Intro

As a follow up from a previous post on Mazda6.Net CarPC: Getting the parts I’ve managed to purchase most of the parts including the Double-Din case from www.bybyte.com in which I had to fit the screen (and in my plan the mother board and HDD as well).

The Via M10000 board fits perfectly in the double-din case with just 3cm sticking out at the back which kind of worried me but I hoped I would have enough clearance in the car for those extra 3cm.

Fitting the motherboard almost worked according to the plan except that the power plug for the Via board is to on the side of the board thus there is not enough clearance next to it to plug the M3 ATX power adapter. Thus I’ve got stuck and dropped the project for several months until I found out from one of my customers that I can buy a 20-pin ATX Extension Cable that will get me unstuck by allowing me to move the M3 ATX power anywhere I see if.

With a new $10 ATX Extension cable in my hands I’ve decided it’s the right time to re-start (or just finish) my CarPC.

Couple of night of work to put all the bits an pieces together and voiala, CarPC working on the bench running WinXP. WinXP? Gosh, I can’t run my car on WinXP, so I started to install Windows 7 on the 5 years old Via M10000 using a USB CD Drive via the slow USB 1.1 ports. Installation time: 2.6h.

Upgrade: From Via to Intel

Fallback to Plan A.2. Buy a new sleek Intel Atom Mini-ATX board: Intel D945GCLF2 Motherboard – Dual-Core Intel Atom 330(1.6GHz), 945GC, 2xDDR2-533, 1xPCI, 2xSATA-II, GigLAN, 5.1Chl, VGA/S-Video, Mini-ITX</i> @ $115.70 + 1 x Corsair 2048MB PC2-5300 667MHz DDR2 RAM – 5-5-5-15 @ $56.10 ea.

Install:

• Windows 7: Installation time: 18 minutes.
• Drivers
• Centrafuse
• BlueSoleil Bluetooth
• GPS Drivers (I can’t get the GPS working)
• Virgin Mobile 3G Drivers

Few days later my CarPC is installed and working on the test bench, time to get a booking to the Car Audio Installation Specialists.

Test bench installing Windows 7

Few more days of work to get it installed in the double-din case behind the touch screen:

View from above

The (dodgy) carton protection is for the M3 ATX power source.

View from the side

Big day comes that the system is almost all running and decide to use my last day of paternity leave to go and get the beast installed. Arranged an appointment with Druery Car Stereo to get it installed.

Last preparations

Evening before the appointment with the car stereo guys who were about to tear my car apart I did the last “in-car” tests.

The computer was powered from one cigarette lighter, the screen from another one.

Big day: Car Installation

Step 1: Tearing the car apart

This went very well but with unexpected results. The computer would not fit in the dashboard. It’s too long!

As you can see in this picture the motherboard is few centimetres longer than its case plus you have to add the length of the VGA plug and cable on top of this. That made the complete assembly about 6-8cm longer than a standard double-din, and that was just 3cm too long so the complete computer didn’t fit in the car.

I only had two options left:

1. Put the car back together as it was and go home with no CarPC
2. Install the screen and put cables so I can move the computer under the passenger seat.

Option 2 was the preferred one and we started to cut the original car wiring and get cables from behind the screen to under the passenger seat.

Step 2: Getting cables from behind the screen to under the passenger seat

Step 3: Install the screen in a custom Mazda fascia to make it look stock-standard

This also didn’t really work according to the plan as the screen was slightly smaller and the fascia was slightly bigger though they were both ‘universal standard’.

After a bit of fiddling we managed to put them together to make them look like one unit. It’s ok. It’s not perfect as there is a 3-4mm gap but it still looks good.

Day was over and had to take the car back home. Total billable time: 3.5h. Total time spent including searching documentation for cable and lunch: 6h.

We did no testing whatsoever of all the system or even if the cables are good so there was a high degree of chance of failure.

First tests

Yup. It failed. First test when I got home with a shiny screen in the car … failed. Screen was not powering on. It was completely blank which was not a good sign. Spent a good 3 nights with my head under the dashboard trying to track the power cable from the screen only to figure out that the power plug towards the car was not plugged in well. However that plug was quite deep in the middle of the dashboard, behind the panels I didn’t know/want to take out.

Here the screen is powered from an external source just to test that the screen works if it gets power.

I’ve started working to get the computer installed under the car seat and hit another set of challenges. The VGA cable from the screen is too short. It’s only sticking out about 3cm from the hole in the carpet, not enough to get it stable in the back of the PC. Now I’ll have to add a VGA extension.

More news soon.

In the first part of this article I was taking about my new pet project: Building a CarPC.

This is the standard in-dash CD/MP3 Player (via www.netcarshow.com) that I’m trying to replace.

First thing on the list is to figure out what I need for this CarPC, where to outsource the parts and how much they cost.

Most of the installations/guides I’ve seen use a computer installed under one of the seats and run cables to the touch screen in the dash. My plan is to try to squeeze the computer inside the dashboard behind the screen to save on space and avoid running cables through the car.

So, first things first, components list:

1. Motherboard: VIA Mini-ITX M10000 (eBay for about $100). Small and powerful enough to run XP + .Net and a bunch of USB devices. Should be powerful enough to run a navigation software.
2. Power Source: M3-ATX DC-to-DC 125W Automotive (eBay for about $80USD). Small and sleek and powerful. No need for extra screws or extra cables.
3. Touch screen: Lilliput 7″ 629 LED Touchscreen (eBay for $250USD): LED screen with high contrast, small enough to fit in the dashboard.
4. Fascia: Model 1 or Model 2 (eBay for $120USD). I’ll go for Model 1 for now as I think it looks closer to the design of the car. However I won’t purchase this part until I receive the car and have another look.
5. Case: Double Din Nano-ITX Compatible Case (ByByte for $119USD). I actually wanted the Double Din Mini-ITX Case that would correctly fit my board but they don’t have in stock the model that would fit the touchscreen I want to use. Now, the problem is that this case looks smaller than my board so I’ll have to see how I can fit the board in it.
6. GPS: SiRf III GPS Receiver (eBay for $40): Well, GPS, that’s it.
7. Bluetooth dongle (eBay for some change): standard, cheap USB dongle.
8. OBD 2 CAN – OnBoard Diagnostics with CAN support (eBay for $40): Good to convert bunch of parameters reported in real time by the car to some useful data on the screen. Stuff like speed, fuel usage, oil pressure and more parameters are all reported by the car via this nice adaptor. I’m still looking for a cheap one that works with Bluetooth and has support for the extra Mazda specific codes.
9. Audio Connector: PC2-78-4 (nexia.co.uk for 20$) connect the PC to the audio system without cutting any of the car wires. There is no proof this will work with my car but seems the closest one that might work.
10. Steering Wheel controls adapter: I’ll try to use FusioBrain (FusionControlCentre for $52USD) to convert the Steering Wheel resistive commands to key presses in software.
11. Software: CentraFuse with Australian maps(FluxMedia for $250USD): Looks nice, does most of the stuff I want to have done and it’s written in .Net. Plus it has support for third-party plug-ins.

Total cost around: $1100USD + shipping cost + other smaller bits that I might need. I’m still way under the stock SatNav for $3000.

For now this should suffice the list of components. If things go well I’ll add stuff like reverse camera, WiFi, 3G and other cool gadgets.

Long time no posts. I simply didn’t find something highly exciting, unique or nice to write about. Plus I was away, holidays, time with family so I’ve neglected my own blog. I even started to get errors from WordPress at the bottom of my pages that I have no idea how to fix. (contact me if you can help me fix this error please)

However these days I just found a new exciting project to keep me busy in my non-existent free time: Build a CarPC or a Carputer.

Why a CarPC?

Simply because the old car suffered a “small dent” being hit on the side @ 60Km/h by a girl running the red light and it’s a complete write-off. Luckily we all got out of the car safely with no injuries.

So we need a new car and we’ve decided to go for the new Mazda 6 Wagon (2008 model).

[Will update the post with a photo once I get the car]

The car has a nice dashboard with pretty standard audio functionality: CD player with MP3 support, radio and few other audio controls but nothing fancy. The Luxury edition has an option for BOSE speakers and/or integrated SatNav. It’s nice to have an integrated SatNav but when you think there nothing else you can do with it it feels a bit restrictive.

The device is non-upgrade-able, costs around $3000AUD and I’m quite sure the maps will cost a fortune if you want to install an update.

So my new quest is: Can I build a a better in-dash CarPC, cheaper and with more functionality?

I know there are several sites out there that are dedicated to building CarPC but I could not find any complete step-by-step guide or even some hints that someone did this on a Mazda 6 2008 model.

My Wish List:

1. Run .Net
2. Play music (MP3s)
3. SatNav with 3D view
4. Hands-free Bluetooth
5. Reverse Parking Camera
6. OBD 2 with CAN (On Board Diagnostics) to monitor the running parameters of the car
• I’d like the car to keep its own fuel usage, km and other statistics all the time
7. WiFi
• Sync my car’s music library with the Media Center
• So I can write an tool to wake up the car (or just the CarPC) at 7AM and download from the RTA the Live Traffic Report and maybe several images from the intersections I normally go through to help me decide on the best route to work
8. 3G + Web Browser
• For Google Map/Business Search that kicks in nicely when you do a search for a business from Google Maps on your mobile
9. Skype
10. Mail/RSS reader
11. Voice Control (nice to have)
12. Be able to control the CarPC from the steering wheel
13. Make it look as it was a stock item, nicely integrated and part of the car