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These are pics from when I was using a Huawei Mediapad:

http://www.mp3car.com/show-off...

I think it's good for making things that don't exist. Saves me from having to walk up and down Home Depot looking for just the right thing to butcher. Also, abs plastic is pretty tough stuff. It's good for a fair number of applications which require some strength.

Leave it to /. to come up with a bunch of ridiculously overengineered solutions.

Try this DC/DC ATX power supply which is designed for exactly this purpose: http://store.mp3car.com/M4_ATX_250W_Intelligent_DC_DC_PSU_p/pwr-031.htm
Why should you install a battery backup? Your van already has one and it's called a "car battery".
Inverters are horrendous. Why go from DC to AC to DC introducing noise and failure points when a DC/DC supply is cheap and reliable.
Forget the full size computer monitors and get a Lilliput that's designed to run on 12v DC
Build a Mini ITX computer with a fanless mobile Core 2 Duo like this: http://www.stealth.com/littlepc_625_fanless_print.htm
Spend LOTS of time reading the forums at MP3car.com
The key to any carputer installation is simplicity. Failure is garunteed so follow the KISS method to reduce the frequency. Also, feed the sound to a car stereo instead of directly to an amp. When you cross a train track and the carputer dies, you will be happy to be able to tune in the radio instead.

This and maybe one other post has been useful in this entire comment's thread. Try here too:

http://www.mp3car.com/

^this is the best post in the discussion so far... however I think the upgraded Alternator can't be overstated enough. An alt from '77 will likely have fairly poor output, partly because of the older design, partly because of the age, and mostly because the regulator circuit will be fairly poor by today's standards. Also consider that the regulator will likely not produce the kind of clean output that modern electronics would prefer.

IMO no matter what kind of electronics you plan on running, job 1 should be to retrofit a modern alternator onto the engine.

I should also mention that http://the12volt.com/ and http://mp3car.com/ are both phenomenal resources on this subject.

I have done a similar project before. From my experience a very good resource for information is Mp3Car. There are a lot of projects with pictures. People over there is very helpful on this matter.

There are many solutions to powering your computers I have used DC-DC power adapter that transforms 12v to ATX compatible power (M4-ATX). It take of engine cranks and any voltage variation. A good place to buy parts is Mini Box they have a car computing section.

If you're a bit more daring, you can check out sites such as mp3car.com or other "carputer" resources and try to roll your own. Looking at mp3car.com now, I am slightly disappointed. They used to be more of a "how to" with a shop section, and they seem to have transformed into a shop with a forums section.

Check out the Lilliput, http://store.mp3car.com/Lilliput_869GL_80NP_C_T_8_Touch_Screen_LCD_Monito_p/MON-110.htm. We'll have support for this out of the box.

http://www.mp3car.com/ to start with., I am far beyond that having everything in a single double din enclosure like a commercial stereo. I cant fathom having a separate PC elsewhere and running cables all over the car.

Friend of mine decided to tackle the iPad in a car problem, this is what he came up with.

If I had an STi I'd be all over his solution.

To intercept USB commands you need a USB protocol analyzer, they cost something between a few hundred and a few thousands dollars. If the device you want to reverse engineer has already a Windows driver you can use a software like USBlyzer to simply monitor to communication (its a 30day free trial, but I found it much more stable and comfortable then comparable Free Software).

Random plug: There is also a bounty of now closet to $600 for a Windows driver for the Xbox360 Chatpad, any volunteers?

How well did setting a bounty work for getting chat pad drivers?

forgot the links:

  freediag - Open Source for Linux

  OBD-Diag - Not open source but free

  Easy OBDII - Not open source but free (I use this most often for basic diagnostics)

You might also want to check out the MP3Car forums as they're very knowledgeable on this subject over there, and there are also several source available projects being developed there as well.

Couple more links:

car how to videos
DIY chip equipment, emulators, etc.

First off, there's a few different variants of CAN. For the basic OBD-II set they are mostly the same.

Here is a link to a forum thread with links to basic/starter info: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/hardware-development/51772-class-2-data-bus-j1850.html

I know GM uses j1850 for their OBD-II/CAN setup. Some of the things that can be read off of pin 2 at the OBD-II connector include Tach signal, bypass the chip-in-key, control door locks (mostly on 2001 and up though some older ones apply as well), control OEM alarm, turn on heated accessories, etc as well as getting diag codes from port as normal.

There are other locations for the CAN interface in other makes/models as well. For example, in Hyundai cars one can find a low speed CAN in the drivers kick panel. IIRC it's a Red/Black & Blue twisted pair (in around the 2006-2007 model years) that will control door locks and OEM alarm. There's a high speed CAN that's an Orange & blue twisted pair that controls significantly more within the car.

Via the CAN on newer Honda's (2008+ typically) you can control the door locks, factory alarm, read if the brake pedal is pushed or not, hood pin status if there's an OEM hood pin, when a door is opened, tach signal, e-brake status, VSS, etc.

Even reading Wikipedia or googling for how CAN works is a good start. Also check out Socketcan that according to the Wiki entry VW Research released to the Linux Kernel and can be found in 2.6.25 and up. The concept extends the Berkley sockets API that adds a new protocol family that coexists with other families such as IP. Here's a quote from the article:

The SocketCAN concept extends the Berkeley sockets API in Linux by introducing a new protocol family PF_CAN that coexists with other protocol families like PF_INET for the Internet Protocol. The communication with the CAN bus is done analogue to the use of the Internet Protocol via Sockets. Fundamental components of SocketCAN are the network device drivers for different CAN controllers and the implementation of the CAN protocol family. The protocol family PF_CAN provide the structures to enable different protocols on the bus: Raw sockets for direct CAN communication and transport protocols for point-to-point connections. Moreover the broadcast manager which is part of the CAN protocol family provides functions e.g. for sending CAN messages periodically or realize complex message filters.

One more link for you: Canbus

For an idea on where various CANs are located within a car and what features may be possible, look at the different companies that make utilities and/or interfaces for that car. For example, idatalink allows you to look up which of their modules work for which car, which features they have been able to implement (using different "platforms" after loading the correct firmware), and in the installation directions it shows where they tagged into the CANbus at.

forgot the links:
freediag - Open Source for Linux
OBD-Diag - Not open source but free
Easy OBDII - Not open source but free (I use this most often for basic diagnostics)

You might also want to check out the MP3Car forums as they're very knowledgeable on this subject over there, and there are also several source available projects being developed there as well.

Hacking your navigation device will be HOT after the community develops three things.

• Passively user generated map data (not to be confused with actively generated map data from openstreetmap.org) (see blog entry comparing active vs. passive maps)
• Open source navigation routing algorithms to use the above map data.
• Devices anonymously reporting data to improve the above.

If those three things happen I could see a ddwrt type of pack being developed.

There is little incentive to hack GPS or PDA devices:

• Map data is expensive. Free data is mostly unusable for routing.
• Quality navigation routing algorithms are expensive and/or unavailable.
• Open source routing isnâ(TM)t as usable as paid options.

One that is done and a certain mass of users are using the above data and algorithms; maps would become dynamic information sources constantly updated with road changes and maybe even real time road closures, road speed data, one way street information and other valuable tidbits. More advanced devices with accelerometers could make that data even clearer for eventual technology like eco routing.
If you have to have a hackable linux navigation solution now get a cheap umpc or netbook running igo 8 or another nav engine on wine.

Hacking your navigation device will be HOT after the community develops three things.

• Passively user generated map data (not to be confused with actively generated map data from openstreetmap.org) (see blog entry comparing active vs. passive maps)
• Open source navigation routing algorithms to use the above map data.
• Devices anonymously reporting data to improve the above.

If those three things happen I could see a ddwrt type of pack being developed.

There is little incentive to hack GPS or PDA devices:

• Map data is expensive. Free data is mostly unusable for routing.
• Quality navigation routing algorithms are expensive and/or unavailable.
• Open source routing isnâ(TM)t as usable as paid options.

One that is done and a certain mass of users are using the above data and algorithms; maps would become dynamic information sources constantly updated with road changes and maybe even real time road closures, road speed data, one way street information and other valuable tidbits. More advanced devices with accelerometers could make that data even clearer for eventual technology like eco routing.
If you have to have a hackable linux navigation solution now get a cheap umpc or netbook running igo 8 or another nav engine on wine.

Take a look at HFP for Linux: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/linux/125997-hfp-linux-bluetooth-hands-free.html. I've been able to dial my phone over bluetooth, and use the desktop's mic and speakers for the call.

Look here. http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/

Why not install a touchscreen 7" monitor in your dash, and have a carputer? Mount the reasonably powerful laptop w/broken screen in the trunk, wire it in to a power supply, attach a USB GPS antenna, and go from the audio out to the amp / speakers?

All the MP3s you can store, instant access to the OBD-II information, "free" GPS, and (with Backtrack III or the like), war-driving capability. Have it get email from your wireless access point and read it to you on the way to work. Keep a copy of the local yellow pages on the drive, and look up the nearest Cuban restaurant.

There are a lot of great "front ends" out there, and most all of them are skinnable to your heart's content.

Hope that this helps / is something in which you might have interest.

http://www.mp3car.com/

How about you setup this laptop in a trunk of your car and run some wires to the dash. Instead of radio deck, you could put touch screen and have a thing called "carputer". You can find more info here: mp3car.com.

Aside from the FAT issues, these are even more troubling:

6175789 - Vehicle computer system with open platform architecture

6202008 - Vehicle computer system with wireless internet connectivity

There are a lot of people in the geek community who build Linux-based car computers: http://www.mp3car.com/ . These patents, at first reading, seem to lock up that entire product space. Or at least, that's how Microsoft is going to spin it...

Car computing itself isn't that bad, especially if you're a nerd.
You can build your own car PC running WinXP, a 7 inch touchscreen, GPS, XM radio, TV, dvd player, your entire MP3 collection, and hook it all up to your car audio system for less than $700.

Hell there's even open source, skinnable front ends to run it all.

Car computing itself isn't that bad, especially if you're a nerd.
You can build your own car PC running WinXP, a 7 inch touchscreen, GPS, XM radio, TV, dvd player, your entire MP3 collection, and hook it all up to your car audio system for less than $700.

Hell there's even open source, skinnable front ends to run it all.

There are a number of 7" VGA LCD displays with touchscreens in use in the car computer hobbyist community. The low-end ones are around USD $250-$300.
http://store.mp3car.com/category_s/27.htm
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/lcd_displays
http://digitalww.com/store/products.asp?cat=8

Take a look around there and I'm sure you'll find something that will work quite well.

Make one of the beefier laptops a car pc - any additional parts you might need, how-to's, and a pretty decent community can be found at mp3car.com.

Having GPS, wifi, and a way to play media in the car? awesome times.

Check out Roadster:
http://cairographics.org/roadster/

Here's a screenshot:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/attachments/linux/34562d1157775234-linux-gps-roadster-roadster-0.2.4-1.png

It has data available for the united states, download, compile, and give it a shot.

Hey. Feel free to email me if you have further questions, but as you probably know a great place to start is mp3car.com. They have awesome forums there, and that's where I got my integrated startup/shudown controller and 12V DC power supply. I have a VIA EPIA M10000 rev.2 board, which is a 1GHz system. I'd say it's barely fast enough but I got it for something like C$156 shipped so I can't complain.

As far as speed goes, I'd say overall it's maybe slower than my old PIII-800 laptop I used to have. Faster than my old PII-400 by a good margin. It's slow, but it's fast enough for what I use it for. I only have 256MB of RAM in there right now which is most of the problem I think. I also think that maybe I have a bad board, or bad something, because occasionally it slows WAY down and takes 5 minutes to do something that should take 5 seconds. Then eventually it will catch up again. I also get BSODs occasionally, so I wonder if I got a bad board.

It's fast enough to run Google Earth though, or Delorme Street Atlas. It just takes maybe 2-3 minutes to load Google Earth, but once it's going it's not bad.

You can see a couple photos of my setup here and let me know if you have any other questions.

- Andrew.

There's at least 4000 of them.

"I take it you've never actually paid a professional to install (and wire) a distribution center, then run the wire to each desk, then to wire an outlet at each desk?"

The only way the battery idea would work is if they used large batteries, like car batteries, and even those would likely need to be charged after 8-16 hours of use. The teacher really wants to run around swapping out 20 lbs batteries every other day?

Also i'm a little confused why this is on /. since it's obvious the teacher didn't even google the topic because there's several of sources with information about running PCs from 12 volt car batteries.

And the teacher should have asked the experts on putting PCs in cars over at dashpc.com or at least googled "car computer" for ideas on other PCs running from a 12-volt source. We might be pretty knowledgeable, but we're not all trying to run PCs on 12 volt batteries like guys in the mp3car forum is.

iTunes in a car?
Usb custom integrated into the dash (or center console, or driver side A-Pillar)?

Been there, done that.

These days, if you wanted to, you could use off-the-shelf components and get a working system. iTunes if you like, or even better packages.

You'd be AMAZED at what you can have if you're willing to cut up your interior and do a little fabrication.

http://www.mp3car.com/

C'mon over, and check out the forums. We're a friendly bunch, with plenty of expertise.

Don't know about Ubuntu, but there are plenty of custom built carpc's with Linux installs on them:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f =77

So when will companies really start pushing this technology from thumb drives into the world of hard drives? I read an article a while back that someone was doing this but that's all I have read since then. This seems has to be the next logical progression in computer hardware development. Once we get there, us mp3car guys will be very happy ;) This could also pave the way for more commercial applications of car pc's in commercial vehicles.

I have a ppc6700 and have been involved with the non oem gps navigation scene at mp3car.com for some time. That being said, the 2 winners are tomtom and iGuidance; both have excelent voice directions, the distinguishing features are tomtom wins on UI but has terrible maps (and you have to switch which state you are in manually), while iGuidance has spot on maps and much better routing but a slightly clunkier UI.

I would spend your money on iGuidance if I was you.

-PURDooM http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=5 9713

Actually front row can be hacked quite easily.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=6 2733

Not that I'm going to bother I not so lazy that I'm incapable of walking 10 feet to change the media I'm viewing on my Mac.

It's nice to see these start getting some more attention. I've been a long fan of the works of the people over at http://www.mp3car.com/ and they use these quite extensively. Any tech savy person will love the things these people are doing. It's quite amazing. Needless to say when Im out of college this will be one of my first projects.

your link results in "product not found"

looks like they don't carry it anymore.

keyword search for "epia" at mp3car.com

keyword search for "nano-itx" at mp3car.com

your link results in "product not found"

looks like they don't carry it anymore.

keyword search for "epia" at mp3car.com

keyword search for "nano-itx" at mp3car.com

he Epia is often used to build car-puters, whereas I haven't yet heard of something using a Mini for that purpose.

Try here: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f =71

The folks at mp3car.com claim to have Nano-ITX motherboards in-stock. They also sell a complete system in a spiffy blue case.

The fine folks at Damn Small Linux also have a Nano-ITX system. There are several versions of the machine at the bottom of this page.

Looks like I gotta stop calling it "Nano-ITX Forever" ...

The Epia is often used to build car-puters, whereas I haven't yet heard of something using a Mini for that purpose. .

There you go. See the entire thread.

Unless they're available for anyone to buy, I wouldn't call the Nano-itx an actually shipping product

Here's at least one: http://www.mp3car.com/store/product_info.php?produ cts_id=144
 
Just google for "Epia N"

I record NPR and PRI shows via RealAudio streams to .m4b (bookmarkable AAC) using Audio Hijack Pro on a Mac mini. I used to use Total Recorder Pro on Windows. TRP worked, but AHP has better auto-naming facilities so I can be lazy about deleting old stuff & still find the new. It also is able to "hijack" just RealPlayer's PCM output so I can use the computer for other audio stuff. TRP pretends to be a soundcard driver, so any other audio is recorded too.

Finding a stream with a high enough bitrate to sound good that stays up during a popular show like Car Talk is tricky, but doable.

I'll be switching to an FM tuner with an outdoor Winegard PR-6000 aimed at KQED and an Edirol UA-1A (out of production so I've linked the similar UA-1EX).

Outdoor antennas are cheap. A good chimney mount is going to double my cost, but the total is still cheaper than an indoor Terk & it'll actually work. If the PR-6000 or PR-5030 can't pull in that distant station Antenna Performance Specialties makes what many claim are the best around. $219 for the APS-13 might seem like a lot, but compared to an Audible.com or Sirius subscription, it's not too bad & a good strong FM signal sounds pretty good below 15kHz. I'm tempted to get one of these just for pure outrageousness of a 200" boom, but it's overkill for KQED from Santa Cruz-- need a rotor to really justify it.

I'll be using a cool 70's brushed-aluminum-faceplate Kenwood KT-5300 with analog "big knob" tuning that I got for $30 before I found the crazy FM DXers page that reviews every old radio & has info or links on tweaking them for better selectivity.

If I end up wanting to record another station, rather than getting a Radio Shark and hacking on an external antenna connector, I plan to just get more tuners & switch them with a repurposed Keyspan USB->serial adapter and some relays.

I have personally been involved in all of this for quite a long time. Some sites well worth checking out if your into such things would be:

http://www.dashboardmonkey.co.uk/ / .com

http://www.mp3car.com/

http://www.carpcspecialist.com/

http://www.digital-car.co.uk/

and the car pc directory
http://www.carpcspecialist.com/dir/

I must say that I got a good feeling seeing an install on slashdot that my own install helped in part to inspire; although I did pretty much give up on Linux on the EPIA board for my install despite getting everything set up and configured correctly (Including LinuxBIOS, mind you, which was no easy chore) Good job on the install and good job sticking through on the software side!

Kind of old news. Theres an entire section devoted to linux carputing hobbyists at http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/

GPS navigation for Linux is basically nonexistent. Also, there are several very good frontends that are being developed for Windows (Frodoplayer, Centrafuse, Roadrunner, etc.) Check out the http://mp3car.com/ forums if you're curious.

I would love to run Linux in my car, but until I have a decent frontend and GPS navigation, I'm going to stick with Windows.

I assume you meant "Mac OS X"

Yes, my bad; a typo.

What's wrong with Aqua?

Aqua (if this is what you mean) isn't the kind of frontend you'd want to use in a carPC setup. I refer you to this thread to learn what is wanted.

And how difficult could it possibly be to mount a Mac Mini in your car?

Not difficult at all.

I assume you meant "Mac OS X"

Yes, my bad; a typo.

What's wrong with Aqua?

Aqua (if this is what you mean) isn't the kind of frontend you'd want to use in a carPC setup. I refer you to this thread to learn what is wanted.

And how difficult could it possibly be to mount a Mac Mini in your car?

Not difficult at all.

I assume you meant "Mac OS X"

Yes, my bad; a typo.

What's wrong with Aqua?

Aqua (if this is what you mean) isn't the kind of frontend you'd want to use in a carPC setup. I refer you to this thread to learn what is wanted.

And how difficult could it possibly be to mount a Mac Mini in your car?

Not difficult at all.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f =71
- Help for Mac based car computers. The biggest reason that not many people use Macs in their carputers is because there are no decent frontends for MacOS. No one has made one with all the features everyone wants. Check out the forum though, someone just offered a cash proze for the first person to do it... maybe someone reading this post might be interested ;-)