wxtornado

There's a dude on 350ZMotoring building one specifically for the Zs who don't have the NAV option.

http://350zmotoring.com/forums/showt...&threadid=1119

rodion

Getting back to the power source discussion...
I'd like to have my in-car PC always on for several reasons:
1. Don't want to wait even half a minute for it to boot when I start the car.
2. Want to be able to connect to it BEFORE I start the car (for example, to upload MP3s before I leave the house)
3. Don't want to mess with suspend-to-ram or anything like it
and more...

So, has anyone considered using an UPS unit large enough to power the in-car computer at least overnight, hopefully longer? Would you say it's feasible?
Are there 12V UPS models?

I'd love to hear your opinions.

fisherprice

What about using a Sony Vaio U1 or U3?

zaway

rodion I think you are getting a little carried away, I mean what you are asking sounds cool but it's not very practical. Where are you going to put a UPS, how will you charge it? you battery can't charge a UPS very fast and in order for it to run all night and you uploading music and stuff will require a UPS the size of the car's trunk. I guess one good solution would be to get a USB hard drive, you know the key chain ones and use that to transfer files until a better solution comes along.

zaway

MannishBoy

iTrader: (1)

Heh.

ares

iTrader: (2)

thatd be a hell of a UPS, most UPS run about 20 minutes under medium load, of course over night youd be in power save mode, hd off, and all that, but still, not gonna make it.

anyway, so did I miss the thing on the switch that a picture was posted of? thats the last component Im missing. and if that thing does all that itd be way better than the plain old switch i was going to buy.

by the way, Im using a full sized ATX mother board, 1.6gig processor, 40gig 7200rpm 8mbcache hd, 512ram, gforce 4 mx integrated chip with soundstorm audio, and a 300watt PSU powered by a 300watt inverter. all matching up to a xenarc touch screen.

total cost is right under 1000$. and if all goes as planned, the whole system will be only intrude on part of the glove box. I am making a custom case to accomplish this feat. and it is pretty experimental, but if it works... well Ill be patting myself on the back.

so more about this power switch.

abz123

Rodion...
You can run a low power PC without starting the engine.

If price is no object and the car is parked in the sun most of the day, then you could look at a deep cycle marine battery/ solar panel/ charger combo....Install the solar panels in the floor of the hatch and the battery and charger underneath.

Ares...
Hope you're not gonna plug that thing in the cigarette lighter. Not sure what the fuse is on this lighter (maybe 10 or 15 amps)....I wouldn't push more 120-150 watts with the cigarette lighter.

Noise and heat are also a problem with the ATX motherboard and power supply. I see you are from GA...so I would imagine heat would be a serious issue in the summer.

rodion

zaway, ares,

If I need to, I can remove the spare tire and the jack - that'll give me plenty of room for the UPS (by the way, don't you find it ridiculous that to this day we carry those big, heavy spares in our cars, just like 100 years ago? And, the cost of the tire itself plus extra fuel wasted probably runs the same as what you'd pay for the towing... here I go again, bitching at everything in sight)
I don't think I have to go to such extremes, though.

Take a look at Electrovaya's PowerPad 160 http://www.electrovaya.com/products/pp160/index.html
My understanding is that a couple of these will provide 15W for about 20 hours. Of course, it's a pretty expensive solution at $500 a piece, but I'm hopeful that there's something cheaper out there. These units look pretty sweet, though! Look at the dimensions! They will fit right through the floor opening in the glovebox!

rodion

abz123,

Thanks for the suggestion, but here, in Michigan, one just can't depend on sunny weather.
I'll look at marine batteries, though.

I'm planning on using EPIA M10000. Actually, I'm still not sure if I should go with slower fanless board. Does your processor have a fan? If so, are you happy with the noise level?

mobilebuddha

ya know.. UPS.. that's not such a bad idea..

i think w/ most UPS, you can issue a "shutdown" or "hibernate" command once the UPS is on its own battery.

so i -could- potentially the following:

you start your car, turn on computer, it resumes where you left off.
you shut off your car, the UPS is now running on battery, it issues the hibernate/shutdown command and PC turns itself off in 30 seconds.

does this sound like a viable option?

w/ this type of setup you don't need a marine grade UPS, just any standard old UPS would do. (since all you need is like 5-10 minutes for a charge). last time i checked, a decent 500AV UPS is about 100 bucks.

question is.. (apologies in advance, i am a n00b when it comes to cars and electronics) can someone set it up so that when you turn on the engine, the UPS knows to get the charge from your Z and when you turn it off, the UPS knows to use its own juice (and thus issue the hibernate/shutdown command) ?

ares

iTrader: (2)

I think thats a standard feature of UPS, to save and shut down when power is cut, it does it automaticly without any change in output to the computer.

as for me and heat, I will be severely underclocking the computer in the summer as well as using one hell of a cpu fan, along with 5-6 case fans around the area, plus the psu, hd, and dvd will be located someway farther away from the mother board, as to split up the heat sources. basicly making the computer built to be overclocked, then under clock, and heat should not be an issue.

as for the USB bit tho, that switch posted before... that would turn it off when power is cut, I plan on powering the computer straight from the battery, through a large fuse of course, unless the inverter has one in it. also I think anyone drawing 60-300watts, should plan to install one of those "battery saver" things that cuts off all current if the battery drops too low to restart the engine. that way if you leave the thing on, or something doesnt work, you can still get home.

rodion

Two things I don't like about regular UPS:
1. 110V AC - I'd like to keep it 12V, no inverters
2. When UPS kicks in, its inverter makes a lot of noise (at least APC UPS Pro 650, which I'm familiar with, does)

abz123

I don't remember a fan on the 800 processor. There are two 2" fans on the case though...I have it in the glove box. When it's shut, I cannot here a thing.

What case/power supply are you planning on using with the M10000? I initially tried the M9000 with the 2699R case with its 55 watt power supply and it gave me some trouble on bootup. (Lack of power problems)

rodion

I'm leaning toward a caseless design, with the board in one of the mailslots and the DVD (slot-load) + HD in the other. I'm not keeping the mailboxes themselves (there's plenty more room if you pull them out), maybe just the doors.
One concern I have with this layout is that it'll get mighty hot in the summer, since it's so close to the black plastic cover. On the other hand, this space was intended for the nav system anyway. Well, if it gets too hot, I'll try adding a couple of fans that will circulate air through the wire harness openings to the space below.

Power source - I think I'll need a couple of DC2DC units mentioned earlier in this thread, one for the board, one for the peripherals, to avoid the problem you described.

mobilebuddha

dunno if this has been mentioned or not..

but can someone comment on whether you can hook up a flashdisk to house the OS and also use a normal HD for storing mp3s?

that way, you can shutdown anytime you want, w/o any possibility of dataloss, much like turning the power off on a PDA.

I think you can run win2k + the swap space on a 1GB flash disk. in addition, as long as you aren't making mp3s, i don't see a problem disconnecting the power to the HD when you shutoff the car.

what do you think?

ares

iTrader: (2)

lost me on that one, I sorta followed, but are you talking about solid state drives? cause their uber expensive. and not real big anyway. operating systems these days are getting pretty large...

I am going to mount my DVD rom in the passenger side mailbox slot, make a nice panel, and keep the door so it can be hidden, nissan did the hardest part for us, giving us the door to conceal the screen, so I dont want to start hanging computer components out for someone to see. so along with the dvd rom, I am going to put a series of other ports, such as ethernet, usb, audio ports for headphones perhaps, basicly whatever I feel like, itll just be my area to interface with the computer, and close the door and its hidden.

ares

iTrader: (2)

Ive been asking some question on another forum, and someone told me this.

that mean anything to anyone? can we do that? itd be pretty sweet if you could seek using the stereo.

rodion

I like the idea of using solid state USB storage for OS - certainly better than keeping it on a hard drive given the extreme in-vehicle conditions. I'm planning on using Linux, and even 128Mb will go a long way if used wisely.

Scafremon

Maybe something like this?

rodion

Modern BIOS can boot directly through USB - no need for IDE adapter. I don't know if it's the case for EPIA boards - can someone confirm?