In-Car Power supply.

[st3ph3n]

Thinking about getting a little Epia machine to use as an MP3 box in the car. Anyone know if you can get powersupplied for them that will run off car electrics?

[Dg]

easiest way is to get an inverter and a normal PSU. Personally I wouldnt bother thou, just buy an mp3 headunit, ive got an Alpine CDA-9812 and it kicks ass. Lot easier to control than a pc would be as well.

[jsterling]

a certain place then sell 'mini-itx.com' powersupplies, has the very thing your loking for, its in their power supply sectioln

[st3ph3n]

Yeah, I stumbled across some incar power supply stuff that will be great. Kustom have the best prices and range on the cases and the mobos so far though.

Managed to source a 7" touch screen LCD that will operate off VGA rather than having to use a TV Out. Saves me having to work out a control interface too.

Current MP3 headunits are alright. The HD based ones are too small though, and I'd rather not have to burn off 50 odd CDs to cover my entire MP3 collection.

If someone was to offer a good hard drive based one that was easy to synchronise (something like the kenwood music keg would probably be the best) and was large enough to accomodate my MP3 collection then I'd go for that instead. But at the moment a little epia machine is the current favourite.

Still got a couple of months before I'm going to action this plan. So there is still some hope.

[brumster]

I must admit I've thought about this, and the possibilities are endless aren't they? DVD player... get some bluetooth in there and a GPRS mobile phone and you've got mobile internet, email.... GPS navigation (there's freebie mapping stuff like GPSylon), wireless LAN so you could sync stuff with home from the driveway... plus the obvious MP3 playing abilities. For ultra-geekness I'm sure you could wire up some sort of analogue I/O card to various car functions too... turn your Ford Fester into a Skyline in terms of logging abilities :D

[st3ph3n]

Heh, it really could be a geek's wet dream. I reckon about £400-500 will cover it all if I go for the VGA touch screen, and I fit it myself. That's also using my existing headunit with its aux input.

I'm changing car in August, so I'll need the existing stuff removed from the current machine so I'll take the opportunity then to install everything in the one go.

Pretty good site with a similar project and some links to specially designed software interaces here - http://www.letscommunicate.co.uk/carpc/

[Proplus]

You got get one of those Epia mobos which have a built-int PCIMIA slots, and fit one of those Vodafone red PCIMIA cards which do GPRS.

[Forthy]

Have a look at DaveMark's project, might help you out a little. There's a link in there to an intelligent in-car PSU that starts up / shuts down the PC with the ignition etc etc.....

two threads:

http://forums.kustompcs.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17426
and
http://forums.kustompcs.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17256

[st3ph3n]

You got get one of those Epia mobos which have a built-int PCIMIA slots, and fit one of those Vodafone red PCIMIA cards which do GPRS.

Or even better - the new 3G one. Although I can just use my bluetooth phone to handle the internet I suppose.

Coming soon to a PC near you - a dash mounted webcam streaming my drive to work.

Okay, maybe thats just taken it one step too far. Possibilities are endless though. I was having a glance at the other threads linked and I've got more links in my collection for when I build this.

Might consider the car diagnostic link too. Probably going for a Civic Type R, so I better have a wee look to see if I can do anything good with the data from that. Lower the vtec perhaps. Yes please.

[DaveMark]

for my latest project see here - http://forums.kustompcs.co.uk/showthread.php?t=33053

Dave

[Jay_]

Hi. I am still unsure as to what i will require to power the carpc. Could someone possibly put links up to the components i will need to power this? cheers

[DaveMark]

Hi. I am still unsure as to what i will require to power the carpc. Could someone possibly put links up to the components i will need to power this? cheers
if going with the epia route - i defiantly recommend one of these baby's

http://linitx.com/product_info.php?cPath=88_58_86&products_id=598

Dave