Car pc

November 01, 2021, 03:12:24 AM

Starting my car pc project. Gonna just mount it in the trunk, mount a small 3.5" rasberry pie screen where the stock clock goes and go from there. I have a old i-5 6500 mini computer I got cheap used. Hooked it up to a watt meter, and it pulls a grand total of 40 watts under full load, and as low as 5w at idle.

been a long time coming, and im excited to do it, even though its pretty pointless with android devices and stereos now a days.

Re: Car pc

Reply #1 – December 08, 2021, 10:06:11 AM

Will this just be for music or anything else?

Re: Car pc

Reply #2 – December 28, 2021, 02:47:59 PM

This is going to sound dumb, but it's mainly for music.

In about 2005 I was super big into computers. I saved up some money and bought the first commercially available mini-itx form factor motherboard. It was a 533mhz fanless computer with a built in dvd-decoder.

I was saving up $600 for a pop out single din vga screen, but the runs were limited and you often had to wait a few months between batches. When I had the money they were always out of them, and I sucked at saving money as a 18 year old kid.

I never got around to building it, and the place that built the screen got bought out and went under.

Fast forward 10 years, and my kids wanted a computer to get into Minecraft. My work was throwing out some old Lenovo servers and told me I could bring them home. I hadn't even touched a computer since I bought my first Android, it did everything I really needed at the time.

But I always had that itch, and now that you can get a raspberry pi screen for $25 on Amazon, I decided to go for it.

I also travel quit a bit for work, and often were running fiber optics for cell towers in places with no cell service. I'm dealing with court stuff from ex #2 now, and there are times you just need a desktop and a printer. I bought a laptop to bring with me, but it's really inconvenient to set it all up and carry it in and out of a hotel room and keep it safe in a trunk full of tools.

How I've got it setup right now, I have think client mounted in the trunk with a battery box and a cheap power inverter with a laptop power supply. Eventually I was to just put a 12v laptop power supply in there, but trying to find one that is reliable and quality but not too expensive is sorta annoying. The power supply I am using is rated for 95w and running stress tests, it maxes out at 40w. In general use, it pulls about 10w, about the same as a 2amp cell phone charger.

I am working on mounting the 3.5" screen where the clock went. I had to Dremel it out slightly, but it fits good there. I am running two full sized HDMI cables from the trunk tucked under the rear seat and under the center console with a single 3.0 USB.

Behind the screen where the clock would go, I am going to mount a powered 3.0 USB hub. I have wired in a power supply that turns on and off with the key to power the hub, then I am going to add a small USB 2.0 hub with powered switches for the screens and touch screen.

The basic idea is to use one screen and the HDMI for Pandora/audio. Then I have a larger 5" screen that I was hoping to use where the clock was, but it's a bit large and I want to keep both center dash vents.

But with that small touch screen I can play/skip songs more like a modern car stereo, then I am also going to use Bluetooth with a USB microphone to give me hands free calling through the stereo.

Then If I want to do something more task heavy, I have a USB touch pad and that larger screen that I think I am going to mount to the sun visor. The switched USB 2.0 hub will be so that I can turn the screens off when not in use without a blank white screen illuminating at night.

Definitely not a power house gaming setup, but if I wanted to, I could take my multimedia backlit keyboard and play Minecraft with my kids while I'm out of town, and even do voice chats with them.

Like I said, it's kinda pointless, I could do almost all the same things on my Android phone, but it's a life saver for emails, pdf, and if I wanted to, I could even type up and print legal documents if I get surprised with something.

All and all, it's kinda dumb but I love it. When I get finished with mounting everything the way I want it, I'll post some pictures, maybe a short video of it in action.

Re: Car pc

Reply #3 – June 08, 2022, 09:41:37 AM

Haystack, did you finish the install and any chance of posting some pictures of it?