Team-BHP - My Baleno (I)ride - CarPC / Carputer install

Well, to start with..this is not exactly DIY.. Credit for the fabulous install goes to Sheldon from www.iride.com and the FM Drive folks in Mumbai.

Its been a week or so since the iRide CarPC has been installed in my Baleno. I drove all the way from Pune to Mumbai to get it installed. Before that, I was in constant touch with Sheldon for well over two weeks and there was a lot of emails flowing between us !! Lot of planning went in during this time, with measurements/pics being taken of the center console and the under seat area, suggestions from Sheldon on how the install can be carried out etc.

Then the D-Day arrived on 6th October. Me and my wife started off at 6am in the morning from Pune and drove off to Mumbai. It was our first "real" trip to Mumbai. So I was a bit worried about getting lost on Mumbai roads and driving around in circles!! But a bit of route planning using Google maps did the trick and I was able to reach the place without much problem.

The install was co-ordinated by Sheldon and was done at FM Drive, off Khar-linking road, Mumbai. To cut the long story short, it took about 4 hours of cutting, drilling, wiringetc etc to complete the installation. I wasn't able to take pics of the install progress itself because the camera batteries werent charged :Frustrati

Meanwhile, lest we forget, my wife was patient enough to wait while all this was going on !! Once the install was done, we had an added bonus. We met up with an old friend of mine and we had a great re-union after nearly 13 years !! We stayed over at my friend's place, went on a drive around Mumbai and returned back to Pune the next day.

Specs and parts:

All parts sourced from www.iride.com - iPC-Lx Car PC System

mini-ITX Board VISTA 1G5
VGA Touchscreen Monitor IRV-070SE
2.5" Hard Drive - 80 GB
Memory 1GB DDR2 533
CarPC Enclosure Quadrant-Fx
DC-DC Automotive PSU SB-150D
IDE 2.5" Convertor Cable IRC-25FC

Details of the install:

Power suppy - drawn directly from the car battery.
CPU placed under the front passenger seat - u can hear the Hard disk hum only when engine is switched off :).. I wanted it there instead of the boot. Its a lot cooler and less dust inside the car, especially with the a/c on.
LCD screen mounted using the headrest shroud over the 2DIN slot on the center console.
Lower part of the console which has the cigarette lighter and ashtray is sawed off and shaped to fit the Head unit.
5 USB ports on board. One of them now has a bluetooth USB dongle.
Another USB port is connected to a powered USB hub on the center console.
Sound via front AUX-IN of the Sony Head Unit.

The smaller LCD is 02 windows mobile phone. I think that is connected to car pc for Internet access through GPRS.

Good job done. Can you please mention the price you paid? A suggestion, go and buy a USB internet card from Tata Indicom or Reliance. That should keep your dash clean and free the effort for connecting the phone.

Any plans of GPS? Buy one of those Bluetooth GPS receivers. Shouldn't cost more than $70. buy GPS Now - Navigation Products for Pocket PC PDA, PDA Phone, Bluetooth GPS, PDA GPS is one good site.

When switching off the engine, does your car pc go in to suspended mode automatically?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rranjith_kum (Post 595070)

wow ... great :) its looks good... how much did it cost totally for you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by satish_appasani (Post 595148)

Can you please mention the price you paid?

Cost me approx Rs 32k including installation charges of Rs 750. You can get the prices for the individual components directly from Car PC based Vehicle Infotaiment Systems | iRide Technologies. Mumbai, India (What you see is what you get and pay :) ). Also, I already had the BT USB dongle + USB Hub + BT GPS with me, so thats not included in the price.

Quote:

Originally Posted by theMAG (Post 595091)

What daily processes does this Car PC do? And whats that smaller LCD device clinging to the windscreen via a suction cup?

Quote:

Originally Posted by satish_appasani (Post 595148)

The smaller LCD is 02 windows mobile phone. I think that is connected to car pc for Internet access through GPRS.

Satish, thanks for answering that. It also acts as a 2GB USB flash drive :).

Quote:

Originally Posted by satish_appasani (Post 595148)

Good job done. A suggestion, go and buy a USB internet card from Tata Indicom or Reliance. That should keep your dash clean and free the effort for connecting the phone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iraghava (Post 595210)

Nice work there! To un-clutter the whole thing a bit more, I too would suggest you buy the USB modem from Tat Indicom & plug it in for easy net access on the move.

The holder with suction cup is a historic relic :).. that will go away and I wont be keeping the phone up there. I need to get a shorter USB cable to connect to my phone which can be placed in the space below the center console. Advantage of connecting the phone is that it charges it as well. Of course, getting a USB modem is a long term solution, subject to budgeting!!.

Quote:

Originally Posted by satish_appasani (Post 595148)

When switching off the engine, does your car pc go in to suspended mode automatically?

Yepp.. All managed beautifully by the power supply of the CarPC. It stays up for about 20 odd seconds to allow the CarPC to shut down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesal (Post 595183)

good but ac buttin ?

I didnt quite get what you mean..

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocksterraghu (Post 595224)

Good work there! Looks good! Add to it, a possible rear aux-in (if present) to the HU.

:Frustrati Tell me about it!! Front AuX IN is supposed to be a "Feature" in HU's these days. Unfortunately, mine doesnt have an AUX-in in the rear of the HU.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Absar (Post 595363)

It's "www*iride*in" and not "www*iride*com"

A

Thanks for pointing that out.. Can one of the mods please correct it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ST7677 (Post 595368)

Very interesting, what all things do you intend to use your car PC for?

Sys_whiz has given a good breakup of the possibilities in this thread - >
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-do...tml#post383822

Also, If you pay close attention to that thread, I will have to eat my words now :)

My main usage will be GPS navigation. There is the added bonus like playing mp3/divx movies off the 80GB HDD etc etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrashok (Post 595428)

Nice Install, buddy! Looks like nearly all the required stuff comes as a single package, huh? 32K with the screen looks like a decent price!

Yeah. Thats the best part. It came as a single package. I knew what my budget is gonna look like before hand. No running around looking for parts.

Come to think of it. Before this install, I tried using my phone as a navigation device.. It was messy to say the least. The suction cup holder came from Hong Kong off ebay because the Indian sellers were jacking up the price to Rs 1K !! Got some chinese (again off ebay) car charger and promptly blew a couple of fuses in the process of trying charge the phone using the cigarette lighter charger. Decided enough was enough and stopped well before I could accidentally set my car on fire :)

For accessories for windows mobile phone, try www.pdair.com. This is Hongkong based site. They carry many accessories for these devices and the good thing is they provide free international shipping. I ordered a leather case, sync cable, screen protector from them and they all are in good quality.

There is one more site PDA Accessories, PDA Accessory, Accessories for PDA, Pocket PC Accessories, Pocket PC Accessory, Handheld Accessories, Handheld Accessory, Handheld PC Accessories, Handheld PC Accessory which is also based in Hongkong. They don't offer free shipping but when i ordered an extra large battery for my Jasjar, they charged only $7 for shipping.