Custom Built In Computer For Your Car/Truck??

[J A L]

Our New Project!!

We are designing and building a custom system soley for Auto/Truck Use.

Requirements:

1) Permanently Mounted In Auto.
2) Low Power and Heat Production From CPU.
3) Multimedia capable including smooth DVD playback.
4) Rear View Camera Capabilities at the flip of a switch within the drivers reach. This way the computer can be left on while viewing from the camera and then switched back to computer when needed/desired.
5) Wireless Keyboard RF only not Infrared.
6) Large Monitor either 15 inch, 14 inch, or 13 inch. Space to work within will determine the size we can use. Will adapt a notebook display from a dead notebook due to cost! LCDs are expensive in these sizes and we got a few good displays from notebooks with dead motherboards! I am fearing the conversion may be a bit more difficult and will require soldering and custom video wire harneses.
7) An all in one motherboard that is as small as we can get and extremely light weight!
8) Lastly we need to build a conductive small enclosure for the motherboard! With the motherboard it should weigh less than 3 pounds. We are discussing case cooling and we have determined that 3) 50 MM fans with filters blowing into the case should allow us to have a fan failure and still be ok with airflow! Filters are required as cars can get pretty dusty inside and we want to protect our motherboard as best we can!
9) Security concerns. All parts of the system are to be out of view when the car is parked and unattended. We are thinking of a roll top desk design to conceal the monitor. This project is slated for completion sometime this next summer. Only working on it in our spare time. We have many problems and obsticals to overcome so your input is greatly needed.


Ok Now we need to select our hardware.

1) We want a low power board that is quiet and compact. Remember our weight concern! Has to be under 3 pounds including the enclosure, as we have chosen our mounting location and it will be attaching to the plastic ducts for the dash vents up by the windshield! We will be using a ground strap/mounting brace too. Our custom case will be mounted lower so we can see and access the filters when vacuuming the car to make maitainence much easier. Mounting it here will give us a few advantages. On cold days the heat from the vents will help warm the case and board and on hot days the air conditioning will help cool the case and board! In either case if the weather is extreme we are recomending at least a 5 minute warm up or cool down before powering up the system. I suspose we can use a timer of sorts to accomplish this. The problem with a timer is that we may pull into a rest stop and use the facilities but when we restart the car we would have to wait 5 mins before the timer would let us restart the system.

We have chosen this board! Via Micro All In One Board!
The only place we have seen it for sale is here At Outpost and it was the previous model to the one I linked to at Via.

This board has a 4 layer PCB which would be stiffer than a two or three layer board making it a good choice for vehicles. The size is incredibly small and the processor is 1 gig soldered to the board with the smallest heatsink fan I have ever seen on a processor. Bout the same size of the original ATI video cards when they first put a heatsink/fan on their video cards! The soldered on Via Processor Chip with a lightweight heatsink is greatly desirable due to the vibrations and bumps encountered in vehicles!

Were a little concerned with the video performance of the onboard CastleRock video chip. Anybody have any input on the performance of this chip? Gaming is not a concern so much as video playback!

Well this is all the farther we have gotten so far.

Our first step will be to get our hands on the board and then set out to build it's enclosure with two fans at the bottom of the case blowing in and one higher mounted fan at the top blowing out!

[Jubal]

You also have to think about shock absorbers of some sort.

[shiva_42]

Some sort of a line conditioner will be necessary too, auto electrical supply is not reliable enough for most MB's.

[DrMDJ]

Some links that might provide some ideas, info and experiences along the general lines of what you're looking to do:

Via info
mini-box
One guy's various pages on a his project

[Train]

If you use a inverter, be sure it is double the size requirement of the computer. So if your setup requires 360 Watts of AC power, make sure the unit will put out 800 watts of AC. If not it will burn out and may take your computer with it.