In Car PC

madmezza

Ex. Club Member
Not generally what you'd expect in a Micra, but I've finally fitted my in car PC. :grinning:

It's got a 7" lilliput touch screen mounted where the stereo used to go (I modified the centre console to fit it in), and the PC is mounted under the drivers seat.

It's got USB in the glove box, connected to 802.11g, wireless keyboard and mouse (for diagnostics really), digital radio input into the CD input port. I custom made the case for the PC (out of MDF) and it's got a sequencing PSU, 3.5" HDD on custom shock mounts, GPS, two fans to keep everything cool.

I've attached a pic of the console (taken on my phone while I was driving to work this morning - hence the poor quality!).

I'm working on new software - all car PC software available seems to either use VB6 (old and slow) or .NET (new and very, very, very slow and resource hungry!). So I'm writing an GUI in good, old fashioned native C++!
 
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madmezza

madmezza

Ex. Club Member
Ooops - messed up the picture attachment. o_O hopefully this is it...
 

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paddymarsden

Iggy Iggy oooooooooo
kool ive done a few in car pc's for my mates, very neat. im going to do one in my car soon with the free 'media car' software
 

Ian

Ex. Club Member
very nice, im doing that in the next car :). Just a shame them touch screens are so expensive, they were about £80 2 years ago :(
 
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madmezza

madmezza

Ex. Club Member
Ed - native resolution is quoted at 800x480, but I've seen lots of technical discussions which says it's actually 848x480. I'm using a VIA EPIA M10000 to drive it all - it has on board video and it's very difficult (maybe impossible) to get 800x480 (I've been playing around with front-porches/back-porches, sync timing etc and haven't had much success yet!)

Paddymarsden - Mediacar has been superceded by RoadRunner. Same idea though, I think (didn't have much experience before). However, the app is in VB6 and it's a little clunky. I'm planning on rewriting the GUI. At the moment, i'm using Centrafuse which is a nice GUI but it's written using .NET so it uses huge amount of resources and can be a bit touchy!

Craig - no the screen doesn't come out. I thought about it, but the connector is not designed to be used a lot, and I just couldn't be bothered putting a new one on. It's glued to the centre console, and I'll use black silicone sealant to tidy up the gap around the front (eventually)! What I will do is make a cover for it - partly to stop it getting too hot in direct sunlight, but mainly to make it NOT look like there's a screen (and hence PC etc) in the car to anyone looking in. I might attach the front of a crap old stereo to the cover so it looks like that's the entertainment system!!

Ian - yeah, pity. I heard they were cheap a while ago. That one was £190 (cringe!). Whole setup cost me about £350 or so.
 
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