New here, current project - Kaypro 1 mod

[gnat]

Oh yeah I also had a wireless card so I could download in the driveway.

[jdbnsn]

Very cool! I recognized the lillput screen from Paul's project Nighthawk. And yeah, we'd def like to see as much as you can show us about it, we have almost no car PC mods and this is something I am interested in. I used to go to mp3car.com all the time and read up on the how-to's. Someday I'd love to do something like this.

[SgtM]

The car PC has been featured on the front page! Good job gnat.

[gnat]

woah thanks! looking through my pics now so I can add some more.

Sorry I don't have any in progress pics of the box I made but it was made with simple speaker box wood, then vinyl and a couple alluminum plates that I hit with a sander to make swirls on it.

One very necessary thing I had to buy was a shutdown controller and a relay. When I would cut the car off the shutdown controller would send a singal to the motherboard to shutdown and windows would do a quick shutdown. It had a timer in it basically and it would disconnect the relay to the power inverter after about 30 seconds so it would continue to run after the car was off but would then cut itself off after the pc had shutdown. As far as I know they still sell them.

I moved my equilizer over to the glove box as well and thew in some kick panels with mb quartz components.

Here you can see the keyboard wireless receiver

This was during testing;

closeup

Like I said it was a touch screen so those little buttons you could just tap to play, or skip etc.

another

This shows the airflow

also painted the amp to match the car - or at least be closer looking in color

yes it's a mustang

[gnat]

Here were the qforms... questionable quality compared to some real kickpanels that could have been made at the stereo shop.

I ended up having to remove these and put components in the door because the kick panels were litterally inches away from the clutch. :/

[gnat]

Sorry here are the correct stats. I was working off of my shot out memory previously

1.2ghz AMD cpu
768mb RAM
Asus A7V mobo
Asus GF4 Ti4200
SB Live Plat.
80gb HD
6xDVD
Enlight 250w PSU
400/800 Inverter
Lilliput 7" TS LCD
Pionner 7400mp H/U
Clarion EQ w/Aux Input
Punch 360 (3 x punch 60's - 6 channel amp)
6-1/2" Kicker RS6 Resolution Components (front)
5-1/4" MB Quartz Components (rear)
8" Kicker Solobaric L7 Sub - Ported Enclosure

The pictures don't show it but I put the pinoneer 7400mp h/u in the glovebox as well. And the stats above note the mb quartz in the rear but they were moved to the kickpanels as you have already seen.

[gnat]

I can't find my 7" lcd to save my life and it's really bothering me. I might just have to order one of these 8" lilliputs to use instead. It has a higher res of 1024x768 and I think it will fit much better.

of course 10" would be so much nicer but I have to think realistically. I abandon projects quickly. This will just end up in the closet. lol

[BigJohnson]

Congrats on the feature. That CarPC is really nice. I have been thinking about doing that a lot so I can have a nice stereo and my whole music collection with me whereever I go. Why did you pull it out?

[gnat]

Thanks;

I got tired of my cdplayer/controls in the glove box and it's just not as easy as dealing with a standard stereo/mp3 cd player. If I could have had both the radio and the lcd in the middle I probably would have kept it longer.

I also later removed the pc and replaced it with a 1u dell server which worked pretty well. I had heat issues in the summer with the pc in the bottom of the trunk so I hung the 1u server from under the top side of the trunk(not on the trunk lid but under the rear window).

Finally it just lost it's coolness I guess.

[thrash]

next thing to do is WC it