Making of a budget car entertainment, navigation, diagnostics setup

[gigy]

Sure liked the idea buddy, but today roaming around lamington picked up a 80gb 2.5'' hitachi hd for 2550. bought the 3.5 to 2.5 converter pcb also for 100.
found a general purpose cabinet of size 12x10x3'' for 165, picked it.(for later projects or rebuilding this for better looks).
there is a biostar motherboard in market of ITX size supporting core2duo for 2500. core2duo is available starting for 2k
usb tv tuner cards are there in market but dont know why none of them offer fm also built in.

i am still waiting for the dc to dc power supply and hope it comes in a month or 2.

[dinar]

hey gigy , can you let me know the name of the shop selling the biostar MB and which core2duo processor [speed] and the place where you the price [shop]. I am intrested in doing something like this..so it would be great if I can get my hands on something like this....and stop using laptop setup .

[spadival]

Originally Posted by gigy

i am still waiting for the dc to dc power supply and hope it comes in a month or 2.

Cant you cancel that order? I guess the project is more or less complete otherwise.

[gigy]

dont think i will be able to cancel the order. it is shown in us mail tracking as shipped on 30th dec. hope it comes in a month max else i will have to start worrying.
dinar, sorry didnt note down the shop in lamington road but it is the one before computer selection and a small one. i think you can get it in other shop as well. ask for small motherboard in biostar for intel core2duo.
core2duo was 1.8 or 2ghz one for about 2k. mother board was in range of 2.5k
i got a new idea yesterday when redoing the whole setup. changed the cabinet to the general one mentioned earlier. decided to remove the tv tuner card as now startup shutdown control is there in dc-dc power supply.i dont need to use the tv tuner card just for this function it had.
for FM will use a portable mp3 player which has got fm built in and connect to the auxillay port of pc. so now the box has become more compact and neater.
will post new pictures soon.

[gigy]

received good news on mail just now that the dc-dc converter has cleared customs in india on 10th. i am eagerly waiting for its arrival now anyday. the cover of cabinet or case needs fine triming and opening for cpu fan.

[jesal]

bro please post prices of all parts gone in with labour, also is the screen touch screen right bro /

[gigy]

ok here is list of parts in use in latest build-
cabinet rs165.
motherboard and cpu rs3000.
hard disk hitachi 80gb rs2550.
case to protect hd and give surface to stick to foam rs200.
2.5''HD to 3.5''HD converter pcb rs100.
hardware to support motherboard rs100
bluetooth 2.0 adapter rs200.
a 100ohm linear pot to control cpu fan speed rs35.
dc-dc power supply with amplifier turn on feature 74$+shipping totaling 90$
nevox 7'' wide screen lcd(not touch screen) rs5200.
vga to rca converter rs1200 approx.
eight pin connector pair for taking out power ,reset, hd led, power led rs50.
trackball scroll mouse rs1600.
mini keyboard rs350.
labour cost is free, four trips to lamington, one to alfa store and two to milan subway

[dinar]

hey thanks gigy.. will find out and post when I get hold of my stuff, next time in mumbai...are there mini/micro itx MB also available there???
Why are you using pot to control the speed???? you can use automatic speed controller for this and it'll be safe on the thermal control front, the circuit is quit simple to build...cheap also.

[gigy]

i am not getting original cpu fan for celeron 1.7ghz. the ones in market are duplicates. they are slightly noisy at full normal speed. about 70-80% seems ok for me.cpu is not getting hot. are you talking about auto speed control from bios setup else whats the circuit you have mentioned?
didnt see any micro itx or smaller ones in lamington road. most of them know till micro atx. only few know the different sizes of boards. you should get the exact model number and they will get it. a micro atx can also be used if you want in same box i used. i wanted to use my amd pc micro atx but all its rear usb ports have stopped functioning. its on the way to kabadiwala in sometime.

[gigy]

i went around biostar site and i think the board i saw in lamington road was P4M890-M7 PCI-E.

[jesal]

the comp department what cpu are u running ? did u buy the cpu and mobo used for 3k seems like a good price. what is the ram running on it. how have u connected ur car speakers to the pc then ? id like to use my amp and my sub as well along with it and does not seem like its possible, ill get into R&D as well of this. damn neat stuff i have to say. no useless money spent very nice

[dinar]

The speed controller for the cpu not from the bios but use a temperature controlled fan , you'll get circuit of the net for something like this. you can go in for just ON /OFF function using simple components to set the temperature at which the fan should come ON according to the processor temp or may be the cabinet temp. so you won't have to keep looking a the temp.

[gigy]

i am using a 1.7ghz celeron and 1gb 400 DDR1 ram on a zebronics board.(1gb ram was removed from my existing home pc since it is on its way to the dustbin soon).
you get celeron 3ghz with motherboard for 3.6k brand new(realized that only after i picked up this zebronics board+cpu). that biostar package also comes in 4.5k approx.
the DC_DC power supply has a turn on delay control for amplifier also. my amplifier is already wired to the cpu to the speaker out through a volume control on console.
will make the temperature controlled fan also after sometime.if you can give me any known reference will be great help.
OFFTOPIC:
(that kind of thing is another project due on car to control ac. i have planned to change the ac control to electrical or electronic depending on the circuit i get so that compressor operation can be control based on cabin temperature using relay rather than a fixed mix of hot air to the cooled air. this will save on fuel and keep temperature as per my requirement)

[dinar]

I can help you with the , circuit.. if time permits I'll build one and send it thru...also your AC project will need another micro controller based unit to actually do the job of controlling the fan speed as well as switching the compressor ON/OFF. According to the set temperature.
If you feel the fan makes noise why don't you try solid state cooling [thermocouple] .

[gigy]

Dinar,
Thanks buddy.if you can mail me the circuit diagram i will build it up.
for car ac i dont want fan speed control built into it. the default switch is ok. the default temperature control is useless ancient concept in most of the cars till now except the ones coming with so called climate control.
i want only set temperature activated relay or switch where i can vary the point of activation. if it can display the temperature then the whole thing will look neat.