NoUse4aSNx Posted June 2, 2010 Share Posted June 2, 2010 Hey Peeples, I have seen a few prefab PC's for your automobile and I was interested in throwing my own together from spare parts I have here and there, problem I ran into was the power supply. I really don't want to use an inverter, they are so inefficient and impractical. This would make a great project on the show, I would like to hear what options people come up with for the power issue in the vehicle. I have also seen an Eee PC hooked up to a motorcycle online. This would be great not only for pulling media from your home network to your car before you head out for a trip, but also could be used to monitor sensors from the vehicle. Also being able to use the vehicle as your wireless antenna would allow you to pick up a AP from pretty far away, like across the street in a parking lot! Let me know what you think or if it would be more practical to get these prefab car PC's. Thanks, Love this Show!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParMan Posted June 2, 2010 Share Posted June 2, 2010 This could be a interesting topic. just think computer, wifi, cell phone, vpn network always have access to your home network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoUse4aSNx Posted June 4, 2010 Author Share Posted June 4, 2010 Well I already know my way around my ECU in my car and there are cables already out there for OBDII to USB, http://forums.openecu.org/ is good place to look if your looking to play with your car computer and monitor sensors. There are other sites but I like this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted June 9, 2010 Share Posted June 9, 2010 Also being able to use the vehicle as your wireless antenna would allow you to pick up a AP from pretty far away, like across the street in a parking lot! Let me know what you think or if it would be more practical to get these prefab car PC's. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!!! Wifi(microwave radio) isn't the same as your old am radio. You can't just hook it up to a chunk of aluminum foil and expect to get any signal out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse B Posted June 9, 2010 Share Posted June 9, 2010 Hey Peeples, I have seen a few prefab PC's for your automobile and I was interested in throwing my own together from spare parts I have here and there, problem I ran into was the power supply. I really don't want to use an inverter, they are so inefficient and impractical. While inverters are probably the easiest way of doing this, it's a very inefficient process, as you mentioned. You convert 12v to 110v, then back to 3.3v/5v/12v again. I have seen many DC-DC converters, I'm sure you could find one designed for use with a car battery as an input. Ooh, just found something :) http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/powe...plies/car_power Those will all allow input from your car's battery, and all put out the proper voltages and amperage. Mind you, expansion from these is quite minimal (generally a molex or two, a sata power or two, and then a 4-pin CPU and 24-pin MoBo connector), so you'd have to keep the system fairly basic. Anyways, just my $0.02 :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redxine Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 +1 for DC-DC converters. As for controlling the car, if you want it to do cool things like roll the windows down and turn on the head lights, it'll need some kind of relay interface. But if you want to read sensor values you could interface to the GM port with parallel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalwolf Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 Ive been working on a carpc project for a while now. (garage is too cold in the winter) Ive been blogging about it on my site. right now im using relays wired to the parallel port for controlling the car but i plan on switching to FT245s. As for power, im using an inverter but i plan on switching to a dc-dc converter (hint: look up mastero psu). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoUse4aSNx Posted June 17, 2010 Author Share Posted June 17, 2010 (edited) Thanks for the ideas, I had already been all over google (dont know why people post stuff they found on a 2 second google search), was looking for new ideas which I found some in a great UK book, 50 auto projects for the evil genius and building your own car pc written by the same author. Its a great book series, search for evil genius books and you'll find the wiki for the complete series. Alot of great ideas in these books. Not promoting but it is worth a look. Edited June 17, 2010 by NoUse4aSNx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eovnu87435ds Posted July 17, 2010 Share Posted July 17, 2010 (edited) Coming from the electric RC-Car scene, if you want to power a laptop, or anything small for that matter, an easy solution is what we call a Battery elimination circuit. It is basically a switching DC-DC converter(switching=high efficiency) to convert a higher voltage(like power from the vehicle's main batteries) to a smaller voltage to power the radio receiver. A company called Castle Creations makes a BEC PRO, which is a $50 converter, that inputs from 4.8v to 50.4v(12x4.2v lithium polymer), and is has a programmable output from 4.8v to to 12.5v at up to 20 amps peak. not bad for a device that is 1.5" square, and would be able to power a netbook or similar setup just fine. http://www.castlecreations.com/products/ccbec.html Edited July 17, 2010 by eovnu87435ds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoUse4aSNx Posted July 17, 2010 Author Share Posted July 17, 2010 Very interesting, and very cool little device. That may be just what I was looking for. Thank You for the input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.