# '01 VW Jetta 1.8T Carputer build log



## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Hi, I started this build a while ago, but was not a active member on this forum yet, so the start of this thread will be cut and paste from the Phoenix Gold bulletin board where I originally began detailing the build. So far I am still working on the dash bezel, but that should be wrapped up soon hopefully. Most of my car audio system is already installed in the car, but it will probably get a complete refab come summer as I am not thrilled with it the way it is. 

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I have been messing with this on and off for a few years. the original plan was to use a data911 mobile computer I picked up for cheap, it is purpose built for mobile use but it was just not powerful enough for what I wanted.

New Plan: I bought a mini itx mobo, dual core 3ghz processor, 500gb sata II notebook drive, 2gb ram and win 7 ultimate. I've had this one up and running for about a month, and I like it a lot better, lol. It has on board video, but only hdmi and dvi-d outputs. I had to buy a pci-e video card for it because my little lilliput monitor was already purchased and it was analog video only. So, I now have the capability of running up to 4 independent monitors if I want to.

So, I bought a lilliput 8" widescreen touchscreen monitor. I planned to flush mount the monitor in the double din opening. I got a really good deal on the 8" monitor-- in hind site I should have rolled with the more common 7" wide screen. the 7" monitor fits easily in a DD opening. I ended up having to buy a new dash trim piece and cutting it up to fit. 

Pics of the dash trim cut out:



















I broke the monitor bezel when I cut the bottom (button section) off. Take it from me, you should not try to nip one of these off on the chop saw  Anyhow, that is why there is a dowel rod in and some white patches on the bezel, I had already patched it up with super glue 

Test fit:










Taped up, sanded w/ 80 grit and ready for epoxy. The 4 holes are because I was not able to sand up in those tiny areas. I drilled them and countersunk the outside of the hole, the idea being that the epoxy will flow through, fill the countersink and can be sanded flush before refinishing.










And then we have a stunning failure! I knew better, but I did this anyway-- I read on MP3 car that you should heat gun the epoxy to get it to flow better. I thought this might not be a great idea, I thought it might make the epoxy cure to fast, I did not foresee the actual problems I caused... I melted the **** out of the bezel. Man was I pissed at myself! I thought I smelled hot plastic at one point, and it never crossed my mind to look at the bezel itself...










So, I did what anyone would do. I wrote to lilliput asking if I could buy a new case, then I said, "self, you have a cnc mill, make a new bezel". So, tonight I cut a new bezel. I made it out of polycarbonate because I had it around. It should work out just fine in the end. It is beveled around the inside of the monitor cutout. I did check the fit of the monitor itself before I started epoxying it in place. 










In place before tape, just tacked with 4 spots of hot glue.










Epoxy poured, no heat gun this time, it will have to wait over night to dick with it and see how it is coming along.










Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

The epoxy has set, I removed most of the tape. It is looking good so far. The next step is to cut a v grove on the front side where the bezel mates with the factory trim and fill that with epoxy as well. Then lots of sanding and it should be ready to refinish.


Here are the pics:




























later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

I got a little bit more done before heading into work tonight, I am just now getting a few free minutes to post...

Pics of the joints on the front "v'd" out, it is hard to see in the picture, if I had realized the polycarbonate would be so tough to photograph I might have used something else!










The epoxy is down in this picture, I laid it on pretty thick since it takes almost a full day to dry, I would rather do more sanding then have to spend 3 days putting coats down. I had to tape the inside bevel because it looked like the epoxy was going to flow down the edge. I want to try to refrain from having to sand that bevel or inner edge unless there is no other option. Any material removed there is going to be glaringly obvious.










Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Did a quick sanding job on it today after I got up. It's coming along pretty good. I may switch to body filler for the last few top skim coats. The thing is structurally solid now, I'm thinking that body filler should hold up without cracking at this point. 

I also plan to put the slot load laptop drive centered above the monitor. I need to work out a way to mount it and do a nice looking integrated slot above the screen so there is still a quite a lot to do on the trim piece.

Here is the pic from this afternoon.










Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

I plan to try to stuff the MOBO in the DD opening behind the monitor. The micro ITX is 6.7" square, so in theory it is small enough to fit in a DD opening, but if your dash is tight like mine you may not be able to get to all the connectors. I think I am going to be able to pull it off, but we won't know for sure for a while yet. If worse comes to worse I will cram it in my glove box, which is also barely lare enough to fit it...

I made a tiny bit more progress today, I may get further tonight, but in all likely hood I am done with it 'till tomorrow.

So, without further ado, here are the pictures 

Test Fit with video to make sure I have it square and centered evenly (there is a little extra wiggle room in my bezel)










Couple of shots of the MOBO, the first pic is a shot with the 2.5" laptop HD for size reference. Second is just to show how much is built into this little guy-- it has on board wireless N, bluetooth, USB 3.0, E-sata, digital video and optical audio, coaxial digital audio and analog audio out.



















Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Well, I worked on it a little bit more tonight. Currently I am working on mounting the DVD-RAM drive. I was not really sure how I was going to pull this off, but I think I am of the right track. I used half of a el-cheapo china made external slim CD rom case. I drilled a few holes in the side of it for mounting points, cut it up more than a little and then tacked it in place with hot glue. I cut some really small dowels (actually bamboo barbecue skewers) and used them for some more supports. Hot glued them in place again, glued some poster board on the bottom to make a solid base for the epoxy and then mixed up a batch and filled the triangular areas and the first bit along the front edge. I still have to figure out how to make a nice looking slot in the face, I don't intend to use the actual faceplate for the drive, just want a nice factory looking slot so it looks like it was meant to be.

Anyhow, the pics aren't that great-- was taking them with my Droid and it was freaking out about it for some reason, in fact, I am missing two that I took all together???



















Later,
Jason


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## oldturd (Oct 31, 2009)

Polycarbonate bezel looks great. Sorry to hear about the heat gun mishap. Half the fun of DIY is learning as you go.


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

...And that brings us up to this morning's post. I'll try to keep up with the updates after this one!

I made a bit more progress today, I poured a bunch more epoxy. You can't see it that well in the pics, but there is a slim slot load drive under all the foil, tape, poster board and epoxy. The idea is to fill the voids around the drive so that I can start finishing off the bezel. Like I mentioned early I am making an attempt at flushing it with just a slot. I have a DVD wrapped with some poster board and tape. I put as much around it as I could and still jam it in the drive. I sealed it up to the drive slot as best I could-- this particular drive is one that I don't mind sacrificing if the epoxy leaks in, but it should be sealed well enough. I should know for sure tomorrow!

Here are the pics:




























Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

oldturd said:


> Polycarbonate bezel looks great. Sorry to hear about the heat gun mishap. Half the fun of DIY is learning as you go.


Thanks! Lilliput never did reply to my request for a new case. I know they sell them for the 7" monitor, because MP3 car resells them, but I could not find the 8" bezels or cases for sale anywhere... Oh well, this one works just as good.

Later,
Jason


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## Ludemandan (Jul 13, 2005)

jacampb2 said:


> Anyhow, the pics aren't that great-- was taking them with my Droid and it was freaking out about it for some reason


Your Droid was freaking out? Unheard of! 

You've got great attention to detail here. How is the carputer going to be integrated into your stereo? It will replace the head unit I assume?


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

The PC will be replacing my Eclipse 7200MkII HU. I have a couple of Clarion DVH920/DVC920 sound processors in my collection and I intend to run one of them stand alone as the D/A and processor. The biggest issue with the clarion processor is that they don't take standard toslink, but use a proprietary fiber optics cable and connector. I converted one of my two processors to take toslink, so I won't have to dick with custom cables. 

The clarion processor does not have quite the flexibility of some of the modern day DSPs, but it can do almost everything my current HU can except run 3 way configuration and has a lot more rudimentary eq. I figured I was better off going with the optical connection and outboard processor rather than deal with the the MOBO's software based sound card, low voltage outputs, and possibility of ground loops and other signal issues. 

Thanks,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Well, the slot did not come out as hoped for . When I pulled the drive out, it was a lot tighter than expected, and first off I broke the upper portion of the slot, where it was very thin, right off. I wasn't to worried about it, I was going to make a new top part of the slot out of some scrap aluminum. It is pretty unlikely that you will even be able to see the tip of the slot, this is going to be right up to the edge of the dash, and it overhangs the radio bezel by probably close to half an inch. 

I put the drive in w/ none of the stuff covering it up anymore, and I really didn't like how the slot was coming. It needs a felt back like the factory trim plate, that makes it look a lot better. So, on to plan b, I cut the stock trim plate in half and wrapped the actual drive I was going to use in foil. I put the trim piece on that with just small dabs of hot glue. I started modifying the work I had already done to fit the slot portion of the face and flush it in with rest of the bezel. I had to file away a good portion of the epoxy that was there, and in the process I broke it away from the polycarbonate piece. Turns out I didn't have a good bond, and it is fortunate I ran into these problems or it would probably have cracked down the road and really pissed me off. 

I ended up re-doing this with my good drive-- hopefully I don't ruin it. Bellow in the pics you will see what I am shooting for this time. hopefully it will work out better. I might get a chance to screw with it a bit tomorrow, but I am off to work midnights tomorrow night, so I may not get free time being Christmas eve and all...










I cut a groove in the polycarbonate to help lock the epoxy into the rest of the piece. This edge is where it broke loose last time around.










The fit with the HVAC controls turned out good, it still needs a little bit of work to get the lines perfect, but it is close










Here is a shot of what I filled. The slot half of the trim piece has a piece of dowel split in half and lightly glued in place. The plan is to sand it all with the dowel in place, when all the finish sanding is done, pop the dowel out and hopefully have a decent slot with minimal finishing that needs done.

Later,
Jason


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

looks great man, i would love to do this to my car someday. 

hope you didnt spend much on the video card, they actually sell dvi to vga adapters, i use them on my home pc. 
StarTech.com Display adapter 29 pin combined DVI - male - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15) - female - PC


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

lithium said:


> looks great man, i would love to do this to my car someday.
> 
> hope you didnt spend much on the video card, they actually sell dvi to vga adapters, i use them on my home pc.
> StarTech.com Display adapter 29 pin combined DVI - male - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15) - female - PC


I think the video card was $29 bucks. I have a drawer full of cables and adapter, probably a half a dozen of those DVI-->VGA adapters. They won't do you a lick of good for DVI-D though. DVI-D carries only the digital video signal, no analog video. Look at the picture of the back of the MOBO above. Do you see how the flat/wide pin in the DVI socket has no pin sockets in the quadrants around it? Those 4 pins that are around that flat/wide pin in a DVI-I connector are the pins that carry analog video. This MOBO is actually designed for HTPC use, so it makes sense that it is only set up for digital panels. It probably would have only cost them $0.30 a board to keep analog video over DVI, oh well, it is what it is. It is a very nice MOBO and has a lot to be happy about!

Later,
Jason


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

jacampb2 said:


> I think the video card was $29 bucks. I have a drawer full of cables and adapter, probably a half a dozen of those DVI-->VGA adapters. They won't do you a lick of good for DVI-D though. DVI-D carries only the digital video signal, no analog video. Look at the picture of the back of the MOBO above. Do you see how the flat/wide pin in the DVI socket has no pin sockets in the quadrants around it? Those 4 pins that are around that flat/wide pin in a DVI-I connector are the pins that carry analog video. This MOBO is actually designed for HTPC use, so it makes sense that it is only set up for digital panels. It probably would have only cost them $0.30 a board to keep analog video over DVI, oh well, it is what it is. It is a very nice MOBO and has a lot to be happy about!
> 
> Later,
> Jason


ahh i see. didnt catch that.


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

can you explain how your doing the processing alittle more. maybe i missed that part? is it possible to do all the processing, crossover, eq, ta from the pc?


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

lithium said:


> can you explain how your doing the processing alittle more. maybe i missed that part? is it possible to do all the processing, crossover, eq, ta from the pc?


I am going to be using optical output from the MOBO to a Clarion DVH920/DVC920 combo. This is a Dolby Digital processor that also has a fair amount of DSP, it cannot run an "active" setup, but honestly, if decide to go active with my front stage, and I probably will during the revamp this summer, then I will do all the processing at the amps. I have a Phoenix Gold 900.7 that I am thinking of installing for everything but sub duty. The DVH920 is also a bit lacking in the EQ department, but I guess I'll burn that bridge when I get there. Bellow is a screen shot from the Clarion Catalog in '05 showing the DVH/DVC920. A lot of people with a car PC use the Alpine processor (I think it is RUX-701) and it's stand alone controller. I believe it is a fair bit more powerful than the Clarion unit, but I have never been a fan of Alpine and it is far more expensive than buying the Clarion processor. The big downfall of the Clarion is, #1 I had to modify it to take toslink optical cable directly, and #2 the stand alone controllers are almost impossible to find. It is not unusual to see the controller sell for more than the processor... 

You can do all the processing in the PC. You may require multiple sound cards depending on if you want to run 3 or 4 way right at the source unit. There is a lot of software required and more tuning and setup than I think I am prepared to invest in as a hobbyist. Also, you want real hardware sound cards, not the on board stuff and not USB devices as you do not want the CPU tied up doing all sorts of audio processing. Setting up crossovers and time alignment is pretty straight forward with only one or two audio codec additions. In the end though, the on board sound card is not likely to be a high fidelity source, and most on board cards are actually like 95% software driven so it means a lot of CPU load. If you go with high quality sound cards, you need to be looking at a larger MOBO than what I am using. Pre-amp outputs of a sound card are not going to be up to the signal level that we like to use in cars either. You are probably looking at less than 1V p-p out of a stock sound card. Not a big deal in your house where there is not a lot of EM/RF interference, but it might not be the greatest in your ride. Add in a load of line drivers to get your signal up to where you would like it and you have added a lot of complexity and devices in the signal chain. 

It seems to me that going digital to a processor meant for mobile use is the way that makes sense.

Here is the catalog excerpt:











Later,
Jason


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

thanks for the info, great build!


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## trumpet (Nov 14, 2010)

It's unfortunate but also hilarious that you went through the troubles of modifying the bezel and the whole time you could have just made one from scratch. Love the build so far!


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

FWIW, USB soundcards work perfectly fine with CarPC's. Reason being any one worth getting comes with it's own internal DSP chip (ie computer) which essentially does all the CPU work. The USB port is then free to simply do data transfer of the insignificant amount of audio data from the media app.


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

t3sn4f2 said:


> FWIW, USB soundcards work perfectly fine with CarPC's. Reason being any one worth getting comes with it's own internal DSP chip (ie computer) which essentially does all the CPU work. The USB port is then free to simply do data transfer of the insignificant amount of audio data from the media app.


I have never opened up a modern USB sound card, so I could not confirm this. I do know that the more modern SB X-FI 5.1 USB card requires a minimum of dual core 2ghz and 1gb of ram to run in Vista, the X-fi will also not run stand alone, it has to have a computer and it's software in place to function. In contrast, I have a few older SB Extigy's which are also USB 5.1 channel sound cards. The system requirements for those were 500Mhz processor and 128Mb of ram iirc. The Extigy will also happily continue to function as a DD decoder, DTS decoder, Prologic decoder with no computer hooked to it at all. That alone leads me to believe that is a lot more software decoding going on in the newer models. 

As for my situation, when I first started planning this I was going to use a computer that was P3 1.2Ghz and 512Mb of ram and there was no room for upgrades. I did a lot of research into what I could use for an external sound card, even if I was just looking to get spdif out. Most of the options were beyond the capabilities of that PC to run. Maybe the CPU load would be insignificant for a faster computer, I doubt that my current PC build would even know it was there, but I still would like to keep this guy as snappy as I can.

Later,
Jason


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

One of many that don't come with a ton of useless software functions that need that processing power and memory. 

10 channels simultaneously at 96kHz

Roland U.S. - UA-101: USB Audio Interface

"Superb Audio Fidelity with 40-bit Internal Processing
The UA-101 uses premium analog components perfectly matched to its A/D converters for incredible fidelity. *All audio is processed internally at 40-bit resolution to ensure accurate recording*. "


"System RequirementsIn case of USB 2.0 (Hi-SPEED USB) [Windows]OS
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home SP1/XP Professional SP1
Computer
Windows XP compatible computer equipped with a USB 2.0 (Hi-SPEED USB) port
CPU/Clock
*Pentium® III, Pentium® 4, Pentium® M Processor 1.2 GHz or higher.
Memory(RAM)
256 MB or more*System RequirementsIn case of USB 1.1 (Full-SPEED USB) [Windows]OS
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home/XP Professional/Me/2000/98SE
Computer
Windows XP/Me/2000/Me compatible computer equipped with a USB 1.1 (Full-SPEED) port
CPU/Clock
Pentium®, Celeron® or Intel compatible processors / 600 MHz or higher
Memory(RAM)
128 MB or more
System RequirementsIn case of USB 1.1 (Full-SPEED USB) [Macintosh]OS
Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later
Mac OS 9.x
Computer
Apple Macintosh series with on-board USB port
CPU/Clock
PowerPC G3/600 MHz or higher (PowerPC G4 is recommended)
Memory(RAM)
256 MB or more* 512 GB or more is recommended in Mac OS X
Software
OMS 2.3.5 or later
FreeMIDI 1.35 or later (Mac OS 9.x)"


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

That is really nice, but geared more toward pro audio. I'm not saying it wouldn't work great, but it really isn't in the same ballpark as nearly any consumer oriented product out there. At $500, it was well outside my price range. If I was going to spend that much on just the SC I would have pitched in the extra and got the Alpine processor. There are also a lot of firewire based sound cards in that same price range that would be excellent as well. 

Later,
Jason


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

jacampb2 said:


> That is really nice, but geared more toward pro audio. I'm not saying it wouldn't work great, but it really isn't in the same ballpark as nearly any consumer oriented product out there. At $500, it was well outside my price range. If I was going to spend that much on just the SC I would have pitched in the extra and got the Alpine processor. There are also a lot of firewire based sound cards in that same price range that would be excellent as well.
> 
> Later,
> Jason


Oh the price is due to the amount of channels and all the input/output format option. You can find base 2 channel cards for the same price range as creative that measure even better then the edirol card. EMU USB card for instance, they are creatives pro line and are a simplified version for around the same price with feature that will likely be geared more toward our carpc needs.


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

t3sn4f2 said:


> Oh the price is due to the amount of channels and all the input/output format option. You can find base 2 channel cards for the same price range as creative that measure even better then the edirol card. EMU USB card for instance, they are creatives pro line and are a simplified version for around the same price with feature that will likely be geared more toward our carpc needs.


Well, I guess I stand corrected  In my case, I really wanted to have DD and DTS available. I bought the Clarion processors each for under $100, so I am pretty happy with what I have going. For me, it made the most sense to take the road I am on.


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

trumpet said:


> It's unfortunate but also hilarious that you went through the troubles of modifying the bezel and the whole time you could have just made one from scratch. Love the build so far!


Yeah, it could have been machined in it's entirety, but that is a lot of measuring and CAD work for me to get there from a big hunk of plastic or metal. It would be nice to add a injection molding and/or vacuum forming capabilities to my shop, but it probably isn't in the cards any time soon. I am out of space where I am and wife wants a new house before I get a bigger shop 

Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Well, I had an update to go between today's and the previous one here, but my camera ate the pictures, so you will have to be without some pics.

Yesterday I sanded out the epoxy I laid down to see how my integration of the oem faceplate went. It actually started out really good, but I got a bit carried away sanding out the demarcation line between the slot and the filler and I butchered it pretty good. By the time I realized there was no fixing it, it was going to need a lot more filler and hand shaping to get it right again, so I once again scrapped it and started over. I honestly was about to ditch the DVD drive all together...

So, on to plan... uh... c I guess??? Any one keeping track? Anyhow, I drew a slot and filler piece up in CAD, did the CAM work and ran it off on my CNC mill. This piece isn't perfect, but it is pretty damned good, I can live with it. It still needs a felt backer, and lots of filler after the glue sets. It is glued along it's lower length with loctite 404, basically just industrial strength super glue. Once it sets I am going to "v" out all the joints and fill it with epoxy, then sand it out and go back to body filler. You may notice in some of these pics there is a light blueish tint to some of the epoxy now. I already did one coat of body filler before I scrapped the last drive trim. 

Here are the pics:




























Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

It's a two-for today! The glue set up and I had some more free time so I went and grooved the joints and laid down more epoxy. With any luck the way I got it taped/masked I will level out the top as well as fill all the joints.

Here are the pictures, I'm off to work on day shift tomorrow and am working through the weekend. It will be next week sometime before I get to it again. With any luck it will come out right this time because I would really like to move on to start mounting the electronics.





































Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Finally! A ray of hope!

Took a few minutes this morning and sanded out the epoxy that I laid down last week. I finally have something that resembles the picture in my head. I can definitely live with this result. The pics bellow all have the drive installed, a felt backer for the slot and it will be as close to perfect as I am likely to get it. So, at this point, I am looking at a bit more filler for the bezel, then paint and it is on to mounting electronics. Actually, I will probably do the filler now and wait on paint until it is ready to go in the dash. I don't want to spend a bunch of time on paint and then scuff it up while fabricating the mounts/enclosure.

So, tell me what you think? I am considering mounting a single led centered in the bottom of the slot. I would current limit it pretty low and keep it dim, or maybe even find the "media in" switch in the drive and light the LED only when the drive is empty... Just thinking out loud, give me your thoughts.

Here are the pics:





































Later,
Jason


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

I got some more done this afternoon. Put down another coat of body filler and sanded it out. The pin holes all look to be filled now, it looks pretty good to me.



















Then I started test fitting the electronics. The plastic cage is just the factory Double din mounts. I split this part from the bezel early on to make things easier to work on. I originally thought the screen was going to interfere with putting it back on and was planning to fabricate mounting stuff from scratch, but a little fine tuned epoxy removal on the back side and it went back together with very little problem. The plan here is to cut some .125" aluminum "shelves" for lack of a better explanation. there will be a solid aluminum bottom plate for both the monitor electronics and for the MOBO. I am going to do the CAD/CAM work later tonight for the mounting points for both boards, and drill them on the CNC. I have all the standoffs that I will need to mount the boards properly. 

The pics are just for mock up. At this point, it looks like I will be able to mount the hard drive directly underneath the MOBO and probably the DC-DC supply as well. I have not yet figured out what is going to happen with PCI-e video card, I have a flexible slot extender, and I have mocked up a few locations, but it is to difficult to hold the MOBO and try and juggle that card and extender around. If there were enough room behind the DD opening I could just plug it straight in it's slot, but it's to tight in my dash, the heat sink would hit the heater core plenum behind the dash. Anyhow, I will make the board mounts first, and then figure out the video car once things are better contained.

On a side note, there is about an inch between the CPU fan and the bottom of the DVD drive. I tried to get a decent shot of it bellow. Does anyone have any input on whether or not this will be enough room for reasonable cooling? I can go lower with the MOBO, but it will mean major surgery of the DD mount and a lot more fab work to get the skeleton that will remain to support all the hardware.






































Later,
Jason


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## bkjay (Jul 7, 2009)

Thanks for the updates. Btw nice name.LOL!


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Thanks!

More progress! I got off midnights this morning, slept a few hours and then went out to the shop and fired up the CNC and made my aluminum parts.

The aluminum pieces came out great, however, when it came time to mount them I ran into a few issues. I ended up cutting a lot more of the plastic out of the factory cage to mount the MOBO a bit lower. I didn't have to, but on one side a lot of the plastic had to go anyhow for the connectors, so I decided to really hack it up and get the MOBO the most cooling I can. Anyhow, this meant it would mount in a wider section of the cage than what I had measured, rather than re-cut the whole thing I made some design modifications and am pretty happy with the way it turned out. First off, I cut off the back two mounting tabs I machined because I was able to use the plastic center piece at the back for more support. To make up for the wider mounting width I mounted one side tight to the plastic, and used a standoff to make up the width difference on the other side. 

Anyhow, it is together. I have a few issues still. The HD and the M4 power supply mount under the MOBO. The HD screws I have are pan head type screw, and they were to tall in the position I mounted it. They interfered with the heat spreader under the MOBO. I'm going to have to pick up some countersunk M4 screws to mount flush under the MOBO. The power supply is not going to work out where I had planned it. It interfered with the plastic on the back of the cage, so I am going to have to re-drill those 4 mounting points further forward. 

I still need to mount the lilliput video board. That is not a big deal, but it still needs nailed down. Test fitment looks like it is going to be tight between the DC-DC supply and the video board, but it should be doable.

Here are the pics:














































Later,
Jason


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

great job!


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Thank You!

Oh man, I feel like I am getting really close on this. I tied up a bunch of the loose ends I mentioned yesterday. I remounted the HD with the old screws, and just spaced hte MOBO standoffs up a hair. That was all that took and it fit perfect. I did the first test of the whole thing mounted up in the dash piece this afternoon. It all went well. 

I have a bit more plastic I still need to remove on the connector side of the MOBO. I still have to work out the M4 mounting. I looked at moving it forward on the bottom of the MOBO mount, but I am not sure that is the way to go with it. It will work there, but it will be terribly tight. I still have not messed with the video card mounting, but I did install it with the flexible extender today just to make sure it worked without a hitch. I have a lot of cable reworking and routing to do, there is simply a crap ton of wiring to fit in here. 

Anyhow, I powered it with the 12V supply and the M4 just to make sure it worked. First try nothing, cycled power and it fired right up-- no idea what was up with that, but hopefully it doesn't become an issue. 

Next on my list is redoing the lilliput cable, it is like 8' long and I have absolutely no place to put it. I need all of 8 inches, so I will cut it down and solder on new VGA and USB connectors. 

I am back to work tomorrow, but start my 7 day off stretch next friday, so I am hoping like heck that I might be able to wrap it up and get it installed. Wish me luck!

Here are the pics:














































Later,
Jason


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

thats ****ing win bro, pure ****ing win.

how are you interfacting it in your car with your self? a thumb tracker or something and is that touchscreen, i know windows 7 does support tuochscreen jsut so you know  its jsut a driver that is enabled. and that looks like 7 to me.


could you link me that motherboard, i cant find it, looked like m4A88T-1 deluxe but i cant find it. i'm really curiouse about that unit. are you using lapptop ram in it? I don't see a DIMM


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

eviling said:


> thats ****ing win bro, pure ****ing win.
> 
> how are you interfacting it in your car with your self? a thumb tracker or something and is that touchscreen, i know windows 7 does support tuochscreen jsut so you know  its jsut a driver that is enabled. and that looks like 7 to me.
> 
> ...


LMAO! Thanks.

The screen is touchscreen and yes, it is already up and working. I am either going to use Centrafuse or RideRunner for a front end. They are both purpose built shells for auto environment and geared toward touch screen. I also have a sony wired remote I intend to integrate if I can find a spot to mount it. I forget the model number, but it is their "marine" remote. It is backlit, 2.75" diameter with I buttons for most common functions. It works similar to steering wheel controls and there is a carputer USB/wired remote interface out there. The plan is to have the remote do most common functions, and only have to use the touchscreen for less often used functions.

As for the mobo, it is Asus M4A88T-I Deluxe (clicky). The ram is DDR3 SODIMM 1333, it is located up at the end right behind the screen.

I just found out that AMD is releasing a new low power integrated processor architecture-- IIRC it is called Fusion and it will be available soon if it isn't already. In all honesty, it may be something to consider. It is pretty impressive, runs off 12v out of the box, integrated graphics and will do full 1080P, it is also in a nano-itx package, which makes it a lot easier to bury just about anywhere. ASUS has a board with the Fusion processor, passive cooling, and most of the same features as my board above all in an ultra low power package. If I had known it was coming I may have waited for it...

Later,
Jason


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

ahhh SODIMM, thats what i thought, i didnt realise they were so small. been awhile sicne ive seen em.

but holy crap the specs on that mb are incredible for that size. ddr3 1600 dual channel, thats nice, that'll give you a very snappy computer. perfect for this application. put some of these in ther  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104230 mmmm sexy. lol


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

A bit more progress. I got the M4 supply mounted. Just had to go a bit further forward than the original plan. I butchered a bit more plastic and have decent access to it. I spent some time routing cables and trying to clean things up a bit. I think I am making progress. I cut up the lilliput cable and shortened it to a few inches. I still need to pick up a hood for my VGA connector, I thought I had one-- guess not. Right now all the cables with the exception of the mouse and keyboard are pretty well contained in the footprint of the DD. 

I still don't know what to do about the damned video card. I don't have much room left to squeeze it in anywhere. I might have room on the very bottom, back behind the heater controls, I have to check. I also may be able to fit it directly in the PCI-e slot if I can just find a thinner heat sink for it. So, anyone know where to get a low profile heat sink that fits a 43mmx43mm mounting square? This heat sink is almost an inch tall, I think if I can get something fan cooled and half it's height that it will fit right where it already is. I have some small peltiers I might be able to fit too... Hmmm....

Here are the pics:





































Later,
Jason


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## Brian_smith06 (Jan 31, 2008)

That's sexy. I can't wait to see this finished


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## StruckBy99 (Jan 12, 2010)

That's a beautiful thing!! That's a lot of PC stuffed in a tiny package. Great work.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

dude i really need to know why your running that video card to begin with? that board has an onboard HD 4250, what are you going to run that you need an external? i mean honestly that's plenty fast for this application less you plan on playing some COD in your car..which would be epic XD

I have some suggestions. first, loose that video card, than mount this there, boot windows onto it (will make it 1000x snappier) 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227597



than, run an exstension for that harddrive, build a cubby somewhere, and foam the ****TTTT out of it, because that hardrive will seriously be dead before the year is out with out the proper mounting. especially if this is your day driving car.

or if you wanna go all ssd, which i highly suggest for this platform. go 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227579

or EVEN THIS 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227517


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Okay, first, on the video card. I mentioned this before, but maybe not on this board. The biggest downfall (for me) of this MOBO is the fact that it does only digital video. It has *DVI-D* and HDMI, DVI-D does not carry the analog video like DVI-A and DVI-I, the DVI-D port is actually missing the pins for analog video-- look closely.

When I first bought this stuff, I neglected to pay close attention to the video interface. I had already purchased the Lilliput monitor (they do sell a HDMI model for about $40 more) So, when the MOBO showed up and none of my DVI-->VGA adapters worked I finally RTFM and found the problem. At that point my options were a HDMI-->VGA converter (about $100), a new monitor (about $300), or another video card ($30 shipped). So, I went with the video card, the other options were to expensive or would take up to much room. I still may have to do something different, I was out checking for room in the car yesterday, and there may be enough room even for the factory HS, but the dash's center HVAC vents affects the depth toward the very top where the DVD drive is, since the video card is almost that tall, there might be interference on the top. Long story short, but I am probably going to have to spend quite a bit of time test fitting and removing this thing and making modifications. I'm going to have to loose my HU for a while, ideally I will do this on my long 7 day weekend from work (like now) but my software is not all sorted out yet, and it's awful freaking cold to be dicking with it at the moment.

About the HD, initially I was concerned about running a conventional drive in it, and had investigated SSD's. They are just a lot of money for not much storage. If I had to keep my music collection on flash drives still, this would partially defeat the purpose of the 'puter. Anyhow, from what my research shows, there are many people running 2.5" HDs and even some with 3.5" HDs and absolutely no issues. I started this project planning to use a data911 mobile PC. They are purpose built for law enforcement, emergency and municipal agencies. The Data911 machine uses a standard 2.5" HD mounted in pretty much the same way that mine is. I figure if it works in cop cars and fire trucks, it will probably be okay in my car. If it does turn out to be a problem I will just buy some sata SSD's, but that will hopefully be at a later date when my fun budget has recuperated 

FWIW, I timed the boot yesterday, no optimization done yet, resume from hibernate (not sleep) with 2gb of ram and it came in at just under 10 seconds to fully up and running. Honestly, it doesn't need to come up any faster than this. This is faster than my eclipse 7200 will initialize and begin to play from USB flash. 

I do appreciate the thoughts and ideas, but a lot of things are just out of the reach of my budget, and I have tried to prioritize what is "necessary" and what "would be nice" to have. If I missed an option for a solution on the damned video card, believe me, I am all ears! I'm thinking at this point I might use a peltier and machine some scrap heat sink to work with it. The peltiers are about a 4a draw, but it is probably not a big deal if I just run it off the cars normal 12V system instead of using the limited DC-DC supply to drive it.

Later,
Jason


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

jacampb2 said:


> Okay, first, on the video card. I mentioned this before, but maybe not on this board. The biggest downfall (for me) of this MOBO is the fact that it does only digital video. It has *DVI-D* and HDMI, DVI-D does not carry the analog video like DVI-A and DVI-I, the DVI-D port is actually missing the pins for analog video-- look closely.
> 
> When I first bought this stuff, I neglected to pay close attention to the video interface. I had already purchased the Lilliput monitor (they do sell a HDMI model for about $40 more) So, when the MOBO showed up and none of my DVI-->VGA adapters worked I finally RTFM and found the problem. At that point my options were a HDMI-->VGA converter (about $100), a new monitor (about $300), or another video card ($30 shipped). So, I went with the video card, the other options were to expensive or would take up to much room. I still may have to do something different, I was out checking for room in the car yesterday, and there may be enough room even for the factory HS, but the dash's center HVAC vents affects the depth toward the very top where the DVD drive is, since the video card is almost that tall, there might be interference on the top. Long story short, but I am probably going to have to spend quite a bit of time test fitting and removing this thing and making modifications. I'm going to have to loose my HU for a while, ideally I will do this on my long 7 day weekend from work (like now) but my software is not all sorted out yet, and it's awful freaking cold to be dicking with it at the moment.
> 
> ...


Id sell the monitor, get the right version, and loose the video card. rip **** or bust you're just adding clutter in the end. you spent 10$ more than you would of if you'd jsut gotten the the better one in the first place, ironey i know it sucks lol but hey sometimes you just have to take those hits. 


as far as hd's, the reason i would never do it is because i understand the artecture of the hard drive, it is a very safe system that will take a long time to go defective, but in a car...it WILL happen, see every time you kill a sector, the computers manages the data it can and moves it, genraly with no loss of data, but eventuly...i'd be concearned about kicking the bucket my self. but thats just me. 

anyways, where the hell are you brah? i was hoping to see a finished carputer when i got looked up this thread


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## jacampb2 (Dec 3, 2010)

Lol, I've been around. I have not been feeling the best, actually, no one at our house is doing that great. I was just getting over a sinus infection, then we had a blizzard last week and I was outside in it for hours and now I am sick again.

I am pretty much at a point with the PC where I need to sit down with it and start getting the software side all taken care of. I have the second video card sorted (I think), and I appreciate the input, but it is staying for now. I don't have the factory case for the lilliput anymore, so I'd likely lose out on a lot of money, or just put it in the parts pile. The ***** of it is, I almost bought the HDMI version, but it is kind of a scam. The monitors native resolution is 800x480, and the HDMI input just rescales to the native resolution. I'm pretty sure they did it just because the average ****tard thinks that if something has a HDMI input then it is "high def" I had no idea that in the end I would need the digi input, but I'll manage.

If the HD's eventually fail, then so be it. It will take a lot of magnetic drives to even come close to the price of a big SSD. I too know how HD's work, and I am just not that worried about it. I understand that a mobile environment will be much harder on one then stationary in a PC or semi-mobile in a laptop, but it will do okay for a while. I'll do a backup image with no music on the drive, so if one dies I can reinstall the image and copy music back on via the network. No sweat, and we are out $50 for a HD. I assume you know that SSD's are not necessarily going to be a trouble free solution. Flash ram is only good for a limited number of r/w cycles before the nand gates start to get stuck in one position or another, corrupting data and rendering some blocks unusable. Granted, the number of r/w's is quite high, but if you are going to hit it anywhere, it is going to be on a SSD running windoze . The fact that it can take about any physical abuse you can throw at it is a huge perk, but it will **** the bed just like any other drive, and until they come WAY down in price, it just does not seem worth it to me. Now f you go ahead and ask me when I am on my 15th different $50 magnetic drive and I might be whistling a different tune, we'll see 

I'll get my ducks in a row soon and get back on it. I'm actually about at a point where I can start test fitting it in the vehicle, but in the unlikely case that it fits perfect immediately, I want the software side all good to go and ready. Also, it is colder than a witch's tit right now, so I am not real anxious to be out dicking with my car 

Later,
Jason


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

can't wait to see how it comes out  i so wish i could do something like this..not physicaly, i feel i could do it..i just dont wanna mod my car to that point :\


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

personally, i hate the onboard video of my motherboard. 

Intel® Desktop Board D2700DC

i am currently looking for a low profile card that will do dvi out and fit in the case i have... most of the monitors (mine is the lilliput) dont have the right resolutions, and for some unknown reason there isnt a way to get it to push to the resolution of the screen - like its a few pixels under 800x600 or whatever it is. drives me crazy.


i also do not like USB anything... it seems that too many usb things act funky with resume from sleep\hibernate.


sorry about thread from the dead BTW.


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