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Here is where I bought my LCD for my carputer project. Im sure it wouldnt be too hard to rig up something to your case to support this LCD.

How about something like this http://www.carplayer.com/

Does it mean that, in order to reach the maximal level of geekness, I will have to get an extra tank, full of liquid nitrogen for my overclocked car ?

Cool. So my next car will have these 2 tanks, be overclocked, play mp3's / have a GPS system, and look cool. Now all I need is a Mr. Fusion unit. But it's still 2004 and I hadn't invented it yet.

Seriously, when are all these big name vendors going to start using a truely free format? I can't imagine that the likes of Sharp or Sony want to be beholden to some german company in a case of patent infringement.

All of those are good points... but:

1. The Neo 35 is a third of the price of the empeg
2. Sure the Neo35 doesn't have fancy graphics... but I drive with my eyes on the road, not on the head unit. The fancy visualizations mean squat, its the sound dude... (The neo has awesome playlist features as well, btw)
3. The Neo35 does have a built in amp (40x4 AFAIK)
4. Why do I NEED linux on it? That's what my server/workstations are for.

As far as bang goes, the Neo35, available from carplayer.com or SSI America has more for the buck.

I recently purchased the Neo 35 MP3 player from carplayer.com. Its also available from the manufacturer, but I didn't realize that until AFTER I received the unit.

For about $800 CDN, I received a very complete and well thought package, including:
- the head unit
- with a 30 Gig drive
- remote LCD on a nice long serial cable
- docking bays for the car and PC
- IR remote (don't use it much though)
- RCA/antennae (sp) cables
- extra velcro straps, IDE/power cables, etc
- Music Match (~$20 value, but for Windows so I don't use it)
- carrying case for head unit

You can also get the Home Stereo docking bay, which is appealing to those with nice surround sound home stereos...

Since I already had a good CD deck (top Panasonic unit from '99), I had the Neo 35 mounted in the trunk instead of in the dash. This means I can still listen to AM/FM/CDs using the Panasonic deck, and switch to AUX IN and use the Remote LCD to control the jukebox. The only issue I currently need to resolve, is that I'm getting some feedback coming through the speakers while switched to AUX IN. By feedback, I mean I can hear a high-pitched whine of the engine as I accelerate and decelerate. It appears that I need to get a ground loop isolater and/or better RCAs.

What others have done, is plug this jukebox into the Kenwood or Aiwa decks... so that you have all your own MP3 cds on the 20-80 gig drive, but can still play CDR/CDRW/MP3 cds from your friends or that you have already.

To copy files onto it and otherwise manage the contents, I just slide it into the the PC docking bay, power it on, run "mount /car" as user, and use Konqueror (or cp, whatever hits the mood) to manipulate the directory structure. To remove it, I just umount /car, hdparm -Y /dev/hda (my main HD is SCSI), power it off, and slide it out. No rebooting required.

The playlist is really nice as well... Since it has a four line display, its really easy to see where you are in your directory structure. Just remember to organize by Genre->Artist->Album->Song.

$800 CDN may seem like a lot more then a $4-500 Aiwa or Kenwood unit... but remember that it does have a 30 Gig drive, which you can use as a backup drive in your system. It's also really simple to move between your car and PC, so you can use it as your /mp3 store as well, freeing up space on your existing partitions.

To upgrade the firmware in the unit, all you have to do is copy the update (neo45.bin or whatever) to the root of the drive, and powerup the unit while holding in the P(rogram) button.

Just remember to scandisk (or dosfsck) the drive once in a while. The system gets pretty finicky about problems with the file system, even when Win2k/Linux can see/mount it just fine.

Overall, I give it two thumbs up, and highly recommend it to anyone else. This may not be the prettiest unit, but it definetly makes it up in functionality and ease of use.

I recently purchased the Neo 35 MP3 player from carplayer.com. Its also available from the manufacturer, but I didn't realize that until AFTER I received the unit.

For about $800 CDN, I received a very complete and well thought package, including:
- the head unit
- with a 30 Gig drive
- remote LCD on a nice long serial cable
- docking bays for the car and PC
- IR remote (don't use it much though)
- RCA/antennae (sp) cables
- extra velcro straps, IDE/power cables, etc
- Music Match (~$20 value, but for Windows so I don't use it)
- carrying case for head unit

You can also get the Home Stereo docking bay, which is appealing to those with nice surround sound home stereos...

Since I already had a good CD deck (top Panasonic unit from '99), I had the Neo 35 mounted in the trunk instead of in the dash. This means I can still listen to AM/FM/CDs using the Panasonic deck, and switch to AUX IN and use the Remote LCD to control the jukebox. The only issue I currently need to resolve, is that I'm getting some feedback coming through the speakers while switched to AUX IN. By feedback, I mean I can hear a high-pitched whine of the engine as I accelerate and decelerate. It appears that I need to get a ground loop isolater and/or better RCAs.

What others have done, is plug this jukebox into the Kenwood or Aiwa decks... so that you have all your own MP3 cds on the 20-80 gig drive, but can still play CDR/CDRW/MP3 cds from your friends or that you have already.

To copy files onto it and otherwise manage the contents, I just slide it into the the PC docking bay, power it on, run "mount /car" as user, and use Konqueror (or cp, whatever hits the mood) to manipulate the directory structure. To remove it, I just umount /car, hdparm -Y /dev/hda (my main HD is SCSI), power it off, and slide it out. No rebooting required.

The playlist is really nice as well... Since it has a four line display, its really easy to see where you are in your directory structure. Just remember to organize by Genre->Artist->Album->Song.

$800 CDN may seem like a lot more then a $4-500 Aiwa or Kenwood unit... but remember that it does have a 30 Gig drive, which you can use as a backup drive in your system. It's also really simple to move between your car and PC, so you can use it as your /mp3 store as well, freeing up space on your existing partitions.

To upgrade the firmware in the unit, all you have to do is copy the update (neo45.bin or whatever) to the root of the drive, and powerup the unit while holding in the P(rogram) button.

Just remember to scandisk (or dosfsck) the drive once in a while. The system gets pretty finicky about problems with the file system, even when Win2k/Linux can see/mount it just fine.

Overall, I give it two thumbs up, and highly recommend it to anyone else. This may not be the prettiest unit, but it definetly makes it up in functionality and ease of use.

That's right. The unit isn't hot-swappable. Put the unit into the docking bay, power on, transfer songs, power off, take it out. More into at: http://www.carplayer.com/cpm25/pcdock .ht ml.

Some day I hope to have a .plan.

--

Yes, there is one for your car.. Check it out at http://www.carplayer.com. Here are some of the specs (pulled from thier site):

1. Runs with any ATAPI device i.e. CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW or even DVD-ROM. (required)

2. Full support for MPEG1, MPEG2 Audio Layer III, MP3 files (except 256+Kbits).

3. Multiple CD file formats: ISO-9660, Joliet, Romeo and most others.

4. Auto switch play mode between CD-DA (audio CD) or MP3 Disk.

5. Supports CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-ROM media.

6. Can have up to 2200 files per cd.

7. Accepts 63 play list numbers in user programmable memory and has Single, Shuffle, Repeat, 10 second scan and more.

8. 31 Key Remote Control

9. Output level for headphones, speakers, tape adapter (for car), and stereo amps.


I didn't see a price on thier site, but you can be sure it isn't cheap. But then again, geek toys rarely are :o)



segfault@bellatlantic.net

Here is a pricy pre-made one.
Here is a much cheaper one that is also pre-made.
And This is all you need to know to make your own car MP3 player!