ckny

iTrader: (7)

Thanks! I'm going to get some more screen shots up soon. One of the things I hate when looking for new head units or video screens etc is that no one ever shows all the different screens to see what it looks like!

symalik

iTrader: (4)

what music player is that? nice setup

ckny

iTrader: (7)

The software is Road Runner (http://www.rrdownloads.net). It's an open source Front End. For music it uses Winamp for playing and visuals and mplayer for video. It embeds many programs like the Winamp visualization window and the GPS window.

The skin for Road Runner is called Freedom 2.1. It's flash based and insane. =)

Mikey-Z

iTrader: (2)

How's the freedom skin in terms of speed/functionality/stability btw? How's it compare to the default skin?

I got used to the BMV(??) aluminum brush skins that I when I finally got everything integrated, I lost motivation to look into other skins...

To the guy asking about difficulty:

I'd say hardware was the easiest part of all the installs. If you'd rather not deal with the micro-atx/cpu combos, and you can afford a little bit more space for the install or just want the added power/flexibility you get with a typical mobo setup, you can build a decent comp; mini-itx; low power consumption; etc. and put in an opus 200w dc/dc power supply and you should be good to go. Some of the higher rated powersupplies may cost up to twice as much as another one; but it's one of the key components on a car pc.

I used existing/older comps on a lot of installs to save money and they ran just fine - mine is running on a barton m, full-atx nforce 2 chipset mobo (Soundstorm audio baby! <3 real-time output in dd5.1) and I haven't gotten into any hardware-related problems

Software and integrating everything is where it gets tricky though. The base install of most front ends will get you by if you just need audio/video/mp3 and GPS; when you start adding components little irritating things will come up that you will need to address (screens not formatting right; certain pages flashing; losing focus on a certain screen; etc.). Again, like my man here mentioned - mp3car.com has a forum with about every problem ever encountered and then some. Really good source for info.

ckny

iTrader: (7)

Mikey - Freedom rocks. It seriously blows away the other skins, BMV included. There's a few things I'm waiting for like GPS Gas Finder and Sirius but it's so sweet. On my Via c7 it isn't instantly responsive but it isn't slow enough to make it a pain to use. Honestly the trade off is worth it by far. It should fly on your computer.

Mrpeepers

this blows KITT out of the water....i wish i was good with electronics

xNeo

I'm new at this and I understand everything except, how do you power on/off the pc? Do you need to convert to DC, if not how do you tap into the power? Also if you shut the car off does it shutdown, go into stand by? Well I guess my question is how does it get powered and how does it work?

JokerDev

iTrader: (43)

Check out mp3car.com. There are DC-DC power supplies available, so you don't need an inverter. They connect much like an amp with power, ground and switched wire. The power supply tells the comp what to do eg. after 5 mins, standby, after 10 mins hibernate etc.
Go to the website and check out the DSATX, M2ATX, Opus power supplies etc, and read the power supply forum

tekk

nice skin, but why not just use centrafuse?

ckny

iTrader: (7)

I'm using the m2-atx dc -dc power supply/controller. It runs around $80. Here's how it works... It takes 12v from the battery, switched 12v (from amp turn on wire) and ground. It then outputs that to usable constant 12v to the computer components, along with 5v and 3v. The reason you can't just wire the computer to the battery is because there are so many variations in power in a car. For instance, you may be running 14v while driving, less while cranking, the computer doesn't like to see all of that. Basically the m2-atx replaces your power supply - it has the atx plug for the motherboard and a couple molex plugs which plug into hard drives, dvd drives, etc.

The other good thing about it is that it's a startup/shutdown controller. Basically when it gets power it starts up the computer. The computer takes about 40 seconds to load to music. When I shut off the car, the controller puts the computer into standby. The controller will keep the computer in standby for 2 hours. After 2 hours, if I haven't turned the car back on, it does a hard off. Standby for 2 hours won't affect the battery but leaving it like that overnight might so hence the hardoff. It's great because if I park the car to run into a store, or gas or even running into class for an hour, when I come out it starts up pretty much instantaneously. No waiting for it to boot. How long it keeps the computer on before a hardoff is all configurable through jumpers on the m2-atx. Hope that answered your question!

ckny

iTrader: (7)

I played with CentraFuse and it's nice but Road Runner has so much more customization possibility and seems like people are making new plug ins for it every other day. Also, if a better skin comes along I can just select it and I'm done. I also *think* road runner embeds iguidance better than centrafuse although I'm not 100% on that. I'm using iguidance for my navigation so obviously that's important to me.

BhashaZ

iTrader: (18)

Nice! How is your display? I think I'm going to upgrade to a transreflective screen. I am currently using the Xenarc 700TSV and it gets washed out in direct sunlight. At night it's great, and most of the day it's good too. Just that when sunlight hits it, the visibility starts diminishing.

Also, do you have any issues with your 700TSV reverting back to a brightness of 33? Mine randomly reverts back to a brightness of 33 (sometimes) even though I set the brightness to 60. It seems to happen like every other time or so. I thought the problem was the fact that I originally had the Xenarc wired directly to a 12V, but now that I am powering off my Opus PSU, it still does the same thing. Just wanted to see if you were having the same issue.

jtabraham

iTrader: (46)

ckny - you answers have been so detailed, I think you could do a great job if you decided to do a complete write-up for your entire PC creation/installation!

Mikey-Z

iTrader: (2)

Are they doing transflective for Xenarc screens yet?

Last I checked it was only for the lilliputs. I figure, why do it for an inferior screen when I'm sure they'll eventually do it for the much better screen.

That's what stopped me from mounting one on the stock radio location and going dual ts. Without the shade of the cubby, daytime visibility on a regular touchscreen in that location would look like $#it. And it would definitely look off if you had a transflective in the stock location and a non-transflective in the cubby =p

BhashaZ

iTrader: (18)

Yes I believe they are. But it's expensive. I'm thinking of doing it soon. I emailed them for a quote. Here's the website: http://fpdgroup.com/pages/technology...e-displays.php

ckny

iTrader: (7)

Thanks, things change so often with hardware and stuff that it would probably get outdated but I've been getting a few PM's and I might post some of the stuff in here. We'll just keep everything in this thread. Post your Q's!

ckny

iTrader: (7)

I do have the issues with direct sunlight. It's not HORRIBLE but down the road as transreflective screens become cheaper I will consider it.

I do not have any brightness isues though. Sounds like you might have a bad unit?

hagar2sail

iTrader: (2)

I'm trying to do the exact same thing with my Z. I have a xenarc 700TSV and the 2003 cubby, which I am going to use to put the screen in (duh). I was wondering how you mounted your screen? I have seen a bunch of Z's with xenarcs in the pocket, but noone ever says how they mounted it. I am at a loss at how to mount it without it wanting to fall in when you touch it. I should also say that I am experienced with building computers, but have done little modding, and never something like this to my car, so if the ans. is obvious sorry.

HyperSprite

iTrader: (6)

I used zip ties on mine
http://www.hypersprite.com/auto/tech-z-007/default.asp

Chris

ckny

iTrader: (7)

The answer is not obvious so don't worry about that... it took me a little while to figure out how to mount the 700tsv perfectly. Like you I scoured the sites for info but couldn't find too much on mounting this in the 03 cubby. I'm going to try to explain how I did it, unfortunately I never took pictures of this process and wish I had but let's see if I can explain it from memory.

Here's a picture of the 700TSV.


The casing consists of a front (silver) and back (black) which are held together with screws from the back. The first thing I did was remove the casing by unscrewing the back panel. When you remove it you'll see the screen's board and stuff. The actual lcd screen and it's components are screwed to the silver casing as well. Unscrew it and gently remove the whole LCD part as a unit, being careful to keep it together as one because there's a few delicate peices that look like they can be easily broken.

Now, the 700TSV is too wide to fit in the 03 cubby fully encased. I didn't want to mount just the LCD screen and it's various parts because I didn't think I could safely mount it and also it doesn't fit very well as then it becomes a little too small. What I did was dremel off the sides from the front of the case. Again, I wish I had a picture for reference but test fit the case and you'll start to see what you'll need to take off. Start with a small amount and work your way in.

If you look at the backside of the front of the casing (the silver part) you'll see four screw holes where the actual lcd part attaches. What I ended up doing was dremeling these in half and going straight down. That should give you an idea of how much I took off. It's a tight tight fit by taking off that much and although you can do more you need to have at least half of that screw hole available to screw the screen back in to. What I found was that by fitting the front of the case/lcd combination into the cubby (i left off the backside of the case) it stayed pretty much on its own. For added security I zip tied the whole thing through the screw holes the pocket would screw into just like hypersprite's webpage shows.

Hope that helps, just take a look at it and you'll figure out how much to dremel off and just take off a little at a time and keep test fitting remembering to account for the screen being centered.

If you take the screen apart and snap some pics of the front and back of the opened casing and email them to me I'd be happy to photoshop where I cut.