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Hi everybody!

Wow, its been a long time since Ive posted on these forums, I honestly haven't kept up with anything that's happened here in the past year or so besides the occasional lurk and post. But lucky for me its now summer and I have plenty of time on my hands. Ive honestly been busy with many things, but over the last few months I have become involved in the CarPC community.

Ive learned a lot about hardware and wiring in the process, something I told myself Id never be interested in when I first started messing around with DBPro almost 5 years ago. Luckily, I gained interest and the product is a (somewhat) functional CarPC setup in my first car.

The concept is that one uses a PC customized to run in a car (I personally use a stripped down laptop) with a front end (IE centrafuse) allowing access to Music, GPS, Internet, OBDII Diagnostics, etc.

Being that this is a community of nerds of all stripes, I figure theres got to be a few others who've read up on this or maybe even have a setup of their own. Ill be uploading a video of my setup to you tube tonight or tommorow. Feel free to upload yours!

I also have a question, Is their a simple utility which would put to sleep a computer after its been on battery for a set amount of minutes? I know it can be done IF the computer is idle, but Im talking about something that will put it to sleep even if there is activity.

A UPS generally has software to shutdown the computer properly when low battery is detected on the unit. You would likely need a separate device interfacing between the car battery and the computer.

You should take a look at this, it might be what you want:
http://www.mp3car.com/products/itps.html

What kind of PC is this? Are you running Windows? I looked at building one a long time ago since my radio at the time had A/V inputs and outputs with a 7" in-dash screen.

For in-car computers, check out mini-itx.com. They have small cases designed to look like small amps and such. They also have smart psu units to regulate the soft-shutdown for the PC, much of what I think you're looking for?
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=45

Mini ITX is way too big!

Gotta love PICO ITX

http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/pico-itx/

Now thats small

But yeah, I would only use one of those in an RC car. I reccommend Mini ITX Rather than stripped down Laptops for this job.

@Phaelex

Im Running Windows with everything stripped out both hardware and software wise, mainly so that boot time will be lessened. I have a boot time of about 18 seconds, which is something im pretty satisfied with.

@kaedroho

Holy crap, that's insanely small, my mouth waters just thinking of all the applications.


I know there is a lot of better options then using a laptop...but Im a broke student, I dont have many options. So far Ive only spent about 100 bucks on this system, And even thats alot on my budget.

Yeah, and that huge chip is the GPU. The CPU is the little tiny thing shoved to the side.

mini-itx.com also sells the pico itx boards. You could build a 1GHz computer inside a pop can!

I was planning to build a car PC in my grand prix years ago, had an in-dash 7" screen that I played nintendo on. But I traded it in on the jag which replacing the stereo in that would be a nightmare.