Saturday, August 08, 2009 - 08:40 pm, by: Ali Saeed(Ali)
lol my 91 had 98000km on it when i bought it about 4 months ago, and they were pretty genuine..so you never know..i think the 94 dash had outside temp displayed next to the time..
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 02:53 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
ok so ive decided im going to post up the car pc build in this section, cbf starting another thread and its easy enough to link people to anything relevant i may have in this thread
so here we go.. 1. inspiration for this build came from an idea quite sometime back, but after seeing the one for sale here on these forums that was built by justin i thought to myself.. hey! that aint so hard! so after a little stuffin around with trying to buy the one for sale i started out by finding a bit of 6mm aluminium and cut it to 18cm x 18cm ( just as justins build thread stated )
2. i then made a list of the things i would need/ like to have on this car pc. - dual core power = atom 330 cpu - decent motherboard with good amount of connections = intel with built in atom 330 cpu - touchscreen lcd = lilliput 7 inch touchscreen lcd eby701 np/c/t - good psu to handle harsh auto environment = m2 mini itx psu - bluetooth = mini bluetooth 2.0 dongle - decnet ram = 2gb 800mhz ram - decent HDD = WD 250 2.5" HDD - all peripherals must be sata or usb connection - gps receiver = gps usb receiver baud rate 9800 - factory looking = bybyte liliput 7 inch lcd double din mount. - dvd burner slot load = dual layer dvd durner slot load 12.5mm sata connetion - vga connectors male and female and 16 core ribbon cable from jaycar gotta love that 70% discount ;)
1st pic: here is the aluminium base cut and buffed with the motherboard already mounted. i cut the alum from the size stated in justins build 18cm x 18cm fits perfectly
2nd pic: to mount the board i simply placed the board on the aluminium and marked out the holes on the mobo with black marker and drilled them out with a 4.5mm drill bit. i then used some urethane nipples i had lying around. drilled them out with a 3mm bit and pushed them into the holes. i then used m3 screws and rubber grommets and washers and nuts to mount the board at the desired height.
3rd pic: 2 gb of ramming power!
4th pic: here is the base of the carpc next to the minidisc tv tuner that came out of the soarer.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 03:01 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
5th pic: i got impatient waiting for all the other bits and pieces to arrive so i mounted the hdd on the cpu fan and heatsink using some heat proof resin lattice
6th pic: here is the little 60W psu i am no longer using. good little unit just not what i had in mind, came with the mobo and 2gb of ram and 250 gb hdd i bought
7th pic: all mounted ready to fire up and upload operating system and drivers and other softwares
8th pic: fired up running windows 7 build 7022 to start with 32 bit. ran the 1280 x 768 23 inch fine.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 03:27 pm, by: Jol Alexander(Courage)
Looks pretty sweet. I follow everything except the power SUP.
Is 60Watts going to be enough to power screen as well as HDD + DVD? or are these all getting power from else were? Are you just finind a spare 12Volt and running them off in paralle?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 03:36 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
17th pic: here is the lcd mounted into the 20 gauge steel frame with infrared led re wired to allow it to be located next to the lcd in the frame. allows me to have full use of the remote for switching to front and rear video inputs ( for future night vision front camera and colour rear parking camera) and on/off duties.
18th pic: the small profile vga connector i made up, we all know how big standard connectors are so there was no way in hell the standard plug was going to fit. ( cheers to justins build log for the heads up with clearances)
19th pic: here it is!! all wired up running windows 7 build 7600 32bit resolution is best left at 800 x 480 as it looks the best and is quite readable. i chose windows 7 as it has touchscreen input built into it, so onscreen keyboard and all that jazz.
i have also mounted the 150W m2 psu, wired a momentary action switch for manual on/off, tested the ignition switched positive, spliced the lcd into the 12V rail off the psu so its all internally powered. ran it all overnight with music pumping and milkdrop 2 stressin the cpu, woke up this morning and it was still runnin with no hiccups. also off the psu i have spliced the remote amplifier on ground into the psu 12v ground set the jumper settings on the psu to off delay 5 sec and hardoff 45 seconds (off delay = how long the psu waits to start shutdown procedure on carpc once ignition is turned off. hardoff = how long the psu waits until it cuts all power to all rails , 45 seconds is plenty of time for the carpc to shutdown. this feature ensures i wont come to a car with a dead battery )
i also have a little sony box that came with the soarer that takes rca inputs and plugs into the standard toyota harness so i can still use the factory sound system.. for now
im waiting on my spdif out connection to arrive and slot load dvd burner and also the refurbished climate control unit before i mount this in the car. once mounted in the car i will take more pics of it in action. i also have obd software for reading off the diagnostics port digital gauges ftw!!!! not game to try the tuning software yet.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 03:40 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
i have also mounted the hdd under the mobo as its more stable. i found after giving the whole unit a few hard knocks to test it out the hdd when mounted in its previous location moved just enough to pop the heatsink off the cpu for a split second. not good. i used double sided tape to mount the hdd under the mobo upside down to allow the components to still be cooled. and the psu is also on double sided tape ( good that it insulates as well ) thats on the north bridge chipset heatsink and on the serial port connector. all is good and solid. no movement
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 06:42 am, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
thanks guys, i would like to start making them to sell but until i find another job, i cannot purchase the components to do so, i would sell them for 1100 or so. as soon as i get more funds then i shall let you know and ask for some specs you would want for your system
Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 05:53 am, by: Matthew Sharpe(Madmatt)
Onboard video 'aint too bad these days, mostly thanks to much faster DIMM's. VGA is kinda a pain though, you would think they would have started to phase it out now - would be great if they would put HDMI or mini DVI on low end motherboards.
Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 06:51 am, by: Justin Cook(Justin)
Awesome mate, very impressed I was always going to build another one Was waiting to afford the lilliput screen that works in direct sunlight from carpc but they are 600US dollars!!!
The sunlight readability was a big killer for me
Thanks for the kudos, and I like the aluminium idea. Also the lilliputs have changed, they had a whole bunch of buttons at the bottom before which required a whole bunch of stuffing around. Tried to put a DVD player in there, and I got it to work but was fiddly. Michael just filled that bit in when he got it off me, which was a better idea!
Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 08:10 am, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
yeah the new led backlight and transflective coating on the screens make them expensive ( stuffs me how LED's are cheap as chips and a coating cant be too expensive ) they are a lower profile too and carry less heat. i think i'm just going to try and find an anti glare coating for my screen. although you can just buy the LED backlight board from mp3car.com to convert your old screen to the new LED backlight. but you'd still need to find an anti glare film or coating.
no worries about the kudos mate. if i hadnt seen yours then i would have put off building one, your build log helped a lot mate
the lilliputs have the buttons on the side now. thats for the eby models. there are still the GL models that have the buttons underneath. both still have the ribbon cable and infrared led that needs to be relocated tho.
mobo's have come a long way in on board graphics power. i was just surprised how good this one was for 130 bucks! there are the new nvidia atom dual core mobo's out with nvidia chipsets and nvidia ion on board graphics, but they are around 450 new. that has hdmi and dvi out.
Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 06:29 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
ok fifa 09 runs pretty well. a little laggy but nothing stupid and annoying. command and conquer kanes wrath works well too installing nba 2k9 now.
need for speed most want/ undercover wouldnt play as it said i needed direct x 9c or higher which i have. so im thinking the file is corrupt. will try pro street next as well. hoping grid would work but something about shaders stopped that. lol.
Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 10:02 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
ok, so i received some bad news about my black beast yesterday. the guy i'm buying it from, his dad is the one actually selling the car but he is never around, so i direct my questions to his son.
ive let the guy know about my situation and he is only too happy to help me out a little. i have 300 to go with payments before its fully mine. but after he talked to his dad about my situation, his dad told him that i wont be able to get the car on the road unless it passes a malicious damage inspection. which costs 450. apparently he said he mentioned this to me, but i think otherwise as i questioned them about the car history before the purchase, i even checked on the net and annoyed them a bit with questions about its history. not once did i ever hear him mention this. so i'm a bit pissed off about this.
his son tho is willing to fork out the 450 and do the running around to get it rwc for me, and says i can pay him back when i can, i am thankful for this but as it was not outlined when i made the purchase, its kinda gettin on my nerves. the written receipt states that i bought the car in 'as is' condition so any argument i may have would be nullified.
also found some signs of the car being taken on a joy ride by the hammer thug, front drivers guard, underneath just behind the wheel arch the panel has been pushed up and is full of dirt. nothing huuge but dis appointing nonetheless.
i fitted my headlights and high beams today, as well as test fitting of the car pc to make sure it fits without putting pressure on anything else. all is good , still trying to sort out the sound tho as there are wires spliced into just about every other wire where the previous stereo was, a hell of a lot cleaner to look at now.
1st pic: my hks filter! arrived last week. thanks joshua mate!
2nd pic: mm mm brand spanky new
3rd pic: my boot struts also arrived last week. from ebay for 44 bucks fitted in 5 mins. came with good hand written instructions and two different types of ball joint head.
4th pic: pic of the glove box lid i covered myself put back in. looks as good as factory and soo much softer
5th pic: pic of split from hammer thug on my dash
6th pic: this is tims dash from the V8 sorra, i painted with satin black vinyl dye and sealed with tyre shine, came up really good, was a bit worried when after i painted it, the dye turned white, it was a cold night so i got the heater out and dried it with that. worked well but still had some white marks, tyre shine took it all out and the rough finish that it left. it is now smooth and sealed
7th pic: headlights and high beams in! bit of a mission, took most of today's time actually. 2 and a bit hours. i do have a question about the high beams, when i firts installed the lights, turned the lights on and flicked to high beams they came on, but i flicked to them again and they wouldnt come on!?? i read on the stalk that the settin is on 'auto' now am i correct in assuming that this soarer has a photo resistor diode thing that lets it know how much ambient light there is and therefore avoids the high beams coming on when its not dark enough???
8th pic: replacement center garnish painted black already and sealed, not a bad job either thanks ramyn mate! $10 for this also retensioned the spring that opens the ashtray lid. nice and fast now