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iPod Mini Custom Installation In A Ford Explorer
Johnny Mozzarella writes "MacWorld has a nice write-up on Jesse Melchior, an amateur special effects artist and filmmaker, who used his skills to create a custom installation that is worthy of an iPod mini. The article outlines the materials he used such as latex, plaster and dental acrylic to create an integrated dock complete with blue LEDs and Apple logo in his Ford Explorer."
Once this is done, the Explorer becomes like the iPod. When the car's battery runs down, you replace the whole car.
If you're going to do something this fancy, why hamstring yourself with the 4GB mini?
What next - an iPod Mini?
---
"I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing and it was everything that I thought it could be."
It has been expressed here previously that the iPod mini has much less bang-for-buck than the regular iPod, which is only a few bucks more but comes with an extra 16GB.
However, if you simply want to buy a Hitachi 4GB mini hard drive, you'll save as much as $150 if you buy the mini and take the drive out over buying the boxed hard drive product.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
with a shitty tin spoiler bondo'ed onto the body?
latex, plaster and dental acrylic
This guy uses all that stuff intimately with his car and gets on the front page of slashdot.
I mention using the same stuff intimately with my girlfriend and she runs away.
pfft.
Might as well just get a the full sized iPod or another MP3 player unless you don't mind waiting till July.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Someone took the already ugly concept of ground effects (neon lights under the car) and put them in the car. I'll pass, thanks. And that big silver bump, it's an eyesore. But, to each his own I guess.
You should see my custom cupholder/cellphone mount.
Really, guys, is it THAT slow of a news day?
Cool. Now you can grove to some cool tunes while you're waiting for the tow truck.
Between the faulty mini ipod's (as /.'ed a few days ago) and the ford's faulty fuel system and steering column, I think I have been odds with a two bullet russian roulette.
Maybe they should've coupled the mini ipod with the OTHER mini; the mini cooper.
All that work and he still has cables to connect (he doesn't seem to think they're photogenic). I use this FM transmitter called the iTrip that snaps to the top of the iPod 10 gigger and I can hide the whole thing, zero wires. Amazingly (to me), the iTrip uses less battery power than the backlight on the iPod. Appetite For Destruction all night on repeat!
Not all that impressive. I mean, its obtrusive while not being terribly convenient to use while driving. If you want to see some truly ingenious fabrication though, a truly topline car show is the place to see it. And you can usually find a regional one closer to you than SEMA, which is where the best toys are. Adding the mini to a car? Neat idea. But just like the recent running gadget thread, this just proves that the average /. geek isn't that up to date on what's available, and gets impressed easily - kind of like the way that non-geeks get impressed by what /. considers "trivial" product modifications or improvements.
Don't get me wrong, its not bad - just not all that newsworthy. Now, if it included things like tying the existing steering wheel radio controls into the iPod when it was plugged in, and rerouting them back to the radio when it wasn't, then I'd start getting interested. Systems integration can be a lot of work, and a lot of fun - and when you do it right, nobody even thinks about it. That's cool.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
(joke)Just what we need, another jackass in an SUV with a blinky detachable electronic gadget to operate while driving and try to get everyone else killed.(/joke)
Seriously though... that seems like a lot of wasted space. It also looks like it would be too easy to accidentally bump it out of the little holder while driving.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
I Can't See half of the full sized pics in Mozilla due to wrong MIME types. When will these web developers ever learn?
he's a mac user. shouldn't he use BBEdit?
sulli
RTFJ.
Could this guy have bought a smaller MP3 player to put into a bigger vehicle?
Let's put an MP3 player the size of a chicklet in an army tank! That way I hav to take my eyes of the road for 10 mintues (potentially destroying several small villages) just to figure out it's doing!
Seriously, am I they only one who find the whole "tricked out SUV" fad retarded?
What's the next fad going to be? Big rigs?
Are we going to se idiots driving around 1000hp diesel trucks with 15 speed gearboxes and no trailer? Of course it will have 36" chrome rims too....
Life is too short to proofread.
but when i saw it was a .mac homepage i expexted it to be slashdotted, luckily only 20000 of us hit that site. Kudos to the owner for doing it, it looks nice and nobody should really knock the effort he has gone through.
Jonathanjk.com
It's hosted on mac.com, so I'd bet it'll last quite a while. :P
Mac.com usually handles high loads very well.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The iTrip doesn't deliver the quality that you get over the direct lines. It's like the difference between a radio station and a CD. There is a quality difference.
Evolution or ID?
He doesn't have to connect cables - he's clearly using a built-in dock (or equivalent) line-out connected directly to stereo, giving superb sound quality and no wires showing in his installation.
In my experience FM transmitters sound horrendous anyway. I have doubts that the iTrip is any better. Most (all?) such transmitters are monophonic only, but that's just the beginning of the dreadful sound quality coming from these things, even with a clear channel available.
--- What?
All of that just to listen to Bone Thugs? What a waste.
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
Ever since I got my iPod, I've dreamt and drooled over the possibility of using it in my car. But I just have never thought up a good way to really integrate it, and I mean fully, like having an easy way to choose songs to play, hit play/pause, change the volume, etc, that is just as easy to use an in dash player that supports mp3's.
:)
Having it sit somewhere mounted is a good start, but you still would have to reach down there and twiddle the buttons. And in an big vehicle like an Explorer? That would get old, quick.
By the looks of the pictures, he is using the line out connector on the bottom. You can't change the volume that's coming out of that right? I mean not from the iPod, therefore you'd have to use the main stereo for that. So you would have two places to reach now, for different activities. You would have reach down to the iPod to change songs and pause, and reach to the stereo to change the volume. That little extra step of deciding where need to reach would be a huge burden when you're going down the interstate at 70mph.
If anybody has thought of a good way to integrate the iPod into a car, I want to know. Right now my setup is using the headphone jack to connect to the aux input of my stereo, and using the inline remote that came with it. I can at least do all functions from one place (the headphone jack can have it's volume adjusted), but I can't really charge it well, because then I'd have a connector sticking out of the bottom *and* top. What I would like is for the iPod to have a docking place like in the article, but still be able to do everything easily, from one place, without needing to look too much. Maybe I need a wireless remote? Maybe I'm asking too much.
That iPod mini will sound great while he's flipping over in the inherently unsafe vehicle that is the Ford Explorer.
Not really impressive in my point of view. Specifically, there is too much wasted space around the docking point.
... your Quadruple Venti Mocha Turtle Cappachino... one big bump and BAM--unhappy iPod mini coated in sugary goodness... ;-)
I don't care what anyone here says i think it is pretty cool to have a docking station for your mp3 player in your car...it would be cool if it played trogh the car speakers... didnt RTFA so i dont know if it does...now somone should do that with a Mini Cooper to match better than explorer.
A human with good hearing (i.e. a child) can often hear notes between 20Hz and 20kHz. CDs reproduce sounds in this same range. A well-encoded mp3 has a low-pass filter around 19.3Hz and can more or less reproduce sounds above 16kHz which is more than most of us can likely distinguish, especially with the average stereo.
FM radio, on the other hand, only broadcasts between 50Hz and 15kHz. Despite those fuzzy bass-thumping sounds you hear from the lowered Honda Civic beside you at the stop light (or perhaps that's you), with FM radio you lose the true lows, and you lose the true highs. Everything else in between is also lower quality.
The iTrip is a very convenient device for transmitting your mp3s, but don't confuse it with a "real" solution of hard-wiring your mp3 player into your stereo. I guess if you encode all your mp3s at 128kpbs or lower using Windows Media Player, it won't really matter to you, but if you value sound quality you'll probably soon want something better.
www.clarke.ca
Those damn blue leds are everywhere arggg!!!!g!
I think he'll regret this whole project when his iPod stops working, his Firestone tires fail and his Explorer rolls.
Who am I to blow against the wind? -- Paul Simon
The point isn't how much you listen to, but giving you how choice as to how much to listen to. I have 3000 songs in my library. I listen to several repeatedly over the course of the day. I skip over many of them too. Some people don't listen this way, but i'd rather have my whole library at my fingertips. I never know which song i'll want to listen to next.
Photos.
This is not a troll. This whole install looks grafted and cheap.
The _real_ solution is to have a widget that treats the iPod as a CD changer, ala Phatnoise.
That would probably run at least $100 tho, as it'd need to be basically an iPod without the screen, drive and controls...
I'd buy one in a second tho if it were compatible with any firewire ipod and the becker/HK trafficpro.
My wife finds it interesting and amusing as one of these SUVs drives by. She tells me to match and draft off of their speed so that she has something to watch. Now all that is needed is these SUVs to provide a strong enough signal for the laptop and the WIFI connection. Maybe then she will stop telling me how to drive.
OK, this guy does some plastic fabrication that anybody with some time can do, and he gets on the main page.
So, if I submit my photos of my '04 Grand Marquis, wherein I have not ONLY added a 30G Neo35 MP3 player, but a Kenwood dual-band transciever plus two extra speakers for it, the antenna for the Kenwood, a second battery, extra power points, a battery isolator to charge the secondary battery, a second power distribution panel, would that make the front page?
www.eFax.com are spammers
There's obviously lots of room for Automobile-Area Networks, but few folks are doing anything about it.
Design for Use, not Construction!
I am not sure if I understand it correctly. Does a mini custom install mean a somewhat standard install more or less or what?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Aparently MINIUSA was quite annoyed that VW and the New Beetle beat them to the punch with the iPod promotion. Especially since as others have said, '03 and newer MINIs can take a $40 acessory from the dealer and get an aux input, or you can use the cd changer wiring with a Denison Ice Link which allows control of the ipod through the head unit + steering wheel audio controls.
The iPod lounge forums has a shitload of these. Some ranging from hacks to good, professional jobs like this story. Of course you could just get a Smart car, since it has an iPod option. Of course it is only for Europe, which is crap since I really want one, and it is kinda an antithesis to the Explorer.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
I'd love to see someone make a small box that sits in my trunk or under my seat that acts like a CD Changer. Yeah, I know about the PhatBox, but I don't see the need for the removability at such a high cost. Something more like the YAMPP-3, but with WI-FI.
Heck, I'd even be willing to drag an ethernet cable out to the car (hey, a drop in the Garage isn't out of the question) to load up new MP3s over paying ~$800 for the 20GB Phatbox.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
I've got the Belkin charger/line out in my car. It works well and plugs right into the stereo... but it's not that slick. I have to control the ipod to change songs, etc. and then use my cd deck to change volume. I want a deck that I can buy that acts as an ipod dock. You just slide that ipod in like an 8 track and then the deck has normal controls for volume, track selection, etc. and a display that shows song titles, etc. If it had a radio too I could care less about not having a CD player in the car. So you get to listen to the ipod, control it easily.. it gets charged... When you leave the car just eject the ipod, grab it and go! Something like this would be popular, wouldn't you think?
sig
This is a really sweet car mod, but what I really want is to be able to buy an in-dash car stereo into which I can dock the iPod and use the stereo's controls.
Alpine has announced one that's close, but it has the iPod on an external cable. I'd rather not deal with the iPod and cable floating around inside the car.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
http://www.alpine-usa.com/company_info/press_relea se/010804_ipad.html
ALPINE DEBUTS WORLD'S FIRST CAR AUDIO HEAD UNITS THAT ALLOW TRUE INTEGRATION WITH iPod
TORRANCE, Calif, January 6, 2004 -- Alpine Electronics of America, Inc., the industry-leading manufacturer of high performance mobile electronics, will demonstrate at CES the world's first solution that enables consumers to connect and control their iPod from their in-vehicle sound system....
Seriously though, how about watching the road instead of how many RPMs your Z28 is whining along at?
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Visit Here for a press release. The unit will be available later this year. It integrates all control through the head unit, via the dock connector. You can tuck the iPod away inside the glove box. Still requires you to take your eyes off the road and look at the display of the receiver, however. Until Alpine comes out with an easy-to-install aftermarket heads-up-display...
36" chrome rims too...
Don't forget the spinners.
You're absolutely right. I had to stop driving manual transmission cars because I couldn't deal with the complexity...having to press a pedal AND move a lever? All while braking or tapping the gas?
But then, I didn't find automatics much better. One pedal for stopping, one for going? Aaaaa! What insane trickery!
Please help metamoderate.
The _real_ solution is to have a widget that treats the iPod as a CD changer
Exactly!
I'm a 2000 man.
To really impress me, take the whole iPod apart, mount the internals in the dash and the controls in the steering wheel. Now, that is functional integration. In it's current state, it's an over-glorified coffee cup holder.
Of course, you'd need a heck of a long USB cable to upload.
Whenever you read this sig someone's refrigerator light turns on.
But will this holster for the iPOD keep it in place when the Explorer invariably flips over? :P
I've seen mini vans around with spoilers and air dams. Just as bad if not worse IMO.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This is what confuses me about apple theyve got a great product (ipod, ect) and a chance to breack into a compleatly untapped market ala the icar. an apple package that integrates ipod GPS onstar and maybe eaven infrared or adaptive cruize control this could be a major comodity. but where is apple, not there.
Don't forget the Denison ICELink, which lets you connect an iPod directly to a third-party head kit as well as to your existing OEM car audio system.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
I can't say it's 100% geek-approved in terms of full-functionality, but it's a damn good start. Yeah?
The _real_ solution is to have a widget that treats the iPod as a CD changer, ala Phatnoise.
What, like this?
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
While I don't think the mod is really aesthetically pleasing, it doesn't seem to be very user-friendly either. So he got the thing to charge? Great. He doesn't show in his pics the cord he has to connect to the audio out of the iPod because I bed a plug sticking out the top would be pretty ulgy. Also, he doesn't show himself USING the iPod. It doesn't look like it'd be easy to reach forward and control the little controls/display from the drivers seat while driving. Not only bad design, but unsafe too.
Just saw this on TLC last night.
:)
Apparantly 310 customs/west side customs (or whatever) basically did something almost exactly like this (but for a regular iPod) on a H2 (hummer) brought in by some NBA star. Slide the iPod into the dock and it played on the stereo. Needless to say thats not all they did to the H2 but I thought I should mention that.
One thing is it probably cost a LOT more than he spent on his Ford Explorer doing it himself
suddenly I feel very tired
Hmm, according to everything I have read it can't. For instance this thread from dpreview says that the card can't be made to do modes other than IDE. Now if you can point me to a site with info on replacing the Apple firmware on the drive controll electronics with a version that works I would be very interested.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Not only has he invalidated his car's warranty (for unauthorized modifications), and he's gonna get sued by Apple for unauthorized use of their logo, but now he's getting slashdotted.
Huh? Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
How to stay rich by keeping up with technology: 1) Create a way for people to play Mp3's in their cars. 2) Install the player in a popular vehicle. 3) Make sure the manufacturer of the Mp3 player charges a lot for each song downloaded so you get a kickback from them. 4) Give a little money to the RIAA so they won't say you're trying to rip of record producers........Anyone else smell setup?
sleep easy, for tomorrow we take over the world...
I posted this when there were only a handful of comments under the original story. Just look at the time stamp. Any stories which say the same things are redundant, and not visa versa.
The first one links to the driver for windows CE devices, not a firmware update. The second one links to an aparantly dynamic page that no longer comes up but searching the site for X022504.pdf shows no hits. Furthermore the Tech Library and downloads portions of the site list no such files.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
We bought an iTrip and spend so much time channel surfing to get a strong signal that I am now looking into getting the stereo in the car upgraded to get an audio in port.
The available frequencies are typically used for community/tourist radio in Australia.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
No, it's
b igrunonwordandwhatonearthareyoureadingthisfordonty ouhaveanythingbettertodoforcryingoutloud.
F^cker
Only
Runs
Downhill
or
Found
On
Road
Dead
Adding a long line here so the @(#&$!!! error message "Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 3.4)" will go away, preferably to taunt whoever the goof is that thought annoying us with that message was a good idea andnowwerejustdegradingintoacompletelymeaningless
Alpine is coming out with a HU this summer that will allow you to plug your iPod in, and store it in any location (glove box, center console, trunk, etc..) and the HU will display the song info and allow you to control the iPod. Google for more information, here is a quick link to their press release.
Hell, if my grandmaw knows how to right click and choose "open in a new window," I think pretty much anyone can do it on their own if they so choose.
Yeah, right.
-There are no wires to attach or add because the Belkin car charger I integrated into the design has an audio line-out built into it, which I used to run directly into my car stereo via an adapter. The music plays through the car speakers at perfect quality. Yeah, I still control the volume throught the car stereo but HOW HARD IS THAT? Come on people.
-The blue LED lights were added ONLY for one reason: TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE DAMN THING IN THE DARK AT NIGHT WHILE PLUGGING IT IN OR CHANGING SONGS.
-It can not "fly" out of the console because if you had actually read what I wrote you would see that I made it so the iPod fits very snugly into it, making it able to lock it in place and push on the buttons or scroll through songs very easily without it so much as moving. There is no way it would ever wobble around, or even fly out.
-It is not difficult to use, or awkward in any way...the thing sits right where my hand rests over the console and it takes no effort to press any of the buttons.
-I am NOT the kind of guy who "tricks out" his car just to look cool, especially not with an explorer. While I do like the car, I only made it because I wanted to use MY iPod in MY car while I was driving, and that was it. It's a hell of a lot better than carrying around 400 cd's. For those of you who remarked about it being unsafe...How safe is it to look through all your cd's trying to find the one that has the one song you want to hear while trying to watch the road at the same time? With the iPod, I can make up song lists I want to hear before I even leave, or while I'm just sitting in the car at a red light or in traffic, or even just let all 1000 songs play in random order. Anyone who actually OWNS an iPod knows how easy it is to use one.
I personally don't care what any of you negative people think because I didn't make it to please you, I made it for myself. I enjoy using it and that's all that matters. Until I see pictures of your installs that are any better or more practical than mine, maybe you should think twice about bashing it.
Could this have been done better? Of course! I'm the first to admit that. I started rethinking and redesigning it after I installed it. I made the thing on a whim and didn't take the time to completely think out EVERY practical application, I just wanted to make something to play the thing in my car til I came up with something better.
I'm glad there are some people out there who did enjoy it and maybe got some ideas of their own. Thanks everybody!
I have my 40 GB iPod in an angled holder in my car. It is nice to have the angle, but controlling the iPod while driving isn't that great. Especially if you have 7,000 songs and you want to get to a specific album. You have to make about 15 revolutions on the scrolley wheel to get even close to what you're looking for
It would be cool if there were a car stereo inteface made specifically for controlling the iPod in your car. Nice big screen, volume and track switching, etc. Could have a custom cable run from it to the iPod. you know, the audio / data controller plug thing. Kinda like the remote control that comes with the iPod (20 and 40 models) but way better.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
Timothy is completely right. Thats my opion, too.
Not like that.
The Dennison iceLink thingie doesn't do much more than make an AUX and possibly a charger for your iPod.
I have a Sony head unit which uses Unilink, meaning that the CD changer can report back the title of the track as well, not just control next/prev track.
Since the iPods don't have a easy way to report song and track information, something like this wouldn't happen anytime soon without a change to the iPod firmware (to add networking, probably through the IPoverFW standard) and a firewire network adapter for communicating to the iPod's OS and your head unit.
In the meantime, you might as well settle for an old P5 or G3 sitting in your trunk and using GnUnilink, an open source hardware Unilink adapter.
The Dennison iceLink thingie doesn't do much more than make an AUX and possibly a charger for your iPod.
Have you looked at it at all? It integrates your stereo with the iPod's controls. So you can use your factory steering wheel controls to change tracks on the iPod. If it was nothing more than an AUX and a charger people wouldn't be paying $200 for it.
Granted it doesn't report the song info back to your stereo's display, but integrating control alone is pretty cool.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Ah, but note that the parent I was responding to was talking about having it as a CD Changer.
d -remote.html
I haven't seen every CD changer but most of the ones I see include the ability to transfer the display data to the head unit, which is what I was commenting on.
Okay, I concede that it's more than just an Aux and charger. It's an aux, charger, and a remote. But adding the remote is almost negligable for me since I could make my own.
If I wanted just to have the control integrated and not all the display info, I'd have just scoped out the lines from the car's remote and then hack it together with an ipod remote for about 3 hours worth of time and $40 (if you ordered a new remote).
And if I was really bored, I got craploads of old microcontrollers. So usng this page: http://www.maushammer.com/systems/ipod-remote/ipo
I could do without the $40 and have it done "my way" for just time. (Assuming we all had aux and charger, which can be hacked together as well.)
(sorry, can't help feeding the troll)
;-)
Just like selling used cars is stealing from GM, right?
The fact that you can re-sell a CD if you no longer enjoyed it, (or never enjoyed it) is one of the things that adds value to the physical media.
If I couldn't even consider legally re-selling a CD, then why the hell would I consider buying one?
Get real, bubba. Garth Brooks tried that same argument and made a public fool of himself. (actually, he tried collecting royalites on useds). They already got their royalty from the original purchaser. That CD is now that purchasers property, to listen to, rip to MP3, play frisbee, scrape dog poop off the floor, or re-sell (hopefully not after using to scrape dog poop).
Now, if you want to bring in the idea of buying a CD, ripping it, THEN selling, you might have a point.
But if comb your hair just right, no one will notice
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.
Now all you need is to create a G5 dock so that you can create l33t appz "On the go!"
You don't have to look at the stickshift to use it. Whereas 90% of what the iPod does can't be done without looking at it.
I think you really oughtn't be adjusting the iPod at all while driving, but if you must, better up on the dash (where you might notice something out of peripheral vision) than down near the floor of the car.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
With my Sony I have the multichanger so can have the iPod and the CD-Changer at the same time.
Works a treat. This is probably too late in the post to get seen - but if you do see it, mod it up and pass it along.
ICE-Link
'Internet! Is that thing still around?' - Homer Simpson