I put a computer in my truck

[SgtM]

So, I have a rather long drive to work. 50 miles one way. I have a stock AC Delco AM/FM/Tape deck in the truck. I'm tired of burning CD's and using a little portable CD player, and the radio stations suck anymore. So, I have a junk PC lying around.. old Gateway, PIII. I stuck a 40 GB hard drive in it, and copied a bunch of music to it from my main system. I also have a modded xbox controller (see my sig), and through a little program called ControlMK, I can use it on the PC. I set it up last night to control windows media player, volume, restart and shutoff. Controls are as follows..

A = Play
X = Pause
B = Stop
White = shutdown
Black = restart
Start = volume down
Back = volume up
Left Trigger = previous track
Right Trigger = next track

The PC will be powered by my power inverter, and will sit behind the pass seat. I'll run the audio from the PC to a tape adapter, and it's all good. Whaddya think?

Here's a screenshot of the ControlMK settings.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f186/sgtm_usmc/Truck_mods/cmk.jpg

[si-skyline]

haha sweet idea :) the thing i like the most is the spare xbox pad never would of thought of that :up:

[xRyokenx]

Sweet. That's a pretty good idea. I should also do that controller mod and get that hooked up to my PC, lol.

[NightrainSrt4]

That sounds cool. Sounds much better than your current setup.


I had a really good idea for you, so you would get MUCH better sound quality, but then I realized the part about the stock stereo so it might not have the inputs. Might not hurt to check though.

If you run a 3.5mm stereo to rca cable from the audio out on the computer to the rca input on the stereo and have it run on an aux channel you'd get soooo much better quality than a tape converter.

Thats what I did with my iPod. I ditched the radio converter i had for this setup and the improvement was amazing.

If you feel up to either looking up the exact specs of the stereo or getting in there and looking at it in person, you might have a chance for much better quality.

But you probably don't on that stereo, but even a lot of the cheap decks have them. You could get a cheap stereo deck that had rca inputs and you'd be set.

Just trying to give you a tip formuch better quality, but you most likely don't have those inputs, so i guess its a moot point.

Sounds like you found a nice fix to your dilemna though! Good Job!

[SgtM]

Well, in 1995, GM didn't think about auxillary inputs. Good suggestion though. +rep.

[Scotty]

:pics:

Someone had to do it.

[Xpirate]

Now you can set it up for wardriving.

[DaJe]

Whenever I'm done building my case, I should do something to my car. I have no idea what I should do though. But, I feel like doing something.

[Luke122]

The only problem here is troubleshooting... having no display makes it hard to sort out issues, and keep track of what you are playing! Also, you want to manually start the PC after the truck starts, because the aux power will come on before the starter, then be interrupted, then come back on after the truck starts. All those on/off/on's can nuke your PC! Also, when you turn the truck off, it's like pulling the plug on the PC.

I agree that the input situation might not be the best, but a tape adaptor would still be better than an FM modulator. :P

Very cool idea though, there's loads of info out there about MP3Cars and CarPC's. :)

[Omega]

I know Ford sells a kit thingy that lets you splice a 3.5mm input into your radio on 88.3fm, the sound quality is freaking awesome

I'd do that if I were you, the parts are about 50$, 120$ with labor, and considering you're a modder I bet you've got no problem tearing apart your dash

also, it should work on all vehicles, it's called TripTunes

just a suggestion

OR! Get some Logitech Z-5300e's, they're getting REALLY cheap right now, and set those up in your car

[SgtM]

I have an FM modulator around here somewhere. Not sure if it still works. It broadcasts an FM station, and you tune your radio to 88.1,.3 or .5. My inverted is connected straight to the battery so I can turn it on/off as needed whether the truck is running or not. I just have to be careful to not run it too long with the truck off. The wife is out with the camera right now, I should be able to post some pics tomorrow. As far as turning the PC on and off, that's easy. The black and white buttons on the right side of the controller keep the power/restart situation in check for me. Black restarts the computer, and white shuts it off in the same fashion as if you clicked on the start menu and did it with mouse clicks.

[Mysteriphys]

hey, this is probably far off in modders outer-space, but you can actually unsolder the tape players magnetic header and solder a stereo wire set onto the points if you were that hardcore about it, but admittedly, there are a lot of easier ways :-P. I went the fm modulator route myself.

[Crazy Buddhist]

This I love SgtM ...

The only thing I could see being a bit problematic is the hard drive being knocked around. Its not going to take much in a moving vehicle to smash the head into the platter - and the bearings are going to be under strain anytime you are not on a flat straight road, but this you could get round:

either buy a solid state disk (expensive but robust) or;

suspend the hard drive in a cradle of tough elastic strings in a frame that allow some movement but quite well damped. Also thinking you could solder/glue a powered gyroscope to the disk (heavier than the disk) to maintain it on the level and damp the movement allowed by the elastic like a shock absorber - otherwise the platter will act as a gyroscope itself and stuff the bearings pretty quick.

:)

ps +rep for being out there enough to have the idea.

[Xpirate]

The only thing I could see being a bit problematic is the hard drive being knocked around. Its not going to take much in a moving vehicle to smash the head into the platter - and the bearings are going to be under strain anytime you are not on a flat straight road

Hard drives are a lot tougher than they used to be. I used to "drive test" cellular phones. We had about six laptops in a van attached to cell phones. The van had no air conditioning and we had to use the roughest roads to do the test.

I figured that the bouncing and high temperatures of Texas in the summertime would kill those computers, but they would not die. The van would ride hard enough to shake the cell phone's cables loose, but those dang hard drives never died.

[Crazy Buddhist]

Hard drives are a lot tougher than they used to be. I used to "drive test" cellular phones. We had about six laptops in a van attached to cell phones. The van had no air conditioning and we had to use the roughest roads to do the test.

I figured that the bouncing and high temperatures of Texas in the summertime would kill those computers, but they would not die. The van would ride hard enough to shake the cell phone's cables loose, but those dang hard drives never died.

I think the design tolerances in Lappy drives are better for this purpose - they are designed to take knocks - that would be a third solution, to use a Laptop drive. It would surprise me if a standard desktop HDD will last long without some form of shock absorber - I've seen it done somewhere.

If you don't get the FM going ... seen some bad reviews of the Ford kit but this one looks good @ $69

http://www.icarkits.com/product_info.php?products_id=59

[Xpirate]

I still think the regular 3.5" hard drive will be all right. I suppose you might have trouble if you tried to access a drive while it is in a paint shaker machine. Cars just don't jerk it around enough to really hurt them. Computers are shipped with trains and moving trucks.

[Crazy Buddhist]

Yeah ... I forget not everyone drives like me.

http://www.freedomforall.net/landy.jpg

[chaksq]

Awesome idea. You should buy a purpose built power supply that can be directly connected to the 12 volt. The reason being that cars power current spikes and drops a lot. Also it is much more efficient to power the computer 12 volt directly from the cars 12 volt. Other wise your converting 12DC - 110 AC - 12DC, that also creates a significant amount of heat. Also some power supplies for in-car pcs are set up to turn the computer on and off properly when the car is turned on/off.

[Canadian Eh?]

ummm...big battery or truck dies....

[Xpirate]

ummm...big battery or truck dies....

Good point. The battery would drain quickly. I wouldn't run that rig without the engine on.

[crenn]

Maybe later on you should get a mini ITX machine with a DC-DC convertor.

[Crazy Buddhist]

Cars just don't jerk it around enough to really hurt them. Computers are shipped with trains and moving trucks.

Difference is a hdd platter spinning at several thousand rpm acts as a gyroscope and will maintain its orientation in space due to centripecal forces causing huge strain on the bearings and risks hitting the read/write head which floats a tiny distance from it. When in transit this isn't an issue. lappy disks are built to cope with shocks. 3.5" disks don't have the same tolerance and the gyroscopic forces are increased by the disk being bigger in size. Run over one piece of roadkill or hit a pothole and a disk that is fixed firmly wont last long I suspect.

[Xpirate]

Difference is a hdd platter spinning at several thousand rpm acts as a gyroscope and will maintain its orientation in space due to centripecal forces causing huge strain on the bearings and risks hitting the read/write head which floats a tiny distance from it. When in transit this isn't an issue.

I do realize that a non-running disk in transit is not the same as a spinning disk. But I still believe that a modern 40 GB drive like SgtM has will probably be able to handle a car ride.

One of these days when I have some extra time, I'll go get one of my oldest hard drives and violently shake it while I run defrag and let you know if it dies. I don't mean to argue with you Buddhist, but I seriously believe that the 3.5 will be able to handle the rough ride of the pickup truck.

[Omega]

And I beg to differ -- I've actually run computers in moving cars and heard the drive needle crash into the platters, it wasn't pretty

I'd go with solid state or lappy hard drive for automobile use.

[Xpirate]

And I beg to differ -- I've actually run computers in moving cars and heard the drive needle crash into the platters, it wasn't pretty

I guess I stand corrected. But I'm still going to get that old unused hard drive, violently shake it while it is running, and see for myself.

Might even post the pictures... :devious:

[Omega]

also keep in mind, I have found that brand matters

maybe it was just the drive, but maxtors ALWAYS die before any of my other drives

[SgtM]

Meh.. if it crashes it's no biggie. I have others that aren't doing anything. Diggin the ideas CB, +rep. The whole objective to this was to have a lot of storage space, and not really spend any money. Someone at work saw what I did, and he's actually bringing me an MP3 player. I gave him an old box a while ago, so he said this is just payment for the box. So, the truck PC will be removed here pretty soon. At least we know it can be done for the cost of a USB cable and a spare xbox controller.

[Crazy Buddhist]

One of these days when I have some extra time, I'll go get one of my oldest hard drives and violently shake it while I run defrag and let you know if it dies.

I can let you know for sure it will ... but if you want proof do the test ... only please - I beg you - ask a friend to video it so we can all have a jolly laugh when it does and you fall about laughing too :)


Meh.. if it crashes it's no biggie. I have others that aren't doing anything. Diggin the ideas CB, +rep. The whole objective to this was to have a lot of storage space, and not really spend any money. Someone at work saw what I did, and he's actually bringing me an MP3 player. I gave him an old box a while ago, so he said this is just payment for the box. So, the truck PC will be removed here pretty soon. At least we know it can be done for the cost of a USB cable and a spare xbox controller.

loooooooooooooooool ... I must say I was wondering why you weren't putting an ipod/mp3 player in hehehe but had every intention of encouraging your plan cos ... like I said I love it ... and was starting to conceive new add ons ...

1) put a wifi card in and allow start from LAN ...
2) put a serial port relay board in ...
3) start the PC from your cosy kitchen/office in the winter and have it fire uo the engine and heating on boot so you get in a warm car ...
4) everytime you go near an open wifi spot collect emails and decide if you want the machine to read them to you ...
etc
etc
etc

.. I have to stop ..... :)

ps thx 4 da rep-ories