StevieG's Car PC Blog

If you look in the build section, you"ll see that i"ve got it in the car at long last, after a couple of day"s of messing about! I"ve also changed the plans bit of the website to reflect how it"s being done now. If you"ve never been here before and are wondering what I was planning before, the difference is I was going to mount the computer under the front bonnet (the engine is in the back in MR2s) and have the screen come out from behind a blanking plate in the dashboard. I cahnged my mind becasue the plans aren"t really practical.

Started building it. See the new build section to see what"s going on there!

Dave brought the old stereo in, so I"ve stripped that down ready to convert. This is what it looks like at the moment:

I"ve also decided on what I"m using for the case:

Reasons for using this are: It"s solid, protected, anonymous, easy to take in and out of the car, and has padding inside to help protect the components. I also had it hanging around, so that"s another reason.

I also made a trip to Maplin to get some of the wire and connectors I"m going to need:

So, over the bank holiday, I"ll have to see how far I can get with it all!

Still waiting on the metal case, my mate Dave forgot to bring in the old stereo 2 days running. Not to worry, as I"ve been drawing the first designs for how it will look once built. I was originally thinking of making the screen retract into the dashboard, but I really want to be able to remove the screen when I leave the car for security"s sake. You"ll see the plans have been updated to show the drawings. I"ve also decided on what the case for the motherboard/HDD will be. Stay tuned, it will be revealed tommorow. In other news my mate Mike H is trying to think up a name for the system, as KITT is too cheesy. So far he"s come up with TICC or something (Toyota In Car Computer) but I didn"t like that.

I"ve got the first part I need to make my screen flip out from the dashboard – A CD drawer…

It won"t look anything like the above when I put it all together, I"m just after the mechanical bits that make it go back and forward, which should end up making the screen come in and out of the dashboard. I"m just waiting for my mate Dave to bring in an old car stereo from home, as I need the metal case from it. Hopefully have that tommorow!

Welcome to the first ever post in my car pc blog! I"ve got the system all together and just installed Windows 2000. I"ve set it up on my desk and it"s looking good – I can"t believe how small it all is, and I"m surprised at the quality of the screen.

There it is – all working. I did have a problems getting the video out to work – you have to change the jumper for SP/DIF to Composite video – once that"s done your sorted (Thanks to my mate Dave for pointing that out!). Out of shot is the big keyboard and mouse that"s plugged into it, which take up double the room of the screen hdd, and motherboard!

You can see here just how small the motherboard is – that"s a single CD case on top of it, and the motherboard is hardly any bigger – in fact if it was 1/2 inch smaller all round the CD case might hide the motherboard.

I"ve tried to take a picture to try and give you an idea of the quality- though the camera can"t focus enough to do it justice. At least that shows that the text is readable on the screen though! All the icons on the desktop is the software I"ve downloaded that should make the system work…..