines off.

@abhi182, please do the honours.

[srishiva]

A new low cost PC
CherryPal Cloud Computer
Runs Linux though

[sudev]

I have few extra ebox2300 lying with me and this thread and another I read is prompting me to look at carputer project. Lot of reading needed before. Pointer welcome.

System site eBox-2300 Compact PC
Pictures Flickr: Search

I plan to use Linux O/S and flash drive.

[DerAlte]

@sudev, how do you mean 'extra'? Are you a vendor for these boxes? How much do these boxes cost in India?

Not sure of how much processor power the Vortex at 200MHz represents in the x86. One can run full-screen video on a P3 @300Mhz with 128MB RAM (PCs of circa Y2K), so other simple tasks should not be a problem. The 128MB RAM may limit the number of tasks that one can run.