midiwall

Another toy in the truck? Yeup... But I think this one's REALLY cool.

(click for larger pics)

This is mounted in my truck:



It drives an XM receiver and knows MP3s/WMAs

(and there's a USB jack cut into the center console where I can plug in my mp3 player!)


Has WiFi support:



Has GPS support: (note the Lat/Lon in the left pic, and yes, that's MapPoint)



...an OBD II interface and calculator:



This is what's under the driver's seat to make it all work:

left to right: OBD II interface, USB hub (under OBD II box), AtoZ PC, power controller in front of PC, XMDirect receiver
(AtoZ has been replaced with a VIA M10000 - see links below)


What it all is...

• Hardware
  • VIA M10000 (1Ghz VIA C3, 1GB, 20gig, WinXP)
  • 7" Xenarc LCD with touch panel, mounted to the dash on a locking swivel.
  • XMDirect receiver (perfect reason to buy a scratch & dent!)
  • D-Link 7 port USB hub. Have to run it _powered_!
  • Kensington Bluetooth USB Adapter
  • Netgear 802.11g adapter
  • OBDPros OBD II interface
  • Holux GR 236 GPS receiver
  • M1-ATX Power supply/controller
  • Boost Mobile w/ Nextel i455 gives me on-the-road Internet and constant tracking via Mologogo
  
  
• Software
  • Windows XP
  • Centrafuse
  • WiFi Hopper
  • MS MapPoint
  • Xport3
  
  
• General info
  • MP3Car.com - THE resource for doing this!

The whole system's been out on two rough dirt runs and has done GREAT.

I tried doing this about 3 years ago but the technology just wasn't ripe yet. It is now. This took about 4 weeks to get to run somewhat smooth, and a weekend to install. There are still some glitches, but a lot of the UI software is beta so it's to be expected.


WooHoo!



update 5.30.2007: new GPS bug; new OBD II adapter; added Boost phone; added bluetooth & 802.11g

Bob_98SR5

mark,

SWEET

and my feelings too: a few years ago, the technology was not quite there in terms of "plug and play". lots of booty fab'g (word ive learned from our SE members) and that is why i didnt pursue something like this.

it looks like your system is plug and play. am i right? and mark, please tell me there's a write up for this!

bob

Tofer

thats sweet!!!

BT17R

Veddy interesting. Could you run a Firewire port for live video in to WiFi uplink (with conversion?) to make it smooth for www viewers?

SLC97SR5

Mark, that's rad! I'd like to see some daylight/whole interior pics. NICE!!

midiwall

There's gonna be extended babble on midiwall.com once it completely comes back on line. I didn't really take pics along the way, there was a LOT of trial fits, failed attempts to make a slider mechanism for the screen, a pile of cables ALL over, etc.

I'll babble about what ended up working and how it all works together, along with details on getting software loaded, finding the hardware, etc.



Well, yeah... Technically there's nothing stopping you from doing it, it comes down to "it's just about moving data".

There are a couple of thigs left to add into my system as well along these lines, and I may/may not do it.

One happens to be that most of the car front-end UI's (and there are a LOT of them) support using a Webcam as a back-up camera, and some support multiple camera feeds, and some support recording those feeds. It's all about having enough CPU speed to be able to handle a frame rate to the point that it's full motion.

Upload wise... There are a couple of slick tricks that people are doing. One is to take advantage of a company called Boost mobile which - if you keep an eye on their contract - will give you UNLIMITED 'net access via cell for $6/month. Windows will make use of this by seeing the phone as a modem and... you're on!

Now, that speed isn't the best for streaming but... If you look closely at the above pics, and wander the software list, you'll find an app I'm running that, umm, "has the ability to" help out in that aspect.


Well, there may be a reason why I took them at night. Actually, it's not that bad - the one major exposed wire is the lead for the GPS receiver which is sitting up on the dash. There's some duct tape holding it in place right now. It'll get tidy'd up, but I need to pull the dash to get the cable behind it. That's now pretty low on my list of things to do.

I also have to sand down and paint where I punched in the USB jack in the center console. At the moment, there's nice tinge of "JB Weld Grey" around it.



Thanks for the thumb's ups guys! I'm pretty dern happy with it all. In practice, it works very nicely, and I'll tell ya' - it's purty dern cool to be able to plug my H10 into the console and play tracks right off of it!

SLC97SR5

Who cares about a little duct tape?? All the great pioneer mods stem from liberal use of the stuff and JB Weld?? Need I say more...Great job Mark

marko3xl3

One Word: Gorgeous. You've done it again.

Is it zero gravity proof?

midiwall

whoops... i kinda's skipped this.

Umm.. I would say that it gets to be more plug & play every time someone does an install. The whole community is continuing to learn about what's needed, the quirks of running an OS off of a spinning hard drive in a vehicle, power (as in... "what happens when you turn off the ignition?), etc.

People are also learning about things like redefining video requirements in these small computers. Right now, this machine "could" play a DVD, and the UI can handle that, but man it's not real pretty. But that's 'cause of the computer I chose. There are MUCH more powerful machines than I have being installed into cars.


From the time I had the hardware at home, it only took maybe 2-3 hours to load the core software. But then dealing with things like virtual COM ports, _mirrored_ COM ports (for when more than one app wants to see a serial device, like a GPS receiver), then input things (mouse? keyboard? touchscreen?), power requirements (some screens are touchy about things like alternator surging), etc... takes time.

Like I said above, it was about 4 weeks to get it to a point that I took it on a run; it was about 2 weeks before I even just threw stuff willy-nilly into the truck, ran it all off of an inverter and went for a drive. Right now, I'm still tweaking about 3-4 hours/week.

So I'd have to say - no, it's not plug & play. There _are_ companies out there that will sell you plug & play systems for a decent chunk of change, but I think most folks here won't be looking for that - they'll want to piece things together out of crazy eBay sales... ...like I did.

To do it all again though is just like anything else... It'd certainly be easier for me to do this a second time, but there'll still be tweaks for a given system. Each one is custom...

midiwall

Added a daytime pic to the first post...

Churnd

That is awesome! I'm jealous!

Thoughts:

Bluetooth capability? Would make it easy to add on stuff like a wireless keyboard/mouse

midiwall

No Bluetooth... I grafted a USB port into the center console and have a small USB keyboard with a built-in trackball in the seat pocket. I carry a (very!) small 4 port USB hub as well. That lets me hook up things like my thumb drive and they keyboard to get data on/off the machine.

I thought about hiding a Bluetooth transceiver in an air vent, but the extra cost of doing that, plus a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse didn't make sense. You hardly ever use a physical keyboard with the system, so USB is just fine.


Each day that goes by I get more and more acclimated to having the system... It's cool. I got pissed at XM the other day, so I pulled put my H10, plugged it into the console and two finger taps later I had tunes happening that I wanted to hear.

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

Cool Mark.

But these days I just look at something like that as encouragement for a meth head to bust my window so he can get a fix.

Aren't you guys afraid fancy gadgets like that just encourages theives?

I mean if I was a meth head and I wanted to make a quick buck stealing audio equipment I'd look for cars w/ big screens on the center dash?

It is cool though! I'm just thankful these days to have a working radio.

X-AWDriver

Sweet setup;what kind of security are you running since that's gotta cost at least a hundred bucks?

midiwall

It's a valid point, and one reason whwy I would have prefered to put the screen as a pull-out from the dash. I worked on that mechanism for a while but simply couldn't get it stable enough.

Am I worried? Yeah... Am I worried enough to pull it out? Not at the moment...


I run a spark coil with one end grounded and one end on the frame. If the alarm goes off, and you're touching metal - you're gonna know it.

No comment on price - 'cept that _this_ was cheaper than you think, I got a SCREAMING deal on the monitor and PC off of eBay. Real retail is insane.


edit: i was rushed and forgot my smilies!

Tacoclimber

Awesome, Mark. You rock, dude. It's cool to see stuff that we saw imagined in movies years ago become real life.

Churnd

I found this link:

http://sysbuild.corsairmemory.com/report.aspx?id=5

Is that pretty similar to your install, Mark?

midiwall

Kinda'.. He's running Centrafuse for the frontend software as well, and it's the same monitor, but obviously I didn't do the build-in work, the PC I'm running has a lot less oomph, and my stereo install is pretty tame. (though there is an 8" Bazooka in the back! )

Blizzard

Very nice! Now I'm not the only carputerer here hehehe

Xenarc are good screens, far better than Lilliputs. Now I've a KL-301 In-dash Touchscreen and it's very nice hehe

David

Churnd

Sorry, I meant the actual computer itself... not the sound system.