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Umm...you don't need to "butcher" a DVD player to do that. I've been supporting clients that live in the realm of "too much gaw-damn money" that we've gotten them setup with nicer screens. You can go get yourself a 7" LCD that meant for incar mounting from Xenarc. Hell they even make them with a touchscreen built in that works with Mac OS suposidly. If I didn't live in Las Vegas with this heat (the screen can take it, but I doubt a plastic Mac Mini case can) I'd have one of these in my car allready.

http://www.xenarc.com/product/700ts.html/

The Xbox 360 pulls 160 Watts of power: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=4 66036. The average car (or deep cycle, which would be a good idea for this use) battery fully charges at 100 amp hours, providing 12V. Which is 1200 Watt Hours.

Therefore your Xbox 360 will run for 7.5 hours just on battery charge.

Looking at an in car LCD screen, http://www.xenarc.com/product/700y.html 8 Watts seems reasonable for an LCD screen. This brings operating time down to about 7 hours.

Assuming that 200 Watt Hours would want to be left in the car as a way to start it and provide heating etc, that gives us 1000 Watt Hours to power the Xbox and about 6 hours of game play.

God help the condition of the battery if they don't use a deep cycle battery but it could work.

-
Peter

They used to make a single-DIN in-dash unit, but it's discontinued...

Anyway, the fanless model in the first link has SPDIF outputs, and (of course) normal 1/8" phono, which you can slap an RCA adapter on. If you can't use that to play OGG through your stereo, you ain't tryin'.

They used to make a single-DIN in-dash unit, but it's discontinued...

Anyway, the fanless model in the first link has SPDIF outputs, and (of course) normal 1/8" phono, which you can slap an RCA adapter on. If you can't use that to play OGG through your stereo, you ain't tryin'.

Well, it kept me from posting regularly, took about two weeks to plan and occupied nearly every night for about three weeks, but the big project I've been promising to post on is done...finally. I actually finished it last week, but wanted to make sure I had covered all the bases and that everything was working properly before putting the car back together and photographing it (thanks to Ryan for the quick shoot).

When the dimensions for the MacMini were announced, I immediately got to work figuring out what the best way to integrate one into my own car would be. If I was going to put a Mac in my car, I wanted to make sure it had all of the functionality that it would have in a home environment while still maintaining an easy-to-operate interface so that distractions could be kept to a minimum. So the researching, planning, sketching and disassembly of my cars interior (to see what would fit where) began. After taking the thought process to every extreme imaginable, I decided on the following equipment list:

- 1.42GHz MacMini with 512mb RAM, Superdrive, Bluetooth and Airport Extreme
- Xenarc 700tsv 7 USB touchscreen monitor with VGA and dual composite video inputs
- Cirque EasyCat USB trackpad
- Griffin PowerMate assignable USB control knob
- Lacie 8 in 1 USB flash card reader
- Belkin USB 7-port powered hub
- Belkin USB four-port bus-powered hub
- Belkin Firewire 6-port mini hub
- Alpine PXA-H701 Multimedia processor with RUX-C701 controller
- MonsterCable MCPI300 300watt power inverter
- Female USB, Ethernet and Firewire ports
- 40gig iPod dock
- Griffin RadioShark USB FM/AM tuner

Over the next few days, I will be putting up a post on each general aspect of the install to more closely cover how I did what where and any problems I encountered, as well as the solutions I came up with for these problems as they arose. More detailed pictures of the process will accompany these posts as well, for those interested in the more technical aspects of the install - such as removing the power button and indicator from the MacMini and relocating them to the switch panel in the dash, extending the Apple power supply's cable to locate the "brick" in the rear side panel of the car, fabricating the brushed aluminum trim bezels and rebuilding the glove box interior to accomodate the MacMini. So, enjoy and please check back over the next few days to check out these posts and two new iPod dock installs from last week...

Mini-box make some neato little ITX boxes which you could hook up to any number of storage solutions. Past that, I've had good success with Mini-ITX boards. I get the cases from Web-tronics, as the MITX ones are very, very expensive -- they're meant to make your MITX look like a CD player, pretty much, and I can do more without having to worry about cosmetics. MiniBox (above) sells snap-in MITX power supplies ranging from 60w to 200w. For the extra cool factor, use a Xenarc display or use something 'headless', e.g., LCDProc and Crystalfontz. (As I remember, the MiniBoxes come with their own little displays.)

Mini-box make some neato little ITX boxes which you could hook up to any number of storage solutions. Past that, I've had good success with Mini-ITX boards. I get the cases from Web-tronics, as the MITX ones are very, very expensive -- they're meant to make your MITX look like a CD player, pretty much, and I can do more without having to worry about cosmetics. MiniBox (above) sells snap-in MITX power supplies ranging from 60w to 200w. For the extra cool factor, use a Xenarc display or use something 'headless', e.g., LCDProc and Crystalfontz. (As I remember, the MiniBoxes come with their own little displays.)

These are pretty cool too..
car pc

I think another soon-to-be application is when you are on road trips, and as you take pictures during the trip you can just hit the download key, and it immediatley upload the pics to your car PC, which also just got released from Xenarc Technologies.

Planet P

I think another soon-to-be application is when you are on road trips, and as you take pictures during the trip you can just hit the download key, and it immediatley upload the pics to your car PC, which also just got released from Xenarc Technologies.

Planet P

This product has been temporarily discontinued. We are currently working on a version with faster processor speed, possibly Pentium 3 based platform so that it would support Windows XP. Please check back with us in a couple of months for more information. Mean while, please take a look at our new Pentium 3 based MP-SC1 12V DC Carputer.

... of these:

The site's a little low on details and there's not a price listed, but now we can be total nerds in the comfort of our favorite vehicle with this device. It sports an Intel low-power 266mhz MX processor, an Intel Triton II TX mobo, PCMCIA slots, USB slots, CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, onboard sound, built-in GPS and a 15GB HDD. All in the space of a single DIN! They claim that they've got a fully-motorized in-dash touchscreen LCD in the works to mate up to this as well.

The site's a little low on details and there's not a price listed, but now we can be total nerds in the comfort of our favorite vehicle with this device. It sports an Intel low-power 266mhz MX processor, an Intel Triton II TX mobo, PCMCIA slots, USB slots, CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, onboard sound, built-in GPS and a 15GB HDD. All in the space of a single DIN! They claim that they've got a fully-motorized in-dash touchscreen LCD in the works to mate up to this as well.

Take a look at this for mobile applications:
Digitalww.com Which should be out this month. Or perhaps this: Xanarc

It looks so cool. As a SFF nut any time you can shove a screen inside your box, like this xenarc, which supports 800x480, makes me drool. xenarc also sells a single DIN carputer. With built in pcmcia slots perhaps you could VNC into your remote servers from the parking lot using 802.ll. Try swinging that past your purchasing officer.

It looks so cool. As a SFF nut any time you can shove a screen inside your box, like this xenarc, which supports 800x480, makes me drool. xenarc also sells a single DIN carputer. With built in pcmcia slots perhaps you could VNC into your remote servers from the parking lot using 802.ll. Try swinging that past your purchasing officer.

Yeah, but the CappucinoPC isn't designed for ubergeeks to build into the dashboards of their cars!!! I think putting one of these in, and covering it with a flip-down 7" widescreen LCD would be the coolest in-car mod ever!

I wonder if they make "Intel Inside" bumperstickers... Maybe I could even find an electroluminescent hood ornament like I've seen on those little Hondas and Toyotas...

Wow, did they just totally appropriate the X logo?

remember a few months ago, this guy modded a shuttle and actually embedded the lcd in that tiny case...shuttle mod

all his links are dead, but the xenarc site is up and healthy.

read through that whole slashdot review though, I'm sure there is a ton of usefull info there.

BTW, please post your luck w/ setting up the boat, I am looking to do the same thing with a 39'+ catamaran :)

this one

i can't belive they are proud of it..