CarPC Installation NB8A

[Shambler]

Hi All!

Over the last few months I've been working on putting a Touchscreen PC into my NB8A. I've finally gotten to a point where I'm willing to show it, before this point it wasn't so…together. I thought I'd share some of the features and issues I came across incase someone else was thinking of doing a similar thing. I'm fairly new around here, so treat this thread as a bit of a Hello! as well

Right into it then. The next few sections basically detail each part of the install. Unfortunately I took very little photos as I did most of the installation on a very dimly lit day, all in about 6 hours. I have a few photos of individual parts if people are interested. There's also a video at the bottom of this post.

The Specs
I decided on these parts due to availability, laziness and in some cases - actual planning in the case of the screen
PC is an ASUS AT5IONT-I Mini ITX -2GB RAM
I have a OCZ Vertex 2 40GB SSD (Solid State Disk) with Windows 7 Embedded
Screen is a 7inch touchscreen (Model： 669GL-70NP/C/T HB) which has been designed to be used in high brightness situations
Amplifier is just a Clarion I had lying around
Speakers are unfortunately stock NB speakers - this will have to change!

PC installation:
After seeing Lokiel's great thread on installing an amplifier in the wind tunnel behind the drivers seat, I got to thinking that it would be a perfect place to house the PC. I ended up borrowing some ideas, and mounted the main board on two pieces of MDF glued together, over the shocks. This is laid over a sheet of carpet underlay which is glued to the metal of the car to prevent being shaken too badly. My previous idea was to just leave it in the boot, but this way I can retain some of the precious space. The software runs off a SSD in the boot because they can withstand large bumps (no moving parts!), heat resistant and they're quite fast. Still need to fix it down somewhere though…. There is also a portable HDD in the centre console which contains all the media.

The Touchscreen
The touchscreen is powered from the main power supply of the PC, this way it only turns on when the PC is on. It gets video over HDMI, which helps avoid video issues due to the power cables in the car. It certainly looks good when it's turned on. This model I got is a High Brightness version, I figured this would be necessary as I have a tendency (as I imagine do all MX-5 drivers!) to drive with the top down whenever possible. The touchscreen part itself is USB, however this is helpfully included in the HDMI cable itself, making running cables just that little bit easier.

Mounting the screen in the dash
Actually mounting the screen… that was a lot of fun. I ordered an appropriate kit for the screen from the US - mp3car.com. Unfortunately when it turned up it was the wrong model, however they were VERY good about it and supplied a brand new one free of charge! After it was received I dismantled the monitor carefully, and transplanted it into the new frame. It fit! Unfortunately it didn't fit the car, I then discovered I'd need a Double Din dash kit from Metra. A month later, that arrived and I was pretty much sorted for that part. Pulling the radio out to install the screen was pretty easy, and it's been discussed elsewhere on the forum so I won't bother going into it. The screen popped in without a problem and sits nice and flush, so it looks like it's meant to be there, and should be reasonably difficult to take out in a hurry!

Cabling
All the cables have been fed through the rear shelf behind the drivers seat, and run through the centre console. Luckily this was actually pretty easy to do, as there's quite a lot of space in there! Certainly enough to run speaker wire and 12v power. Obviously the battery in the boot makes this particularly easy, the PC and amplifier are both powered and grounded straight to the battery itself (so convenient!) The 12v running through to the front is to power the screen, also there is a 12v wire running back to the PC for the ignition wire. The speaker wires and ignition are wired up to a harness connector, so when it comes the time to pull it all out again it should be an easy job to plug in the old connectors.

Software
I'm using Centrafuse 3.1 - and to be honest I'm not impressed. Unfortunately it still appears to be one of the best programs out there with a touchscreen car oriented interface. I have quite a lot of issues with the music library I have, occasionally it just won't let me choose a specific artist, instead it will crash and I'll have to restart it. I've written a bit of a hacky AutoIt script to keep Centrafuse alive, if it crashes it asks me if I want to restart with a handy little popup box. I can see myself replacing this part. Operating System wise I'm using Windows Embedded Standard 7. At the moment it's just evaluation but I'll get that sorted when it runs out. The install only takes up 2GB, so I've managed to cut out a lot of the useless crap that usually gets installed on a new PC - helps it start faster. I know there's certainly room for improvement here!

If you've managed to get this far through, well done! I'm sure I've forgotten a whole lot already, however if anyone would like more detail on any part of this, please let me know and I'll try and get pictures or explain myself better! Also I'd love to know if anyone else has something similar in their car!

Also this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpkXLldY-Cs

Probably best to follow the link, it's a little hard to see the embedded version

Thanks guys for reading!

Sam

[ForceMajeure]

Nice work, i cant even manage to change the speakers in my doors correctly and here you are putting a bloody computer in your car!

[Okibi]

Nice work Sam, the install looks factory, i'd love something similar.

Perhaps you could build a pass code into the boot up, if the car is started, detects it's within your home/work wifi and the pass code not entered with X amount of seconds it could e-mail/sms/messanger you an alert. Are you going to incorporate GPS? Info from the Diagnosis connection? Iphone control?

[Shambler]

Thanks for the praise guys!
To be honest I'd have no idea how to take the doors apart, I guess I'll have to learn that when it comes time to install new ones. I hear that 8" is the size I'm going for so I'll try find some decent ones in that size.

Pass code is possible, however I don't want to get it too complicated as my G/F still has to be able to use it At the moment it turns on whenever the car is on which can be a little annoying, so I'll be installing a switch (pull out the whole centre console again >_>) to prevent that. The SMS/email idea is a pretty good one, I'd like to be able to incorporate it with the GPS. However if the switch was off it wouldn't turn on... Unfortunately a lot of functions would be unable to run unless the PC was on, and in the OS, which does limit what can be achieved, however I could imagine an embedded system could probably achieve the GPS.
Unfortunately I don't actually have OBDII, so I'd need to obtain the data directly from whatever sensor I needed, it's possible but it's starting to get very complicated for things as simple as speed and revs. Not so much as control, but I'd love to be able to use the iPhone to call people over the system, and play music off it's internal storage. Both should be possible if it's plugged in I understand

[de Bounce]

Impressed

[gobsmax]

WoW! Great job!

[Jeo]

How's the boot time on Embedded 7?

I had an old version of centrafuse on a car PC I had a few years ago and I wasn't impressed either, sure didn't understand the praise it got.

I'm actually helping a mate design a system at the moment for his 350. Except we're currently thinking of ditching the PC part and just running an Android tablet.

[Shambler]

Thanks guys!
Embedded 7 is actually pretty good, quite a lot faster than a normal Windows 7 install, you can see it in the video I posted. Before Centrafuse and the startup controller, it was taking around 25 seconds to get to a command line from the power on. Using the startup controller it's about 5 seconds longer as there's a delay before it sends the startup command. Starting centrafuse also takes forever, not impressed.

Ditching the PC part can certainly help, less problems with powering the thing! An android tablet would be quite good, however there's almost no software that's safe to use when you're driving, as most tablet interfaces are designed to be used when staring straight at it. Saying that it would be quite good for a passenger to use. Another advantage is most tablets actually have pretty bright screens, always useful when you're driving at daytime

[Lokiel]

Nice install and detailed write-up.

I'm a bit surprised about your Centrafuse assessment though given that it's so highly touted. That could be more a function of the fact that it's one of the better systems out there, as opposed to actually being a good system - Car PCs are really only in their infancy at the moment. I do appreciate your non-biased assessment of it (ie. from an actual user as opposed to a sponsoring vendor).

I don't know if there's any software available for Win7 devices yet, but get yourself a bluetooth OBDII dongle too to access your OBDII information via the car PC. I have a HTC Desire Android phone and use the Torque application which is effectively a Scangauge II on steroids since it allows more information to be displayed and can log data - it's nice to have immediate access to all that info (including reading/clearing CELs). The cheap eBay OBDII dongle works fine on MX5s. Unfortunately for me, the Android phone is bloody hard to read in daylight.

PS: After watching the opening to your video I WAS going to give you some crap about your taste in music ("Aqua") until I realised it was just a boot screen

[Shambler]

Centrafuse certainly has the ability to be a fantastic piece of software, however I just kept having issues with the music library. It took a long time before I was able to successfully import the entire thing (admittedly very large at ~80,000 songs!) It does appear to do pretty much everything I want in a CarPc, however I'd love it if it could just work instead of crashing hopelessly whenever I want to search for a new artist - you can see me trying to do this twice in the video then I give up. Even with all these issues I still found Centrafuse to be the most mature CarPC front end out there

OBDII would be fantastic, though I've read on this forum that it's not available in 1998 NB8As? If it is, then I'm definitely going to get one of them!

PS: After watching the opening to your video I WAS going to give you some crap about your taste in music ("Aqua") until I realised it was just a boot screen

Hahah I was actually expecting someone to think of that, it's just the (unfortunate!) name of the skin I'm using

[Okibi]

....OBDII would be fantastic, though I've read on this forum that it's not available in 1998 NB8As...

The US models came with it, i'd love to know if it's just as simple as adding in an additional loom / box. Perhaps someone wrecking an Aussie NB8B might be able to track back their ODBII loom.

[Shambler]

Not a bad idea! I'll see what I can hunt down, maybe I'll check out a few wrecking threads around here. I've no idea whether it'd be a fairly simple connector on the ECU or actually wiring a whole bunch of sensors all over the place... probably not so keen if that's the case!

[Steampunk]

That's cool, well done. Mr Starlet did similar and he can show the MegaSquirt software in realtime so you can see all engine parameters on the move.

[Shambler]

That'd be awesome! If I could get OBDII working I'd be able to grab a little bit of that info, not quite as detailed though I understand

[Apu]

Sam,

Hope you see this, but any updates to this install? I'd love to do something like this but have no idea.

Alternatively, any kit available...or can you build a kit for sale?

Bryan