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12-volt Plexiglass Computer
zootjeff writes: "I am in the process of designing and redesigning a computer for my car. This machine is based on the Shuttle FV24 motherboard. I built a box that is 8 inches by 7.5 inches by 3 inches. I also designed and built my own custom power supply. This could be useful to people who want to take linux into their car. It is also useful for solar powered battery operations." He sent some pictures, too, of what the 2nd case looks like, an
overview, including (!) police report number (the 2nd revision was stolen), more on
the power supply,
and the third iteration.
Would such a system not have over heating problems. Unless its got a kick-ass fan in it.
Cruise TT
It's already been done...
I don't use a DC powersupply though.
beowulf cluster of these.
you'd be able to see right through them!!
ps... building a "power supply" for a car can be done by ripping a few bits off a standard power supply and replacing htem with wires... a power supply merely refines the 12 volt power, and converts to it from 110. It is fairly easy to remove the conversion bits, and have just a 12volt refining mechanism, seeing as how computers run on 12volts and under anyway.
________________________________________________
He sooo has to call it Orac.
Backups are for wimps. Real men post their data in comments and have slashdot mirror it
He forgot to include the cost of the Windows 98 media on his cost list, as he openly chose Windows over a Free system like Linux.
Now that I think of it, he deserved to get it stolen.
One potential concern I see, especially with a car-bound computer, is impact resistance (potholes shake the unit around) and short-circuit fire safety. If you try using Lexan or Calibre sheet (polycarbonate) you'll improve the impact resistance of your case dramatically, and, the fire-resistance.
Plexiglass is notorious for getting brittle with heat and light exposure, both of which will happen if they sit in your car every day under the hot sun. One good summer could really do a number to the unit.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
tie it on the roof :-)
Punsies!
Very clean design, almost an OEM quality!
I wouldn't mine a plexiglass desktop case.
Conceptual Art like this is a fine way of improving the drudgery of the commute, where millions in their identikit Fords and Fiestas wander soulessly to and fro' employment in cubicles, some of us are free, free to make our wild imaginations reality.
Is playing with an in car computer really the same tho? I'm all a-quiver at the talents of these techy types, but what actual difference does this in car computer make? None, really, it won't inflame the mind or create beauty, and this is the problem with modern tinkering. 1950's mobiles had flaming jet burners on the back, and we are adding little bits of silicon? Yuk.
Thankfully, when I moved to America I noticed that there is an even bigger car scene, and I would go to my local car improvement rally were it not for all the guns held by the police and contestants at such events, quite barbarous, in many respects.
I urge the modifiers of the utilitarian not to invent even more utility, but to improve and create an original aesthetic. Art is what is missing from our lives, in the modern age, not linux computers.
Maybe some sensors jammed into every nook and cranny of your engine, too, for data acquisition and observation.
Tie it into a GPS, put some big servos on your steering column and have it drive you back home when you're too drunk %-)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Maybe it's just me, but when I hear about this, the only application I can really think of is MP3 player (since I kind of like to concentrate on the driving aspect of, well, driving) And if you wanted a hard drive mp3 player, they already have the in dash kits where you simply supply your own hard drive...e en =CTGY&Store_Code=MTE&Category_Code=CMP
http://www.mteweb.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Scr
I've been contemplating putting a computer and touchscreen lcd in my car for a while now, for both MP3 and GPS-NAV. (And any other things I decide to do with it, such as security system, remote start, etc...
:-)
My main concern is how well standard components, mobo, cpu, ram, and mostly the hard drive will hold up against temperature swings in the vehicle. I live in NJ which doesn't have the wildest climate in the world but your still looking at temp variations between subzero to 100+. And that's outside the car. Inside can reach 120 or so parked in the sun, and then be cranked down into the 70's within minutes when I hop in and fire up the A/C. Same goes for winter, car is sitting parked overnight at about 20 degrees, and I turn on the heat, and again, within minutes it's 70 degrees.
I know with alot of electronics such as PIC microcontrolers you can get automotive rated parts that are designed to withstand that kind of abuse. I wonder how well standard equipment will fare though.
Maybe you can call it lazyness, but I don't want to spend the time and money to design the hardware and user interface, install it in the car and then have it die on me.
Even if the electronics hold up, I'd be most worried about the hard drive. I thought about compact flash, but it's just not large enough. My end goal is to have it 802.11 enabled, so when parked in the driveway the in car system can sync up with any new mp3's I've ripped and placed on my server. 20+ gig's of compact flash just ain't that easy to come by
Any suggestions or related information would be appreciated...
Thumbnails won't work, but you didn't need to see them.
Might be kinda hard to explain a plexiglass box filled with electronics when you drive into the parking garage of a large building and secuity finds it in the trunk!
So you've got a computer with a clear plexiglas case.
That ain't nothin. I'm wearing clear plastic trousers. People keep congratulating me on my " miniature components."
--Shoeboy
If I actually owned CDs made in the past four years, I might just get a CD player for my car. But with Napster, Gnutella, and now kza (a Kazaa client for Linux), I've stopped buying MP3s. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this idea had a ton of benefits:
Skip-proof - RAM's pretty cheap... Take a cheap computer and throw a gig of RAM in, and set a lot of it up as a ramdisk. Go over a bump with a CD, and you'll start skipping. (A hard drive would probably be worse...) But if your next ten songs, and the apps the system's using are all in RAM, unless the RAM physically pops out, you're all set.
Tons of space - I have less than a gig of MP3s... I know some nuts who have 10+ GB, but you can get a 40 GB drive for like $100 if you shop around. Access speed isn't too important if it's just being thrown into ramdisk.
Configurable - Can your CD player do Ogg Vorbis? Play other formats? Probably not. Nor could you, say, hack up a Perl script pull the MP3s out of a MySQL database and read the song title with Festival.
Again, I haven't actually tried this, but I'd really like to...
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Without being overly negative, and putting this fellow down for his ingenuity, I just like to say that if something's going to appear on /., maybe it should be a little more original. Dont get me wrong, its a well done project, however I've read countless articles resembling this... i.e. normal computer, HD, modified case, inverter(cough), etc.
/cdrom -name *.mp3 | mpeg123 blah blah, etc). This would help with the stability/mechanical robustness of the system.
Putting it practically, a whole motherboard and 32 meg ram, etc is all overkill just to decode mpegs, however I guess most people wouldnt know how to program a DSP chip, or implement an mpeg decoder.
But what is more interesting, and is a bit more ingenius, is having a mobo/cpu/ram/etc, but a custom power supply. Why convert 12 volts to 110/240(australia, etc) and then back down to 12? Also, running such a high-level os such as window$ is also overkill. I would suggest either a really small linux distro booting off a floppy, or maybe DOS. A linux distro (i.e. tinylinux) booting off a floppy would eradicate the need for a hard drive if you played cd's off cd's (which is possible, using automount and find
But again, well done to the author of this project.
Installing motherboards in a custom box is easy-easy. Making your own power supply is difficult. In high school electronics, we built computers all the time. Powersupplies were out of the questions. If someone makes their own motherboard/processor/graphics card, it'd be great.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I occasionally do "live" music improvisation with Fruity Loops and other packages.
:)
I'm too cheap to use a laptop like many other electronic musicians, so I'm building a case out of wood. The original case is too much of a pain to carry, so I just used a plain motherboard on a board last time.
Now I'm making a proper case, out of wood, to be painted black. This plexiglass project looks really sweet, though!
Why wood? Where do mere mortals get Plexiglass and the tools to cut/shape it anyway?
When I finish my box, I'll post pictures and submit it - this story was accepted, right?
-foxxz
Does anyone know if the video out connector on this works with Linux?
All he needs now is some wireless networking so
he can move files to the disk without taking it out of the car...
Could you please pass the word to the rest of your auto-sculpture friends that you need to use a better water-resistant glue in attaching all that crap? Our first good rain happened a couple weeks ago and I ended up following one of those trash-heaps on wheels. The freaking doll heads were tumbling off of the top of that POS car that they were once attached to and hitting my windshield.
Talk about disturbing.
zootjeff hasn't done anything new and I don't see what all the talk is about. I think he just wanted to post it on slashdot because either he hasn't really done his homework, or he wants recognition for something many others have done for months and years. See www.mp3car.com and visit the message board as well as the example pages. I already have my own at:
http://adamssh.no-ip.com/~adam
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
I can't get to the site right now.
It amazes me that you woudl 'build a custom power supply' and use an inverter. What a waste.
Does plexiglas have alot of static? Would need to be careful not to fry components. Also...cars tend to create alot of nasty electronic noise..in a plexi case there would be little shielding from this noise (or shielding of the noise generated by the computer) which can cause all sorts of problems.
-
Now we've got people programming their computers while they drive. Ug.
Just an FYI
Plexi is very easy to work with. It is probably easier to cut than wood, and it will hold a thread, so you can actually bolt everything together. They also sell an adhesive that is specifically made to bond plexi, and boy does it bond. All very easy to use, and relatively inexpensive.
Thin plexi, the adhesive, and tap kits (for putting a thread into a hole) are available at Home Depot (and I presume the like). Thicker plexi is available at plastics distributors, just look in the yellow pages under 'Plastics'
Has anyone actually put together a PC that will control fuel injection, ignition and/or ABS/traction control or what not? PCs are so cheap these days that it would be very cost effective to put together a real time Linux (perhaps BIOS-based?) box with a bunch of RAM for data logging... There would be extra CPU cycles for playing MP3s and what not as well. Hell, maybe hook up a GPS sensor and record mileage. While that GPS sensor is in there, you could interface with suspension components and plot pot holes for people. ABS goes off? Why not create a system that would find redundant ABS occurances and warn drivers of slippery road conditions? Air bag? Call the ambulance!
I'm sorry... Have I wandered?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Did he claim to be the first?
Is the first always the best?
feh.
> BTW, What happend to Bill Gates the 1st and 2nd? > Heh.
>
Obsoleted before release.
The last time I went to this page. (months ago)
It didn't have any banner ads on it.
Now there is banner ads on it and it submitted to slashdot at the sametime.
Interesting...
No Comment...
Just Interesting...
This is a very easy way, that simply works can be found here :]
Try at your own risk
If you just add a GeForce3 in the one slot you'll have a clear xBox, but smaller and better.
MS holds this patent
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
Any alternative products to that X-10 remote? I don't want to contribute any money to them knowing it will just fund more of those annoying pop-up ads.
Ever since I first cracked open my ][e in the 80's, I thought about powering a computer off the 12V supply in a car. With the proliferation of laptops I thought for sure someone would make a simple adapter to connect the computer direct to the cigarette lighter. But no. That was not to be.
I realize that some form of adapter is required. Computers require +/- 5V, 3.3V, 12V, and possibly other voltages as well. And the power supply has to be clean - Windows has a hard enough time being stable without the hardware getting fried by sparkplug noise.
My problem, is why do I have to spend money on a invertor that creates heat (and hence wastes battery life), consumes space and whose only function is to convert low voltage into high voltage only to have another converter (the power supply) create more heat (read waste electricity) change it back? I would love to see a power supplies for laptops (at least) and even motherboards in general that run off a noisy 12V line. 120AC -> 12V DC convertors are everywhere and don't cost _nearly_ as much as 12V DC -> 120 VAC invertors.
I'm just asking that the world make sense! Is that too much?
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
"I hope I get modded down for this, but..."
And the 'spinny wheely thing' is called an odometer.
But man, have you ever got to lose the Def Leppard!
:-)
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
The case looks cool...but I'm sure he can find something better than aluminium foil to go around the lcd screen (maybe find a way to mount it in the dash)
Around the middle of the article he mentions why he chose windows, and at the bottom he lists what the system costs, but said nothing about Windows licence.
Wondering what the thiefs that stole his first stereo were thinking though, and how good they were at writing bat files?
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Most of us have seen nifty hardware setups with nice looking cases. However, I am much more interested in custom software to make a car computer more customized.
/., of a Macintosh based system like that - pretty darned cool. Combined with a wireless access card (too bad Ricochet went under) of some sort, it could be somewhat useful for an internet connection. GPS would be simple. Add a wireless ethernet card so when you park in your garage you can access your wireless hub/network (if you have the money to put a computer in your car you can afford a wireless hub). This would make transferring mp3s and other files nice. Perhaps download some web pages for offline reading, a bunch of cool games (and emulated games), and a few joysticks and you'd have a pretty cool entertainment center for the car.
Anyone who has owned or used a power inverter or more demanding electronics in a car knows that you really can't run it (for long) when the engine is off. An inverter will automatically shut itself off and turn itself on when the input voltage fluctuates (a sign that the engine has been turned off).
Since the input voltage is only 12 volts, a easy battery backup could be implemented to allow the computer to run while the car is off. When the battery gets low, the computer automatically suspends or hibernates.
Obviously, these things are already present in every laptop. If I were to construct such a device for my car, I would probably use the laptop as the CPU and connect an LCD screen and monitor/mouse combo (wireless, probably) to it externally. Since laptops have one input voltage, you only need to build a single car adapter (or buy one).
In addition, plexiglass isn't shielded like the average metal case - you'll get more interference, especially noticable in a sound system.
I'd like to see setups of a small LCD touch screen that allows the user (preferably the passenger - drivers shouldn't be messing with computers while driving) to easily navigate through things. I think I have seen one such example, perhaps from
So, in conclusion, a laptop is an easier (if less creative) choice that is superior to most home-built CPUs, and the peripherals and software is the real place to be creative and innovative.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Every automobile manufactured since 1990 or so has a computer in it. Your gas pedal really does not control gas flow directly; instead it is a potentiometer that sends a signal to a computer. Some cars even use specialized PowerPC chips. The operating systems cars use are highly stable; blue screens of death in vehicles really could mean death. I know someone who had a car computer failure while on the highway; trust me, it isn't something you want to go through.
Anyways, IANAL, but note claims #1-7 all relate to claim #1, which requires the device in question to "control operation of components in the vehicle." As long as your device does not do anything that could be considered controlling how the vehicle directly operates (speed direction, etc.), you likely are fine. #8 describes many vehicles with multiple processors interconnected. The "client" could be as simple as the warning lights on your dashboard.
#9-#19 all point to #9, which matches what existing vehicles do. A "support" module could be a sensor, a "faceplate" module could again be warning lights on the dashboard, and the "computer" module could be the car engine controlling processor. #20 again requires a "vehicle related" application; I again read this as needing to be something critical to the operation of the vehicle that it could not function without.
If MS can prove to a court that MP3 players, radios, etc., are "vehicle related" just because they *might* be used in a vehicle, I'd just appeal by asking the judge if celluar phones are "vehicle related." These devices often are multi-function, etc., need to be made cheap, and if MS went after the cell phone manufactuers, we might actually see a good legal fight.
However, I would rather convert the 12-13VDC to 120VAC first, then use the computer's normal power supply from there. I'd venture to say that this would result in a more stable supply.
You could hack your own inverter, or grab one at Radio Trash --- either would work. The upside of this is that anyone could make this work --- just plug the inverted into the cigarette lighter, then plug the computer power cord into the inverter. Might have to use an adaptor, depending upon whether the inverter had 2- or 3-pronged outlets.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
Quick overview: uses a DSP to decode at up to 256kbps in 18-bit. Has 4MB RAM, of which 1.1MB is used for the OS and software. Has a remote control interface. Takes 8 seconds to boot. Uses 35W of power. Has a custom power supply.
I think that this is much more interesting that the standard PC based one described above!
a) CAJUN - Linux-based car (or rack stereo) MP3 player. Includes plans for powering remote LCD panel from serial port. Replace a 5.25" bay cover on a 1U case with an LCD panel, and put 802.11 in the PCI slot, and it's great in a stereo system. Some people do IR input with LIRC for album/song/genre selection and start/stop. Someone gave me a RaQ4 which is a great case, but no PCI slot for sound or PC Card slot for the 802.11.
:)
b) get another StarTAC to share my minutes with as a rolling dial-up for things like checking movie times or raising/lowering the thermastat, setting the vcr, and feeding the cat via Misterhouse
c) I'd use a 12v power supply in the car, but be sure to power it through a special adapter that powers up the computer after 8 seconds (to avoid that weird power fluctuation between first turning the key and starting the car) and sends a "ups shutting down" signal but continues to power the PC for 30 seconds after the car is powered off.
d) can't forget the 802.11. I've also considered putting a crossover RJ45 on or near the dash for my laptop, but with the 802.11, I can do some "war driving" every time I get in the car not to mention the typical remote updating.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Just remember... after everyon's favorite evil legislation kicks in, it will be illegal to build this.
So get your hacking in now.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
You do realize that for less money he could Use an iPod and hook it into his stereo.
That's exactly what I thought, too. Here are pix:
s /O racs.html
http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/whoswho/ManyPhoto
Max
On my fv24 XFree86-4.1.0 locks the machine up tight as soon as I start it. Maybe I'm doing something stupid (besides running X, that is.)
Ok, it is not exactly the same, but I just finished mine too, with the same mobo, for an .mp3/file server. the link
Will have an article up soon too.
Bye.
Really? You stopped buying MP3's? That's too bad. If you decide to start buying them again let me know.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
A decent computer in an acrylic case? Don't you read PC week?
This is another Apple C*be (for we dare not speak its name) those who made the first are once again being relegated to the trash heap of history - and there for so will you - be afraid, be very afraid!
Whatever this cost, it's too much - I bet it has microscopic cranks in part of the case - which necessitates a class action lawsuit on behalf of anyone who drives by you on the freeway when this puppy is powered-up. I bet the PS is tucked away in a remote place - CHEATING!!!! You are required by the armchair quarterbacks of the PeeCee world to enclose the power supply and market a melting heap that complies to the Status Quo. You must be innovative and cool onlywithin established guidelines. You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat.
The very posting of this story constiututes Undue Hype - you will be personally responsible for any of my stock market losses based on my knee-jerk reactions to potential gains I may seek in the plexiglas, super glue, or Little Rubber Feet futures markets.
Use of computers in transparent cases has been shown to cause coughs, cold, itchy holes, nits, zits and sneezing fits. Stop this insanity, now.
Yeah, and your mother uses a non-monopolistic OS, too.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Is it just me, or does this box remind anyone else of the computer "Orac" from Blake's 7
;-)
Ok, so it is just me then
crazy dynamite monkey
I'd be curious to know how he got the plexiglass to stick... I wanted to build a plexiglass enclosure once but the man at HomeDepot looked at me like I had 4 heads when I told him that I needed plexiglass so small and that I'd need to bond it together.
He told me it'd cost a fortune because 1) I would need a plexiglass cutting tool (they wouldn't cut plexiglass as small as I wanted it) and 2) there is only one kind of glue to bond plexiglass and it's very expensive and they don't carry it. Granted this is coming from some random HomeDepot employee who I don't know from god. Is what he said true?
"but for many people, and even in aisle signs in hardware stores, Plexiglass = Lexan"
.40cal round at it. If you survive, try it again with Lexan. You will see the difference, trust me.
These "people" you refer to must be pretty dense. Lexan is nothing like plexiglass. Wanna test that theory? just sit behind a 1" thick piece of plexi and have a friend fire a
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
http://www.geocities.com/partycar2000/partybox3/
This one is both an in-car mp3 player ( movies and gps also) as well as a party jukebox machine.
Same shuttle FV-24 and same 12V ATX DC-DC PSU with added fans and dvd-rom
Sort of reminds me of the old joke about "if microsoft made cars ..."
...
I appreciate that he did articulate his design considerations for choosing windows, and especially the tips on 'streamlining' the install.
But... as one who only runs MS software on one laptop, as a concession to clients / (backward?) compatibility, i find it hard to accept building what is essentially an embedded solution with a (crappy) desktop OS
aloha,
dave
Is it me? or are ALL of those photos blurry. Was it a cheap camera, or is the photographer having a case of the shakes? Time for a new patch, or a bit less Jolt.
I also under clocked my CPU. You don't need more than a 486 to play MP3s so I took my spare Pentium 233 and under clocked it to 133. This saved quite a bit on the power draw.
hah! my p90 w/32 megs of ram usually chokes
moox. for a new generation.
Can't you see he's lying? (In a particularly ridiculous fashion!) And trolling?
Look: he's saying we don't need more computers, on slashdot AND linking to troll-central: advocacy.org
Moderate this idiot down!
Anything that that has to do with linux we'll post!
Actually, I built a car mp3 player out of an old AST slimline desktop (486-33, with 83Mhz Pentium Overdrive, whoo-hoo! mpg123 is so efficient, it runs using only 50% of the CPU on most mp3s). It uses a standard Mitsumi 12X drive, and it _never_ skips. Think about it. MP3 has an average compression ratio of 10:1. Even on a 1X drive, you would be reading 10 times the data you need per second, and on a 12X it's obviously quite a bit more, esp. considering modern drives have built in data buffers. Just my experience. I'm sure a lot of today's cheap-ass 50x drives won't work as well :).
1. A vehicle computer system comprising:
a housing of a size suitable to be mounted in a vehicle dashboard;
make it an UNsuitable size. perfect.
> Your gas pedal really does not control gas flow directly; instead it is a potentiometer that sends a signal to a computer.
Obviously you've never worked on a car. The gas petal goes through a cable to the fuel injector. That's about as direct as you can get. There is TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) that feeds the information into the computer so it knows how much gas you're giving it.
Deuteronomy 13:06-9
Actually, maybe you should read the post, the guy uses Windows 9x. Of course you could run linux on it, and I'm suprised he didn't.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
You use the yellow pages? Get off /. at once. Heathen.
Do a google search before posting.
Anyone know if someone makes an IDE stacker that will support say 4 cds?
I plan to do a similar thing, tho booting from a read only ide flash disk, and playing the mp3s direct from cd.. (my theory is they are less likely to die as badly as a hd, and i can easily and neatly change the cds for new music..)
any ideas?
I have a similar version of such a computer. I built mine back in april of 2000. Not quite as small as this one, but the idea is the same. One note to the dude who's box is featured here: try this. Beats the crap out of any Win9x/Winamp solution anyday of the week. 'nuff said
I wonder if this could be related to my Humanities professor's comments?
"Reading the Odyssey translated is like making love through plexiglass. You can see what you're doing but it just doesn't feel right!"
** "You can compute through plexiglass...**
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
You do know that you can get a 12VDC>120VAC inverter for between $50 and $100 bucks, right?
(althought I just forgot what kinda wattage they support...)
Most cars already have a computer(based either on 386/486 proc's), that control fuel injection, igntion, knock, map, O2, and your instrument panel(depending on analong/digital controls).
There are anywhere between 2-5 computers on the modern car. Even the older cars(early 80's) had a basic computer that were mostly for voltage regulation ect. For example, you have Primary, engine, body, ABS, accessory.
Unfortunatly, when you mix computers and cars bad things happen. You don't need a computer to run a car, actually cars manufactured during the 1960's run cleaner then some cars now. If your O2 sensor goes for a fluke, well you get bad fuel economey, if the map sensor or TPS goes, the car won't start.
Volkswagon had it right with the rabbit, fuel injection with no computers. Anyone who tells you that computerized cars run cleaner are lying to you, if we didn't have Catylidic Convertor's, we wouldn't have as many problems with sulfur dioxide(acid rain).
Now onto the rest of the message, your car's computer already logs everything. If you take the car to a garage, they can pull up fuel economey, milage, top speed, ect. Ever hear of OnStar? Built in GPS, auto maping, call an ambulance & police if you get into an accident. Though it costs $29/mo(two way service). The Pontiac GTP, and Saturn cars have traction control that works with the ABS system, along with a transaxle auto-wheel slip transfer system.
Besides, do you really need a computer for MP3's when satilite radio is available, and MP3 audio players for cars are already out? I listen to more AM radio(talk radio) then most things.
Why do something complicated when the solutions already exist.
Om, nomnomnom...
To cut, you can use a hack saw, or variable speed saw, even a dremal to cut the plexiglass. Just remeber if the blade speed is too high you'll simply melt the stuff.
Depending on how thick the plexiglass is you can use screws. Or even bolts with tap'd holes.
You can bond plexiglass with acrylic bonding cement, contact cement, 3M Polymyr Glue, Krazy Glue, lots of stuff. Hell even Weld Bond[Brand Name](stuff they use to stick the tiles on the space shuttle), will work. You simply need to use some sand paper on the edges you want to bond to get some griping surface. Probbly the same for the rest of the other glues. The actual bonding goo for plexiglass melts the two peices together...hence the reason it's so expensive.
Om, nomnomnom...
Put this stuff into a metal box where it belongs. (You will notice that Apple puts their computers into shielded metal boxes, even when the outside is plexiglass.)
Leaving aside the lack of RF shielding, it's been my experience that getting near plexiglass makes my hair stand up... that stuff holds one hell of a static charge! Wouldn't it just get continually worse if you fill it with electronics? If I'm right, this guy's box doesn't have much of a shelf life...
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Home Depot?? Cool, I'll go there this weekend. Thanks for the tip.
By many people using many different OSes. All one really needs to do is check out http://www.mp3car.com to find most of them in the world.
Alright, own up. Which one of you tech geeks stole this guy's special little computer? Honestly, who would still this thing? The average car thief probably wouldn't even know what it was, much less what it was for. Besides, it's so specialized that it probably wouldn't be that great as a regular desktop PC.
Even better, the snapshot of the LCD in action shows that the guy is listening to Def Leppard! Maybe he deserved to get the thing stolen, if he was going to fill up such a neat little gadget with a load of crap.
I'm in the process of building a similar beast. Not for the car, though, but to drive a projector that will be my main television. I have an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 (built-in TV tuner and DVD hardware decoding) and a DVD drive. Add a good sound card and an ethernet card, all driven by a PII 350, and we have a machine that we can set with the rest of the components (stereo, etc) in a cabinet. Hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse, and we won't even have to get off the couch.
Check out mp3car.com - you'll find (mostly) intelligent discussion of all the problems/ideas people have raised here.
I think I'm going to try to patent some stuff. It seems like people patent all kind of stuff that is common sense and call it their idea. Hmm.
I imagine MSuck and many other progressive corporate slobs have patents for just about everything electronic. What about biological stuff?
-biological matter used to control the operation of a vehicle. vague is good.
-biological matter used to for maintaining or sustaining life or the lack thereof.
-biological matter that is designed for a specific purpose.
-any combination of biological and mechanical devices used to do things.
-biological matter used space aliens, but not yet registered at the us patent office.
this here is a really sweet small power supply for 15-20 volt input. 45 watt output, really small really cheap (under $2) with all connectors you need for a small pc. i used it for building a small and SILENT linux router with the fli4l router linux distribution. works flawlessly.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
It's not worth it, dude, people on here are just total idiots. Trying to get them to recognize a troll is like trying to teach a blind man to appreciate Van Gogh. Look at how many people responded to this...I mean, he even posts a follow-up where he says he and the aforementioned girlfriend split over a disagreement about Dadaism. Dear God, what will it take?
Unless you are being tounge-in-cheek, every single one of those problems can be and ARE solved. Who uses ext2 anymore? I've been using ReiserFS for a LONG time. Secondly, you can boot the entire Linux OS off of CD, a live file system. No fsck, just power up and power down.
You can't be rooted because the entire fs is on CD. Just have a hdd partition for the mp3's or what have you.
Download SUSE's Live CD to see exactly what I mean
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
When I pull into my driveway, I have to stay at least 30 feet away from the front door if I want to listen to the end of a NPR broadcast, or a tasty tune from a rock station.
You see, there are at least 4 "naked" boxen running at any given time in the house. 3 in the office upstairs, and 1 or more downstairs - all without their cases covered. The nearest one to me at the point I speak of my car radio being would still be 50 feet away!
Obviously in a production environment, my clients' computers are all wrapped up properly, right down to the last DB9 hole or backplane cover. I run my stuff like I do because none of the CPUs are overclocked, they all cooling aplenty, and I need to pop components in and out of them all the time, if not just to test something on four different OSs, but to verify a hardware fault.
No wonder this guy's 2nd contraption was stolen. Someone who has to drive within 50 feet of him got sick of having his radio jammed ;-().
db
Cig:
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This machine runs Windows 9X.
However, the breakdown of the costs
doesn't include the price of the
Windows license.
http://www.mp3car.com/usersites/moahdib/albums/htm l/index.htm