StevieG's Car PC Blog

I"ve finally found the new case for my car PC, and it didn"t cost a thing. I found a scrap printer switch box, that"s about 15 years old, that is the perfect size for the car computer. Perfect in that it couldn"t be any smaller!

It doesn"t look very pretty at the moment, but that will change over the next couple of days. And of course, it made of metal so it will be fully shielded too, which has caused problems in the past…

First thing I did was gut the internals out – just a circuit board. The task will be to put a plastic layer over the current ends to tidy them up, after fitting the components inside and fitting the back panel. It fits like this…

To give you an idea of how small the case is, here"s a picture of the mainboard on top of the case. As you can see, the case couldn"t be any smaller if I tried…

To tidy it up, it needs a respray in a more suitable colour. The only colours I have are red and black in sprays and some silver in a tin. Most left is red, so the case will be red, with a big black mr2 carcomputer logo sprayed on using stencils. On the side, or front, I"ll be using the silver paint to paint on a "via" logo.

The spraying takes a while to do, as I need a few coats on to make sure it covers properly, sets and doesn"t crack. So it won"t be finished tonight! So far I"ve put the first few coats on of the red, and printed out the templates…

Well, the Car PCs been working great for little over a week now, so I"m pretty chuffed

However, still no sign of a candidate for a new case yet. A trip to a car boot sale at the weekend proved fruitless. Except for the fruit stall there of course I"ll be goiong back this weekend to see if I have any better luck. I"m after a Metal or Plastic with Metal inside case about twice as big as the EPIA board. One will turn up somewhere eventually.

Money wise this month I won"t be spending much on the Car PC as I"ve got to get the car serviced and had a few BIG bills this month. So the big stuff this month is going to be software. FREE software, and a redesign of the website.

I"m looking at using FreeBSD or possibly Linux as my backend, mainly because of the amount of customisation available. It mainly depends on whether I can input the GPS signals into a script and then call back a map file, and plot the position. If so, then I will be buying some OS maps and scanning them in (Unless I can find a better free map files graphics with longitude/latitude)

I really want to write a custom interface as nothing so far fits my bill. Basically I want to have at the top of the screen the car speed, and if I can get it working the RPM etc, in front of a mad 2Fast2Furious style background. Below that, I want to have the features of the system. I want my mapping mode, Video mode and my MP3/Radio mode. The last mode could possible have input from a webcam mounted at the front of the car (or behind) displayed. By using an open source OS, it should be a LOT easier to do this thanks to having access to the source code for the applications I will use as a backend. When I do the new website I"ll have some design shots for what I"ve got in mind to give you all an idea of what I plan.

I"m also going to re-do the website a bit as well, as the project has moved on a lot since the initial design. I was thinking about making a forum, but to be honest there are others about where most people already go. I"ll also be looking into compiling a step-by-step guide to building the car PC in a more easy to read format.