With all the tweaking I've been doing to my AEM EMS maps I'm tired of having to lug the computer around. And I have a feeling I'll be tweaking things with changes in temperature for the next year...

So, I've been researching installing an PC in the car and a touchscreen LCD. Any recommendations on:
1) A touchscreen LCD that can display info and also give input to a PC.
2) A PC that can be installed in the car, and can be wired to go in and out of Stand By mode when the key turned on/off. This seems to be hardest to find, but I did find one company that did this.... I just forgot to bookmark it, so have to go buy another copy of Honda Tuning where I saw the name of the company in a full page add...
3) A GPS and software that can integrate, and is similar in quality the Garmin Street Pilot 3. I'm looking for as powerful an interface, and more importantly as accurate data.
4) Eventually, an installer in LA that can cut up my dash for the LCD...
5) Any thoughts on GPRS? I find this may be useful as there have been many times for person and work that I needed to get an address or look up some information, and didn't have my laptop, or didn't feel like finding the nearest Starbucks...

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary

 

www.mp3car.com will hook you up right.

I looked into a Car PC a couple months ago, and to be honest it's all still in its infancy.

For example, the Garman doesn't come with a gyroscope, so it tends to lag behind on position in relation to where the car actually is. This can be annoying when turns are coming up, etc.

And PC harddrives don't boot up well in cold weather, and will wear out faster due to the shocks they will take in an automotive environment.

There is freeware called MediaEngine that will help with you auto PC needs. It's available on the above website.

 

Thanks, that's a good pointer. Yah, I know it's pretty young still.

For the hard drive, I'm not too worried. If it goes I'll replace it with a harsh environment drive... Similar to the ones they use in the Phatbox.

 

Oh, and no AM radio reception, if you care.

 

Yah, I've been researching a bit. I'm thinking about putting an Opus ATX or ITX depending on how size works out with amps in the spare tire area. Then routing a DVD drive to the head unit area. I'm going to use an external USB knob for the volume for the time being, but eventually I'd like to see about making a USB circuit for the dash controls and some driver software to map the keys.

If I go with the Opus I can use Winradio PCI directly, which can do AM. But... it's more of meant for HAM radio type stuff. Or I can do the the Cadet ISA, but would have to use an ISA/USB bridge. For the initial I'm just going to do an FM board wired to the antennae, and forget about AM. If I find I miss AM I might decide to shell out the money for Winradio.

I just bought the Xenarc touchscreen. If I can't fit it where the head unit is then I'll see about cutting it into the dash.

 

Here's pics from my first carputer...my new setup that I am finishing this week has the monitor mounted in the dash and a new in car pc. I'll have those pics up in a week or two...

 

Couldnt you wire up a dvd player and nav screen, and run wires from the aux. on the dvd player to a laptop with rca connectors, and then put a wireless keyboard/mouse? I looked into running this in the range rover. You could place the laptop under a seat or something, where it could be removed and hooked up fairly easily.

 

I was debating putting a laptop in the trunk route, as I have a few laptops laying around. But I also want a touch screen as well as a wireless keyboard and mouse...

The other issue is I'd rather use a VGA connector instead of video in. I've never liked the fuzziness of using RCA video for displaying a windows screen.

 

hey what kind of navigation system can u hook up to that xenarc monitor??? i like the xenarc 7" screen and it would look hot if u could hook up the alpine dvd/mp3 player and some type of navi...

 

You can buy the Xenarc in 2 models:
1) VGA input
2) VGA and RCA inputs

If you get the one with the RCA inputs you should be able to hook up any aftermarket navi system to it that uses RCA outputs (which is all?).