Further Pictures CLK PC install

[craigyb]

OK, I'm a lot further down the road with this now, just auto shutdown missing and I'm back on an inverter cos the DC-DC PSU was no good. I will work on both of these in the future.

Here's some pics....

the car itself just at the dealers....

The PC mounted in the CD Changer slot....

Inverter fitted next to battery with cutout relay....

54Mb Wifi aerial....

GPS unit mounted on parcel shelf....

Dash all closed up.....

Keyboard IR and Power button....

Screen out of dash, it can be tilted and panned as required...

Media car running with Mercedes skin....

Playing some mp3s...

 

[pammy]

That looks really neat. Jealous

 

[samuelellis]

very nice mate

what model screen is that, it it a touchscreen?

 

[samuelellis]

oh forgot to ask whats the o/s running below the skin?

 

[craigyb]

It's basically a windows XP machine running mediacar 1.8.5.

The screen is a Panasonic rehoused by a company called digitalww. It is a 7" widescreen with a VGA controller attached and a USB touchscreen contoller and overlay.

www.digitalww.com

The keyboard is for backup in case the touchscreen doesn't work or I need to type a lot of stuff.

I've also got a USB bluetooth dongle behind the dash. no use for it yet, but maybe in the future. It will always act as a dialup internet connection through my phone if I'm desperate for web access whilst travelling.

Craig

 

[samuelellis]

would media car work as a skin to 98se as i am still using 98 se for my home pc (and a cut down version on a eden would fly)

 

[craigyb]

I think it works on 98 as well as XP.

http://www.media-car.fr.st/

 

[samuelellis]

cheers

ah well if itdont them im sure i could with much swearing get litestep to work as afront-end

 

[Tan]

Very nice set up.

 

[OGiii]

:bannana: Very nice :bannana:

 

[pluggers]

"WOW" :bannana: :bannana:

 

[mapleleaf]

well done craig

Puts us simple comand retro fitters in the shade!

 

[craigyb]

Cheers guys, I appreciate all the positive feedback.

This system of course will be on demo for the the Northern GTG.

Craig

 

[Ian B Walker]

See it but I dont believe it...............wow, mind boggling. Respect dude :bannana:

 

[Aswall]

See it but I dont believe it...............wow, mind boggling. Respect dude :bannana:

Echo that, amazing achievement, everytime I see your progress with this I think of loads of questions though! What is the WiFi for? Is there a full sat nav program that would work with it? Are you running leads for audio into headunit, keyboard to pc and pc to screen through the wiring tray?

Got to be the most impressive car electronic project I've seen

 

[bropa09]

That is really quite awesome! Well done

 

[craigyb]

Aswall, in answer to your questions, I have ran several cables along the trays, under the rear seat and round to the CD changer compartment.

1x High Quality VGA 5M
2x PS2 Extensions 5M
2x USB2 5M
2x 4 core screen (no use as yet, but who knows)
1x High quality stereo pair
1x 7way trailer cable (signalling, power feeds etc)

Behind the glove compartment is a 4 port USB 2.0 hub, which the IRman receiver and Bluetooth USB connect to. The USB touch screen has it's own USB cable and port.

In the ashtray, which is an old DVD cover glued onto a new ashtray, (£50 from the stealership) is the IRman and keyboard/mouse receiver. Also the master power cutoff switch (just in case). I had planned a USB 2 DVD/CD-RW in the ashtray, I had even done all the work and installed it, but the air bag sensor behind the ahstray stopped it fitting in, so that may be relocated to the glove compartment at a later date.

As you can see I changed the HU for a panasonic with a touch screen and aux inputs.

I have full sat-nav, no voice directions as I'm using mappoint 2004, but I'm looking into AGPS which is a mappoint plug in that adds voice directions. You can use Destinator 2.0 which has full voice navigation, but I had already bought mappoint. Mediacar has an onscreen keyboard for typing in routes etc.

The 54Mb wi-fi is for synching files fom my master collection of music and video. Currently I only have 1 film loaded, but I have 23,000 mp3's list by album on board. The 160 GB disk is plenty of room for more stuff.

The whole idea of this is that I can put the car back to stock when I move onto my next car (be it another MB, but I like landcruisers, so maybe an ML)

I have kept every part that I've taken out and I will re-install the audio10 and CD changer when I sell the car, unless the buyer expresses an interest in the PC installation.

Hope that helps...

Craig

 

[Philirv]

Looks like a cool system - but don't you get problems with the hard-drive unable to read under the vibration ?

You might have to isolate the PC a bit ?

Phil

 

[craigyb]

The PC is mounted on the old CD changer bracket with some foam padding on the stays. So it's quite comfy and shock proof in there. I haven't had any glitches so far.

I was worried about the cold weather, a few years back I had a 20GB disk in a PC in my van and that refused to start one cold evening, so I rebuilt it on a 10GB laptop drive and it's been fine ever since.

The merc is a bit nicer in the boot than the van was, so I'm hoping I will be ok. And I can't find any 100GB + laptop drives.

My other plan was a small laptop 5-10GB boot disk and 160GB in a USB2 cannister for media shock mounted with easy access. I may still go this route at a later date if I have probs with the 160GB disk.

Craig

 

[Sp!ke]

Damn fine installation Craig!

I was wondering how you got on with Mappoint 2004?

I've been trying it myself combined with AGPS (to give me voice) and although the idea is sound in principle, I found that mappoint behaves rather strangely. I found its fine on most roads but once you get on a motorway, sometimes it thinks you have just leapt over the armco and off the motorway onto an adjacent road. It then directs you back onto the motorway you never left using non existant junctions. Very odd! Maybe I havnt tweaked it properly or I'm doing somthing wrong, have you witnessed the same anomoly?

The other thing I noticed with 2004 is that they have cut back on the mapping. With Mappoint 2002, it covered most of Eastern Europe and I was able to use it in the Balkans last summer quite successfully. The mapping wasn't very accurate I might add with my position being consistently about 500 meters out.... maybe a legacy deliberately left in place after the troubles in the region for military reasons? Anyway, 2004 has no road mapping whatsoever in the region and as far as I can tell very little in the way of updated UK roads when compared to 2002. For example, the M6 Toll road still isnt marked up as under construction, let alone built.

Have you tried Infomp Navigator yet? IMO, a better product although still flawed in that you cant import pushpins like the Speed Camera grid references, nor does it work seamlessly across multiple countries as each map has to be loaded up separately. Other than that though, it works flawlessly with clear and pecise voice commands and sensible routing.

Interested in your views anyway.