finished install: Touchscreen in Dash, Custom Carputer Options

[pittfirefighter]

Hey whats everyone think of this, just finished it before winter:




The flash/camera messes with the clarity of the screen and the gap in the last picture between the white piece and the rest of it is no longer there... I'm thinking about doing a how-to if there is enough people interested...

This post has been edited by pittfirefighter: Dec 13, 2006 - 10:21 PM

[Zimluura]

that's pretty spiff. the leds in your vents are really nice too.
as computers go i'm a gearhead. what hardware, monitor, and os did you use?

[C3L1CA]

that looks cool man. I kinda wish I did one of those

[azian_advanced]

i was thinking of getting a carpc but don't know jack about building one..
so yah, make a how-to if you can.

[Alex-UKSC]

A friend of mine sells carputers & they are awesome

[zachattack15]

Would be alot cleaner looking without all the white.

[pittfirefighter]

As for hardware, due to $$ restrictions, its just a laptop under the passenger seat with screen removed for convenience. Its a compaq presario with a few custom goodies and custom work to it. I'm running windows XP with Roadrunner as my front end (that's what you see in the pictures). 512 RAM + 160GB internal and 160 GB external HDD does the trick really nice.

As for building the actual carputer (which soon to do with appropriate funds), this is an excellent write up and very nice system to use in the car for a balance or performance and price...
MP3car forum

This post has been edited by pittfirefighter: Dec 8, 2006 - 10:07 AM

[K-ESD]

Yay !! Annother carPCelica !!!

It sure by far the best i.c.e. system you can get, nothing beats the versatility of a PC.

We should team up on that "how-to", I got lots of tricks up my sleeve.
PM me if you decide to do one.

[Zimluura]

nice man, i'm thinking of maybe getting a voompc case with a via fanless nano-atx board. and throwing some variant of linux (not sure what yet) on it with myth-tv for the interface.

what model monitor/touchscreen did you use? and is it hooked up by dsub, component, or dvi? it looks nice.

This post has been edited by Zimluura: Dec 9, 2006 - 3:40 AM

[pittfirefighter]

The screen is a lilliput 7" screen with specs to fit nicely in a double DIN slot, not sure the exact model, ebay has them cheap and listed as "double din model", the screen is connected to the computer via VGA for the screen portion and USB for touchscreen (everything is included). the screen also has two RCA video inputs and an audio input cause the screen has a small speaker located in the rear of it, hope you like!

[Nibbe]

That looks sweet. I also have screen in same place and it just looks like it has camed that way from the factory. I love it!

[K-ESD]

just curious, is there a reason why the panel isn't completely snapped in place?

[pittfirefighter]

If you're talking about the last picture where the screen is not on, that is mentioned in the caption... it was a test fit run (hence the screen not being on) and i didn't push the panel all the way in, its flush and SMOOOTH now, no gap... i think that's what you're talking about

[djspike]

good job
make a how-to if you can

Thanx

[eclipse_04a]

ok, ill ask questions here instead of pming you... didnt know there was a recent topic about it (gotta love that search button)

You should make a how-to on this. Its really not a bad price for that monitor, about $200 on ebay.

Out of curiosity, what would you normally use to run this if you dont want to have a designated laptop? i guess which would be the cheaper option? to actually have a small computer built into your car, or to have an old laptop?

Either way im still interested in what you would use for the main computer. Also, where do you get the program you have displayed? did it come with the monitor?

[pittfirefighter]

The display program is called RaodRunner and is freeware online for Windows XP. I used a laptop cause it was a lot cheaper, I bought an old laptop on Ebay for about $150 after shipping while a carputer would cost about $600 to do it right. The laptop is a little slow at times but is more than sufficient for what I use it for, maybe soon I will upgrade if i have the funds. Check out www.mp3car.com for more info esp. about Roadrunner since the creator is a member there.

[eclipse_04a]

yeah, I've been on that site consistently since the link was posted.... so much info to take in... a lot like when i joined this site just before i bought my celi learning about them. Thanks for all the info Pittfirefighter.

[Hanyo]

The display program is called RaodRunner and is freeware online for Windows XP. I used a laptop cause it was a lot cheaper, I bought an old laptop on Ebay for about $150 after shipping while a carputer would cost about $600 to do it right. The laptop is a little slow at times but is more than sufficient for what I use it for, maybe soon I will upgrade if i have the funds. Check out www.mp3car.com for more info esp. about Roadrunner since the creator is a member there.

the creater is a member here?

[cnelson]

Ok, i'm thinking about doing what you did, i put out 220 bucks for a little in dahs 3.6 dvd player that i don't even really like anyone and i had to trim the dash to even get it to fit. So how much would i need to what you did? Like money wise? And how hard was it to do? Was it well worth it? Like would i be able to use GPS/DVD/MP3 everything a computer does? -cnelson.

If i decieded to do this, could you walk it though for me like you did with my vents? Also what was the total cost of everything?

This post has been edited by cnelson: Jan 11, 2007 - 9:18 PM

[kamax]

very nice, how much did the lcd set you back and what kind is it? i've been meaning to do it, but never really found a good touch screen for it.