Car pc for Safari Hi guys, thought I pen down my experience with DIY Car pc. First of all thanks to Sheldon from iRide for all the critical components and support and my friend sid for all DIYs we had to do.
My project started as a budget car pc, taking excess desktop pc components and assembling them in a custom made wooden cabinet. But after few weeks of trying and testing I figured out that it wasn’t feasible to have desktop components in a car. Especially the power supply was a hindrance, I used a old UPS to power the pc ,it just wasn’t taking the load. So I decided to invest bit by bit and build a proper car pc in terms of functionality and form factor. My total expenditure is as follows (all in rupees):
1.Cabinet :2500
2.DC SMPS : 3300
3.7” Touch Screen : 11,800
4.Atom 945GLCF MB : 3300
5.1 GB Ram Transcend DDR2 : 1200
6.160 GB SATA HDD : 3400
7.PS 2302 GPS : 3500
8.Centrafuse : 5600
9.Active USB Cable : 550
10.USB Hub : 200
11.Video Extension Cable : 750
12.Installation : 1000
13.Tata Indicom USB dialer (had it from first so no additional expenditure)
Total: Rs 37,100
Functionality with centrafuse:
1.Total car entertainment system ( Music , Videos , Movies )
2.Email with voice
3.Phone control, shows call data on the screen with auto audio transfer to car speakers, make and receive calls with main display screen, auto media audio mute when receiving and making calls, phone book.
4.GPS Navigation using Destinator
5.Digital Compass, Longitude latitude reading ,elevation ,speed and distance averages with GPS data
6.Web browser
7.Games ( flash based incl)
8.Dial up control for Tata Indicom internet
9.OBD II will be added as soon as I get my OBD scanner
+ all functionality of a regular PC
Problems:
The couple of major problems I faced were the following:
1.5 m long Display cable that I had , was defective .the problem was in one of the 15 pin connector , so we decided to replace and re solder the same. Soldering and color code was the easy part, the problem arised when the main RGB wires were getting cut at the soldered point. We had to get it done 5 times actually burning the midnight oil lol.
2.Second problem I faced was extending USB cable to for than 5 meters. Pen drives etc don’t work more that 2 meters away from the system. Locating an active usb cable and installing it was a big head ache, but we got it working in the end.
For the audio set up i decided to keep my existing ICE and get some line in modification done. we modified the cd changer cable to enable us to connect the speaker out port from the pc to main deck. Right now the ICE flows this way : PC -> Changer Cable-> Deck in AUX mode -> DSP->2 AMPs. The sound quality is actually far better that plain cd
I have posted a few pics, shall add some more later.
Last edited by nc1bad : 29th September 2008 at 19:39.
|