Hey all,

I'm getting interested in adding SatNav to my car - and thinking about adding a double din unit in the center console. I've seen some members cars (the alien?) have custom center consoles in the car. I was also thinking about putting some guages where the stereo is currently. I'm also interested in pictures and opinions on sound systems - what's the largest subs you can fit in a center console, custom or otherwise??

So this is big ole call for pictures of custom center consoles, esp with stereos in them, and custom guage pods in the stereo location!

Also can a center console fit with a roll cage in the car? Does stuff have to be modified to make it fit?



I already know the satnav is going to get the location of my garage burned in to the LCD

This post doesn't address any of your questions but...


I'm planning on putting a full on PC in my car. for about $300 you can get a VoomPC which is a 1 GHz PC in a case that looks like a stereo amp and has a power supply, etc. You have to supply a hard drive.

A full PC has a lot of advantages. For one thing you'd have an interface to megasquirt, you could use it as an extra guage pack. You could use it as a media center for storing MP3s, etc. Navigtaion is easy with a small GPS receiver, and within 802.11 connection and or a cell phone you could get online anywhere. That would allow you the ultimate navigation system, Google Earth.

Anyway, you can probably put together a PC for nav//etc. for less than the cost of a decent nav only system.

-Tony

Geek #1 wrote........

Super Geek #2 wrote......

Yeah - I've been thinking about doing that too .

I'd still want a 7" wide touchscreen though - which is marginally too wide for the stock console - hence the question.

Have you seen the DashPC software, and the open source navigation solution that's out there? Pretty cool stuff.

(sidenote: they have no open-source solution for vector based road data - perhaps we (914club) ought to data gather by driving all the roads in the US ) We could also add twistiness rankings )

I found a site that sells 7 inch touchscreens pretty cheap. they even have a version that flips out form a standard stereo size unit. I'll end up making a whole new center console. I'm making my center tunnel about 6 or 7 inches higher for ECU mounting and mounting the cable shifter. Doesn't seem like a center console would be too difficult to make.

-Tony

QUOTE

Geek #1 wrote........ Super Geek #2 wrote......

... said the Mega Geek.


-Tony

Tony,
I was just looking, are they any faster than 1ghz?
Is that enough power? I was thinking of a Microsoft Maps & Streets with a GPS receiver, and iTunes, etc...

For the kinds of things that you would be doing in your car, 1ghz is _PLENTY_ fast. The real issue is finding a hard drive that will handel all the bumps and vibrations that come with being in a car all the time.

Zach

Looks like they have a 1.2 GHz board as well... Though I think 1 GHz is probably sufficient. My PC at home is 800 MHz and does most things reasonably well.

http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/category.87/i.../it.A/id.373/.f

Another option is a Mac Mini. They are already put together, have a DVD/CD drive, builtin wifi, etc. They are somewhere around $500-$800 depending on configuration. I'd rather get a PC though, but the Mac Mini sure is an appealing package. There are companies that make automotive power supplies for them as well...

-Tony

QUOTE (Vacca Rabite @ Feb 7 2006, 04:01 PM)

For the kinds of things that you would be doing in your car, 1ghz is _PLENTY_ fast. The real issue is finding a hard drive that will handel all the bumps and vibrations that come with being in a car all the time. Zach

Flash drive

Here's a Link for a place that offers a 1.3...total price for the one I configured was 1200, but that includes the touchscreen, biggest hard drive, 1 gig ram, WinXP, etc...

That's not too bad of a deal...it's just been so long since I've run with a system that slow...but in a car, you're right, probably enough.

Why not just get a micro ATX motherboard like this one fab up a case and add what you want??? With a board size of 9.6 in sq seems like you could make up a nice compact unit.

The one Tony was talking about is about the size of a power amp, so it would make for a clean install. It also has a couple nice features like PMCIA slot and a compactflash slot.

Looks like you guys are headed down the PC route, but for FYI sake, I designed this one and will be hard mounting it in my center console..... We also have a full digital guage package (currently made for marine apps, but I'm going to convert for auto use) that I plan to install with GPS speed, temps, and fuel management.

http://www.lowrance.com/Automotive/Product...ts/iWAY500C.asp

QUOTE (mrdezyne @ Feb 7 2006, 11:43 PM)

Looks like you guys are headed down the PC route, but for FYI sake, I designed this one and will be hard mounting it in my center console..... We also have a full digital guage package (currently made for marine apps, but I'm going to convert for auto use) that I plan to install with GPS speed, temps, and fuel management. http://www.lowrance.com/Automotive/Product...ts/iWAY500C.asp

that's really interesting.

one thing is that it wouldn't take much to dislodge a center console if someone was determined, so i've been hesitating about swapping radio/guage locations.

second is the vibration, pc's don't like to be jostled much, and what about backing up the info? i suppose you could do a nightly wi-fi backup... for that matter, you could dl podcasts/movies overnight for your passenger to enjoy on that long drive the next day.

i could fit a pretty big flip-down screen in mine!

OMG!



I want to do just this. I was thinking about a PC(MicroATX) in the glovebox though.

b

Two questions:

1 - Is there such a thing as "cyber-rust"?
2 - Do you plan on adding jackstands to the GPS database?




Pretty cool ideas........a friend of mine has a similiar setup in his car. He uses terraserver for the maps, as it was done before google earth, but it works cool and does the mp3 thing as well.