Car Computer - February 2005

I've had a hankering for a mobile computer - simply for the fact that I want to have one (aint that enough for any male?) and to extend the mp3 collection to the barovelli-mobile, have permanent wardriving setup, and the ability to NEVER have to ask for directions again.

Cheapness and creativity call for skimping and scrounging. Here's the project in the works:

Bought a case. Boy, this one looks like it will keep things secure!

Can't really tell but the front edge is not the height limit

You can better see that the hinge end is higher than the front edge.

First remove the intrusive and useless keylock. I say that because I got this cashbox for $7 since the keys were missing. With that Brinks name, it thought it would be a hard item to crack, I tried the bobby pin thing you see on TV, with the Swiss Army Knife for a lever (I had used that technique on a few desk drawers and file cabinets in the past with modest success) it would not budge! Just before I broke out the power drill, I gave the lid a good tug. It popped open. The lock disassembles and comes right out. There are two tabs in the lid that snap off after bending them a few times.

Mock up - VIA EPIA 600 and a 2.5" 20g hard drive.

Used a drive adaptor found in the junque box, and a round cable bought for $3.

The height of the board & components were REAL close in tolerance.

This scared me first, but I then realized the height issue above.

Still concerned about the height, there could be very little space left between the motherboard and the case. What was needed was an insulator. Thin but sturdy. Found this in Office Depot for a buck.

Durable Poly Material. Good insulator. Better than foil.

Trim poly to fit in the case.

Used paper to make up a template for the motherboard mounting holes.

Drilled holes using the template. Fit #40 screws and two nylon washers on each screw.

I cut out the port side to fit a custom grille/IO shield. Drop the motherboard in. I left room in the front of the box for fans.

Fasten with nuts. ahehh heh, NUTS.

Hard disk template

Template with mount holes

On the Mini-Box.com where I bought the power supply I bought a custom HDD cable - it has a 2.5" plug on one side and a 40 pin IDE plug + power connector on the other end.

This is for a lower profile than the circuit board thing from the junkbox.

For now, the drive is on the other end of the box. Might go in the lid better with the low profile cable.

Measuring for a future slim CD drive.

An optical drive really is not in the plans for this project. It would just get dusty and fail. Any need for a CD would be either an external unit (mounted in the dash?) or via wifi.

These are the LEDs and buttons from a salvage case. There will be a parallel set remote mounted by or on the monitor.

The power supply - a 120 watt solid state unit from Mini-Box.com

Close up of the power supply. I may get the power adjuster and sequencer if I need it.

I replaced the '$15 Power Supply" in the Mint box with a 200 watt version - it's now very very quiet, and runs off the Kenwood PS-430 power supply that is for the radios on the desk. One less AC plug.

The power supply plugs right in to the motherboard.

Snap! its on.

Now to close the case!

Need to trim the lid so it can close

Here's it

Straight view. As mentioned, there will be a custom made mesh grille installed on this end.

OK, after all that fabrication, it was time to take a break and see if this would actually WORK. Here is the full accompaniment of peripherals. The computer, the hard drive, a USB wifi adaptor, a USB GPS and two 1' fans.

The fans. The machine runs fanless but the case does need to be vented. The CPU and chipset heat sinks get real hot to the touch, closing them up in the case will not be good for it. I just set them on the heat sinks for the test. Drawing 12 volts made quite a noise. Too much for this project.

To throttle down the fans I used a Zalman ZM-MC 1, a molex power plug to fan adaptor that lets you choose to run the fans at 12 volts or 5 volts. Running the fans at 5 volt to slow them down is better than using a resistor-type fan controller because there is no waste of volts. Using resistance type fan controls reduce the 12 volts to 5 to 7 volts by wasting the rest of the voltage in heat. More heat is not what I want, and low power draw from the power supply is smarter too.

Hooked up to the test station. There's NetStumbler, sniffing out the neighborhood wireless access points.

Surplus Computers was the source of this wireless keyboard and remote.

The interface is old standard PS/2 keyboard & mouse. I took a chance buying this, to my surprise all of the basic functions worked with no drivers installed. For all I know, there are no Windows XP drivers for this board.

Stolen from Highspeed PC - LEDs and a switch mounted directly to header plugs.

This is the first picture of the 8" touch screen monitor.. It's shown here displaying 'Media Car", a front end for auto related software.

Media Car's MP3 Player. I loaded 11gigs of MP3s, about 2300, on the computer. All of the buttons & sliders work by touch. The touch screen is interfaced on USB.

The GPS button brings up Microsoft Streets & Trips. 2005, the software that included the USB GPS receiver.

Mounted the hard drive to the case, there are screws through the case into the drive. This was the first time I could actually close the case with it running and not get too hot.


The fan bay detail.

Up and running, enclosed,

I/O shield-grill. - First thought was to cut a custom plate from perforated steel.Lacking the precision tools and patience to accomplish that, I notched the lid of the box to fit the stock plate.

The power plug was installed to the left of the shield. It snaps in. Putting washers under the threaded nuts for the VGA, Serial and printer ports secure the shield.

Airflow & Hard drive. Replacing the laptop hard drive with a 100g full sized drive boosted the performance. During this phase of construction the computer is operational as a Windows Home Server. The 7200 RPM drive gave better results using WHS.

The fan is a single 12v 35mm fan that is plugged into the 5 volt line intended for a floppy drive. Whit the lid closed and the rear shield in place the computer runs at a decent temperature.

Fan is mounted to a piece of perforated steel screen.

 

Still needed:

Secure the lid.

fabricate mounting tabs.

Find the perfect front end software - trying fuser-something. Media Car is slow to load. Is it the sheer number of mp3s?

Install in vehicle - 1999 Ford F150

To be continued . .