On board computer, DVD, MP3 ect

[Rads63]

Well Ive had this idear floating round for a while, wanted to get a few other opitions from people with more of a computer background than I.
Im my ute I have a large area behind the center consoul, bit bigger than a shoe box, the front face of the consoul is flat and empty, save for two small aircon vents at the top, its actually a bastardised VT consoul. Onto the face I want to mount the screen off a wrecked lap top that I have been given. Below this a CD/DVD Rom drive tray.
So Im really asking for your opitions on the set up, I know dick all about motherboards hard ware ect ect. I want it store and play MP3 ( was thinking winamp ) and play DVD's, also store the white and yellow pages, perhaps Melways.
Have seen them on the web with GPS, but Im not really interested in that.
Could it be hooked up with TV out ? could it be capable of interfacing with my Head unit? (pioneer DEH P3150)
Any idears or tech info would be a help as I want to get this up and running in the next few months.
Cheers Rads

[tandy ass]

If you are serious about playing DVDs on your laptop and willing to spend around 2500 or more then let me know. I'm currently helping a friend install a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 (P3/850/256/15/14.1/DVD/W2K) into his series 3 Bluebird. The notebook needs to be taken apart carefully and the base unit needs to be very close to the screen due to parallel signal timing errors & electrical reflections/distance impedance if the distance is increased. The keyboard is not installed on the laptop and an external PS2 plug is available for the keyboard. We cut apart the keyboard and removed the accupoint mouse and mounted it in the centre console with two buttons below it for left/right mouse click. I spent hours wiring up the DVDROM to work further than the laptop and found its limit to be about 20cm of cable past its ribbon connector for the same reasons the screen wouldnt work a further distance. This suited OK as it will be installed where the radio would normally be. Power is supplied by a Jaycar 140w inverter and the regular 15V 4 amp power supply with the laptop since I didnt want to fudge around risking spikey ignition noise on the laptop DC input line...

There's heaps more we've done and researched but unless you have someone around who is an electronics guru, dont expect to even get it powered up if you take the notebook apart :)

[Rads63]

Thanks for the speedy reply, you sound like just the bloke Im looking for, I wasnt looking at using a lap top to run it I was more looking for a home pc modified, The laptop that i have is a Texas Instruments, the hard drive is u/s, and the info on the cable lenght will come in really handy, save me a lot of heart ache. What do you think about exposing the screen to the temps and conditions (UV rays) of a car cabin, would you expect a rapid break down of the screen ? Ive seen that PS2 controller used on a few web sites that deal with on board comps, but also most of these have the tower from there home puter stuck in the boot. What are your idears on iterfacing your audio output to your amp/speakers ?
Rads

[tandy ass]

Originally posted by Rads63
Thanks for the speedy reply, you sound like just the bloke Im looking for,

I dont play for that team, sorry :) :) :)



I wasnt looking at using a lap top to run it I was more looking for a home pc modified, The laptop that i have is a Texas Instruments, the hard drive is u/s, and the info on the cable lenght will come in really handy, save me a lot of heart ache. What do you think about exposing the screen to the temps and conditions (UV rays) of a car cabin, would you expect a rapid break down of the screen ? Ive seen that PS2 controller used on a few web sites that deal with on board comps, but also most of these have the tower from there home puter stuck in the boot. What are your idears on iterfacing your audio output to your amp/speakers ?
Rads

We had no problems with the sound, simply connect the audio output from the laptop via a 3.5mm to RCA lead to the input of your car stereo system.

You cannot use a laptop screen and attach it to a regular computer. The (S/X)VGA output from a regular computer is analog and all laptop screens that I've seen use a proprietery digital communication protocol between the motherboard's video output and the LCD signal input. This varies from screen to screen and, to the best of my knowledge, there are no known converters around. I'm looking into the DVI output of better video cards (such as the ATI Radeon All in Wonder) to see if some LCDs have suitable inputs to allow this communication. I'm not holding my breath, however, as I really doubt I'll be able to figure it out myself with the tools I have such as a 100MHz HP digital storage CRO, logic tester and multimeter.....

[VHDREAMS]

Ive been thinking abt the same thing for a while, and wouldnt it be better to run it all from dos? making the computer faster and not having to load all the crap at the start,

would there be anyway to get signals from the engine to read in the computer? like speed, temps, pressures etc, and perhaps evern real time engine tuning?
if you could do some programming it would be pretty decent....

also how are you powering it? does your computer run straight from the battery? or do you recharge the battery?

[Com_VC]

Originally posted by VHDREAMS
Ive been thinking abt the same thing for a while, and wouldnt it be better to run it all from dos? making the computer faster and not having to load all the crap at the start

I don't think you could play DVDs from DOS :(

[tandy ass]

Originally posted by VHDREAMS
Ive been thinking abt the same thing for a while, and wouldnt it be better to run it all from dos? making the computer faster and not having to load all the crap at the start,

would there be anyway to get signals from the engine to read in the computer? like speed, temps, pressures etc, and perhaps evern real time engine tuning?
if you could do some programming it would be pretty decent....

also how are you powering it? does your computer run straight from the battery? or do you recharge the battery?

This has been discussed in the engine management section but briefly-

There would be no way to achieve accurate signal timing using the available ports - the fastest would be USB or perhaps Firewire if the laptop has it, then you'd have to design your own custom interface and program it to work. You could easily get an engine started and running but would have a very difficult time getting it accurately tuned because of the latency of the ports and operating system. Imagine flooring it and suddenly a lot of boost is created, the computer desperately needs to retard the timing and inject more fuel to avoid knocking and all of a sudden the operating system wisely decides it's more important to call the "thrash hard drive heads for 6 seconds" subroutine, all the while your engine dies, computer ignores incoming signals and pauses while outputting data.

Yes, for engine management, a basic DOS system would be appropriate as long as the program will run in real mode (640k, or perhaps 560K with a few device drivers and a disk cache installed) and is able to page a maximum of 16mb of extended memory. These are the limits of real mode otherwise you need to enter protected mode so unless you're comfortable programming using something like DOS 4GW DOS extender or in a simple OS/2 environment or Linux then a Windoze platform is very much out of the question for stability reasons.

Another thing is to do with the latency of the cards - You would have to make a direct interface to the PCI bus, create a device driver for your interface to support the operating system in question and then code the program to run it.

Not quite as easy as saying "just get an x86 based computer to run your engine".

Remember, DOS has to be loaded as well, its not in the ROM BIOS of the computer...

[BulFrog]

A little side note on this, anyone know where I can get a 12V/5V/-5V/-12V regulator? I need to ensure a constant supply to a board to run my mp3/dvd player and dont want to go through the process (and cost) of getting an inverter.

I have seen a number of sites with semi plans and diagrams on building one but I would prefer not to go down that path if I dont have to.

[Datto-Zed]

Rads63: Check out THIS (http://board.performanceforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7746) thread from a few months back. There were lots of good ideas being tossed around in there.....and quite a few of us are from Townsville too. :)

[KDog]

Your best bet is to use an inverter. You cannot use voltage regulators to get you +12V rail. Your voltage from your alt would have to be above 15v to use a 12V regulator.

You can use a linux distribution as your OS. Faster and more reliable than DOS. There is even a specific distribution written purely for incar MP3 boxes! Can't remember the name of it though. It even has built in drivers for many keypads and LCD displays which will make running everything a breeze. Maybe find the MP3 incar forum and check there, they hould know what it is.

[FJCOOP]

Mate i just got a r33 with a NTSC tv. Battery in boot.

This is my Mission

I am going to build a wooden box and mount it next to the battery with a gforce 2 mx 200 64 mb with tv out. Fasten the video card and sound card and dvd decoder card and tv tuner card / capture card to the motherboard with brakets which i will have to make up.

I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A MOTHERBOARD WITH TV OUT BUT I CANNOT FIND ONE. none of my suppliers have one.

So i am going to run a UPS and 12 to 240v (you can use a cheapie because motherboards and hard drives use stuff all power) a power supply externally without a computer case. I was thinking of running step down transformers instead of a power supply BUT being a computer engineer and knowing that any slight problem with power voltage will cause the computer to crash which is not a good thing.

So i have a pentium 3 600 which should go in there. Only bad thing about tv out is if the computer dont post your screwed till you get a monitor. you wont get display untill your into windows.

But think of the things you can do ? get I/R and a nokia phone and browse the web, setup USB camera's around the rear of the car so you can see if your going to hit anything. its endless.

Write a program to ring your phone if the alarm goes off!!

Anyway I just hope the 8" TFT will handle 640x480!!!!

Later

[Datto-Zed]

Sounds like you'll have a pretty sweet set up there FJCOOP. ")

Read the thread I posted the link to above, there's heaps of ideas for things you could do once you have a computer in the car.

Imagine all the things you could do with voice recognition! :D

[tandy ass]

I have one acronym for your GeForce2 MX200 with TV out running Windows in your car:

BSOD!

[Evo_Lee]

Originally posted by Rads63
What do you think about exposing the screen to the temps and conditions (UV rays) of a car cabin, would you expect a rapid break down of the screen ?

To answer the question about the screen operating temperature, the laptop screen probably won?ft be able to handle the cabin temperature. A car sitting out in the sun all day can have cabin temperatures as high as 70-80 degrees. What you will notice is that screen operating temperatures are around 35-40 degrees generally, if it exceeds this temp the screen will start to change to its liquid form thus name given LCD, liquid crystals displays. From its crystal form to liquid form the screen will display nothing because the crystal are out of phase and if your lucky when the temperature drops back below 35-40 degrees the crystal may align back into phase and the screen comes back online. If this constantly happens you?fll quickly degrade the life of your screen, also all the vibration in the car probably won?ft see the screen work too long. There are industrial built screen and touch screens available which can handle up to 60 and storage up to 80 degrees but even their life isn't guarantee by the maker if constantly exposed to that sort of temperature.

In my line of work we design monitoring and control system using a LCD touch screen. The computing power all depends on what the application. Always mount the CPU unit in a well ventilated location helps cooling and easy maintenance. To keep the screen cooler keep the display controller including the power supply away from the screen, don?ft install it under the screen as heat rises. If the car is parked in direct sunlight, run the air con to rapidly drop the cabin temperature if the car has been sitting in the sun for a long time, use shades and tinted windows help.

Word of advise mount the screen away from direct sunlight. 1.) its helps preserve the screens operating life as mentioned (industry built ones are only guaranteed 3 years when used daily for 24 hours). 2.) it?fs a bitch if trying to read the screen when you have light reflected off it.

Evo_Lee

[Datto-Zed]

Evo_Lee: I've seen first hand what happens to LCD's when you expose LCD's to high temperatures. My question is, how/why do the LCD's in headunit/TV's and sat nav systems handle the heat?

[Evo_Lee]

Datto-Zed: Good question, I’m not a LCD manufacturer or expert but from my experience the end result is the same, exposed to high temperatures and operations will eventually degrade the operational life cycle which is continous use for about 30000 hours or roughly 3 years (24 hour use).

I think they must have better quality crystals which have higher melting point, the best being 80 degree at the moment as mentioned. LCD head units such as the Pioneer EL-Organic screens have some kind of UV film protection yet still enable the polarising light to enter and do their job (a LCD is a passive device, that is an LCD does not generate light but rather manipulates the ambient light around it.) While dash TVs, the ones I have seen here have a silver reflective cover placed on the TV when not in use, similar to windscreen shade material we use keep the heat out, else they fold away in the dash. Also I think a mono colour screen has different crystal to multi colour screens, thus different operating characteristics.

Honestly in my experience, with the precaution I mention you should see a good quality LCD last up to 5 years. What generally happens is the screen will only live as long as care is taken.

[BulFrog]

just completed the next phase of my project, built two regulators to take in 12V DC and one outputs a steady 5-5.6V and one to ouput a steady 12V. Got all the parts ready to place in a box (a cheap-o mp3/dvd/vcd player) to mount in the dash, just trying to work out the best layout pattern now.

[tandy ass]

Originally posted by BulFrog
just completed the next phase of my project, built two regulators to take in 12V DC and one outputs a steady 5-5.6V and one to ouput a steady 12V. Got all the parts ready to place in a box (a cheap-o mp3/dvd/vcd player) to mount in the dash, just trying to work out the best layout pattern now.

Is it a switchmode regulator? If not then what you are saying is not possible.

All voltage regulators will need a minimum of 1.6 volts drop across them to just get started (most spec sheets specify a minimum of 2 volts) because you need to acount for the 0.1-0.2v drop across the pass transistor, another 0.7v across the driver transistor and another 0.7v drop across the zener diode.

If you are outputting the 12v straight from the cars 12v line then dont expect the computer you plug it into to last anything more than a few minutes with the engine running till it frys it unless you have some very heavy duty and high value inductors and capacitors there to filter any spikes out. If you go with this manner then your computer will crash often but most likely not get harmed.

[avalonea]

hey . im kinds rushed for time but i thought i would give you my 2 cents.

dude that wanted a 5/12 volt regulator. i just used 2 from dick smith to run my cd player in my old car *just for a week* worked well and the dude the bourght it still uses it

as for the laptop , me and a mate who is a programer are installing a p133 ibm thinkpad into my car. he is still working on the software that is going to monitor speed revs air flow boost ect ect. its also going to play cd's mp3s ect ect. screen is going where my dubble din head unit is/was and we are going to mount it w/ adjustbull mounts. so that we can push back the screen and use this slide i found. its realy need and we dont have to mod the dash to much. as go's for the kb and mouse the intelle point will do fine for the mouse im thinking of putting it in the vioser. * over head *
we are still in teh planing stages. but should be looking at 2-3 b4 we install. if you have any idears or have any questions email me ;) jchurch@st-ritas.qld.edu.au

`josh