My In-Dash Car PC project

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Froley @ Jul 4 2007, 07:44 PM) [snapback]473197[/snapback]</div>

Thanks

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tyrin @ Jul 4 2007, 09:25 PM) [snapback]473232[/snapback]</div>

Never. Too much work. To little time. and I get too pissed off.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 4 2007, 10:01 PM) [snapback]473244[/snapback]</div>

1. What do you mean by trim around the unit? Do I need to trim something?

2. Why? SO I CAN WATCH PORN WHILE I DRIVE THATS WHY! Seriously though. I want to play my entire MP3 collection (currently about 30GB) and have internet access in my car. Plus watch movies,TV and play games etc...




Well I just got done transferring over all my music and videos. I still have room for more. I tested out my startup time when using hibernation and from a cold start to music playing is about 35sec. Not bad for XP. I might try to see if I can get it to load a little faster by disabling some crap I don't need. I need to steal some more music! If you come to hybridfest please bring all your MP3s!


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mrbigh @ Jul 4 2007, 10:44 PM) [snapback]473259[/snapback]</div>

Well thats kind of hard to do since most of the cables are premade. I dont have the right equipment to recrimp USB, VGA, Serial, Audio, etc.. I wish I did through. The only thing there thats going to be shortened is the Can-View cable. Right now its that big wad of telephone wire sitting to the left of the PC. I will be replacing the cables with shorter ones if I ever see any for sale.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 4 2007, 11:07 PM) [snapback]473270[/snapback]</div>

With any of my mods I try to keep the cutting to a minimum but I did make some pretty big cuts for the LCD and DVD drive. All of it can be reversed with only a few hundred dollars to spend on trim if that. As far as I'm concerned I will keep this car as long as possible. If I do decide to sell it I will sell it like it is and try to find a buyer that wants it as is. The next car I want is going to be a plugin hybrid that has about a 50 mile EV range or a full EV. So it looks like i'm going to be suck with what I got for a while. Or until i win the lottery and buy a Tesla Roadster.

 

I fixed the humming problem today by installing a ground loop isolator from Radio Shack. I can now crank my volume up to 60 or MAX on the Prius and only hear a faint hum which I believe is caused by the JBL amp. This is totally acceptable because right now I keep my volume set to about 25 and its plenty loud enough and there is 0 noise that I can hear at that level.

Now I'm going to work on my other small issues.

 

Found a new small problem.

If I have my switch set to the Can-View ( its set that way by default ) and boot the PC fully when I switch to the PC I get a "no signal" error on my LCD. I believe its caused by not having a monitor hooked up while the PC is booting which is telling the mobo or XP to disable the video. If I switch to the PC and leave it there until it boots I can switch between the two just fine with no problems.

My question is does anyone know of a way to fix this issue?

 

I did a little more testing and I'm sure its windows thats causing the issue because if I leave my switch on the PC while the BIOS boots I can see everything. If I switch back to my Can-View right after the BIOS finishes and keep it there until windows boots I switch back and get a "no signal" error.

Does anyone know how to tell windows to NOT disable the VGA when no VGA is present?

 

Well I think I found the problem. I think it was the windows update version of the video driver. (damn you microsoft!) I uninstalled the windows update video drivers and installed the ones from jetway. I then disabled the S3 system tray thing. I also just for the heck of it installed a generic 1024x768 LCD monitor driver for the lilliput.

So far it will boot just fine with the switch on the Can-View. When XP finishes booting I switch over to the PC and the video comes up just fine.

I also was able to get native 800x480 resolution by upgrading the BIOS to a new beta version! Now everything looks much better!

One problem solved now on the the others.

The others are...

1. Wireless b/g not connecting to my network. It worked when I had it on the bench I just don't understand why it wont work now.

2. I still want to get my DVD burner to burn.

3. I have a little bit of interference in my VGA signal. I think its another ground loop issue. I'm having a hard time finding a VGA ground loop isolator at a reasonable cost so I may just see if I can find the offending loop and find another ground point. This is really not a problem for me because when I look at the screen when sitting in the driver seat I don't really notice it and it. I have to get pretty close to see it and when I do see it its only on the PC and not the Can-View.

4. I'm sure there is a 4th problem I want to fix but I just don't know what it is yet.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(massimo @ Jul 23 2007, 08:57 PM) [snapback]483859[/snapback]</div>

I have not had a problem with it. The only real issue is the daytime viewing. The screen is very hard to read with the sunlight out but you get that with all LCD screens. There is something new I have been looking into called transflective. Transflective makes the screen more viewable during the day. Dont know much about it right now but if I ever do get it or find out any more I will post about it.

That issue with the gears breaking has been fixed with the new versions of the screen.

 

Well I bought a POL 5v regulator for my DVD burner. It seems to have helped the power issue but I still cant burn anything. Reading a disc works just fine but burning always results in a failed burn. My only guess is that the 20ft USB extension is just too long to send data to the burner. Looks like I will be stuck just reading discs for now until I find a solution.

 

After doing some bench tests with the same length cable run that I have in my car I can confirm that the length of the USB cable is too long to send data to the DVD burner. When I used a spare USB hub to act as a repeater I was able to burn a DVD just fine. Well almost fine. The hub was a 1.1 hub so that meant that my burn speed was hell slow.

I have a 2.0 hub in the car. I will try to see if it will act as a repeater so I can get rid of an extra USB cable in the car. I have an active 16ft 2.0 repeater cable on the way just in case the hub in the car wont work.

Another issue I would like to rub out is my ground loop interference in the VGA signal. Anyone know of any solution that will fix it? Does not have to be cheap but it is preferred.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(momanz @ Oct 5 2007, 10:31 AM) [snapback]521714[/snapback]</div>

Thanks I will try some different grounding ponts when I get a chance.

That 1.1 hub was just one I was using for a bench test. The one I have in my car is a very small 2.0 hub but I dont know if it will act as a repeater or not. I stil have to test that out but I did buy a good 2.0 active repeater cable from newegg. Its on its way now. I'm hoping the hub in my car will work so I can remove that extra USB cable.

I have not tried h.264 yet in my car. I'll have to chek it out sometime. So far my board has run great and with the beta bios I'm able to do 800x480 on my screen. They only issue I have is that when my car is 90F+ degrees the cpu gets too hot and starts to throttle down but thats expected when its that ot out. I have it setup to throttle at 75c and even then music plays just fine.