My Sunfire

Feeds Moved

2006-01-15T18:59:00.000-06:00

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Tiny picoPSU

2006-01-07T18:02:00.000-06:00

"We have been looking at the ecosystem growing around VIA's ITX and Nano-ITX platforms and we've just discovered what has to be the smallest PSU around.

The picoPSU, by MiniBox, is barely the size of an ATX connector. It's 120W, and has a couple of molex connectors and a floppy connector, as well as an input jack for mains power."

This looks like a product we should all watch for. There is nothing better than having a few choices for small power supplies.

Full Story

New Motherboard

2005-12-25T22:18:00.000-06:00

I have not had a chance to put the new motherboard into the car yet. I am going to rebuild the case I currently have to be much smaller since the new motherboard is smaller.

Biostar M7VIG 400 Socket A mATX MB

The biggest reason why I can decrease the size of the case is because the new motherboard has onboard video and NIC. I will not need the PCI cards I have installed anymore so the case can be much shorter. I will post pictures when I make the upgrade.

Back to Business

2005-12-23T01:05:00.000-06:00

I just graduated from college this past week and I am finally finding some free time to work on the car computer again. It has been so long since I have been able to mess with it. I made a few changes to some of my other computer and was left with a new micro-atx motherboard to replace the current carpc motherboard. This should definately shrink the size of the current case. Hopefully I will have some pictures and and update in the next few days. In the mean time, Happy Holidays!

Part 6 - Internet Connections

2005-09-28T01:14:00.000-05:00

Everyone that is on a computer wants one thing... INTERNET! Computers and internet access go hand in hand in today's society. Without email, instant messenger, blogs, up-to-date news, and all the other wonders provided by the internet, a computer is worthless to most people. While your car computer has a specific purpose of delivering endless amounts of music to your ears, it can also provide you with a portable means to access the internet. Choices, choices...

802.11a/b/g (Wireless)
The simplest and cheapest way to add access to the internet from your car computer is using standard wireless networking components. With these you can connect to any open hotspot or your own personal home wireless network. You will not be able to access the internet from any location, but there is usually a Panera/Starbucks or other shop near by that you can use.

Cellphone
Most cellphones now can access the internet. Each company has there own style for connecting, speeds, and fees, but this is the obvious choice if you would like to be able to access the internet from almost anywhere (depends on cell phone signal) If your phone has bluetooth, you can connect the phone to the computer via the bluetooth so you don't even have to plug it in.

I currently have a 802.11g linksys usb wireless adapter connected to my carpc. I do not have internet access on my cellphone and this still lets me copy file from my home network. Since I do not have a screen, I can't really browse the internet anyway so it is not a problem.

Part of the 10 Steps to Understanding Car Computers Series

I Miss Summer...

2005-09-23T00:21:00.000-05:00

I have been trying to keep up with my summer posting rate but it has been hard lately.

First, I spent a lot of time on the redesigning of the site. I have had a bunch of instant messenger converstions with readers telling me how much you like it. Thanks for all the positive feedback.

Now, school is finally starting to pick up. I will have to be the first to admit, I have had a very lazy semester so far. I have had very little homework and tomorrow is my first exam. (this is my study break) This will lighten back up the middle of next week so thats ok. I can handle a few days of work.

I am also having some friends and family visit this weekend. Hopefully next week I can kick it back into high gear and finish off the Intro to Car Computers series. Some of the topics will include: Power, GPS Navigation, Internet Connections, Music Sources, Software Front Ends, and much more.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Site Update!

2005-09-20T17:03:00.000-05:00

I am sorry for the lack of new posts over the last few days, but as you can see I have been busy redesigning the look and feel of the site. I think it has turned out great. I still need to touch up a few things, but overall it has come together nicely. I would love some feedback. Feel free to leave a comment telling me what you think.

Bluetooth Problems Sovled

2005-09-15T00:50:00.000-05:00

Before the live demo on Monday, I put in a few hours trying to figure out how to make the bluetooth head set work properly. I got mad a few days ago when I tried to use the microphone with Google Talk. The other person's voice would not come out of the head set. Instead I was forced to use the computer speakers.

After a bit of googling I came across this Article. If you read down to the second method it explains how to update the driver for a device. I went to device manager and selected the bluetooth radio. Sure enough, it was using the default bluetooth device driver from Microsoft. As soon as I clicked the update the driver, the Linksys one was in the list of available drivers presented to me.

After updating the driver the entire interface for controlling the bluetooth dongle changed. It all finally works! It was very easy to fix once I knew what the problem was. Hopefully you all will not find yourself in this same situation.

10 Steps to Understanding Car Computers Series

2005-09-14T14:40:00.000-05:00

What is a CarPC?
Types of Computers
User Interaction
Storage
Sound

Live Demo

2005-09-14T14:37:00.000-05:00

I gave a live demo of my car computer to a computer group on campus Monday night. Oh what a failure. I finally got my bluetooth headset to work (will post on this soon) and everything. I present to this group a lot and had no better ideas for a meeting besides showing off my work. We get out there and the bluetooth acts up and all kinds of other problems. Worse off, it was our largest attendence at a meeting this year. Oh well, hopefully I can get it all working soon. The demo gods were not on my side....

Part 5 - Sound

2005-09-12T18:10:00.000-05:00

Next in 10 Steps to Understanding Car Computers is sound output.

For computers, there are 3 hardware choices for getting sound out of the computer.

Onboard Sound Card
PCI Sound Card
USB Sound Card

Many motherboards these days come with onboard sound. If you chose VIA conputers then it has an onboard sounds card. They are not the most powerful cards, and do not offer advanced features. With these you still have the option to upgrade later.

There are PCI card slots in the majority of computers. It is an expansion card that plugs into the slots on a motherboard. With these cards you can upgrade at any time and still ave a lot of advanced feaures.

USB has allowed many devices to easily be attached to a computer without having o open it up. You can also easily swap the device between multiple computers. There are a few very popular USB sound cards.

I chose to use a usb sounds card. I was trying to decide between the Creative USB MP3+ and Creative Axtegy thingy

OK, so you have some sort of a sound card. Now how does the compoter's sound play out of your car's speakers?

Auxilary Imput
Cd Changer Hacks
Fm Radio Modulator
Directly into Amp

Heada unit vs. No head unit

A lot of the time when people install touch screen. they remove their head unit and replace it with an amplifier. For this kind of setup, the computer connects directly to the amplifier. You then replace the factory wiring so connect the speakers to the new amplifier.

If you leave the head unit in place, you can connect your computer to it in a number of ways. The easiest is having a CD Player with an auxilary input jack on the front of it. You can also hack into the head units cd changer options if it has that feature. Finally, you can use a FM Modulator to broadcast your music's signal from your computer over FM radio waves to the head unit's radio.

I left my head unit in place and connect the computer via Aux input. I purchased my head unit a few years ago specifically because it had the input. At that time I was just using my mp3 player. It is the easiest solution. out of the 3 head unit choices.

Part 4 - Storage

2005-09-10T23:29:00.000-05:00

The next part in 10 Steps to Understanding Car Computers is selecting the storage medium for your computer. Computers store your data, operating system, and music on a hard drive. The disk drive in desktop computers is 3.5 inches while laptop hard drives are only 2.5 inches. Besides being smaller, laptop hard drives are designed more durable under high G forces. Some people have problems with 3.5" drives dying when using them in a car setting because of the strong vibrations. For this reason, many long time carpc enthusiast use only 2.5" drives.

Personally, I use a 3.5" drive because I had an extra one when building the car computer. Even if I didn't, I still would have because the it is a lot cheaper per GB of storage. I have been using the same drive in my carpc for over a year now and I have not had any problems with it.

Other people have started using compact flash, and other solid state media, for holding the windows install. Then the music files are stored on the hard drive. The hope in doing this is that the windows files be written to the flash card all the time never get messed up. They also want to minimize boot up times. I think that it is too expensive of a road to take for most people, including myself.

Project Summary

2005-09-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Computer Hardware
AMD XP 1700+
KT333 Motherboard
512MB 333mhz DDR
40GB 3.5 HD
Linksys USB 802.11G
225 Watt Inverter
Sound Blaster MP3+ USB Sound Card
AGP Video Card
Realtek Network Card
Serial Port Input Buttons
Linksys Bluetooth Doongle
Logitech Bluetooth Headset

Sound System
Cerwin Vega Stealth Series 5-1/4
Pioneer 3way 6x9
Awia CD Player with aux input and 4x45watts
Rockford Fosgate 3000.1
12' Infinity Reference 1242w Dual Voice Sub
Rockford Fosgate Punch 3001P RMS: 300 Watt@2 ohms

Car
1999 Pontiac Sunfire SE Coupe
70,000 Miles
White Exterior with grey cloth interior

Part 3 - User Interaction

2005-09-09T14:05:00.000-05:00

In continuing with 10 Steps to Understanding Car Computers, I will next cover how the user interacts with the car computer. Like everything in car computers, there are numerous choices.

Keyboard
Mouse
Key Pad
Joystick
Voice Recognition
Touch Screen
Display
Character LCD
Touch Screen VGA
LCD Screen Component Video
Character LCD
Touch Screen

The simplest input that a user could make would be using a keyboard with keys mapped to execute specific commands. Some users used this same idea but use a smaller keypad, like a numbers pad.

The most standard way to interact with the carpc is via a touch screen. Most people install 7-8inch LCD touch screens that provide image display and easy user input. The perfered style of screens use vga input over other method like composite or s-video. The main reason is that they provide a large large of resolution to be run on them. When using the composite video screens, the text can be fuzzy and hard to read. Below is a Lilliput LCD Touch screen.

Is the past, and still some now, were using Character LCD screens. These provided a few lines of text and limited characters per line.

My choice and personal favorite is voice input. Using a few software packages (or writing my own) allows the driver to completely interact with the system without have to touch the screen or any buttons. I have found it very fun to play with and works pretty well.These are just a few of the above combinations discussed in a bit more detail. Part of the fun of building a carpc is the freedom to chose what you want. You can have 5 LCD screens or none and still have a wonderful, original car computer.

Contact Info

2005-09-08T19:43:00.000-05:00

In the age of the internet and 5 ga-zillion messengers, there are plenty of ways to contact me.

AIM: heezer7

Yahoo: jonheizer

MSN: heezer7@hotmail.com (I don't check this email)

Google: jheizer

Email: jheizer (at) charter (dot) net

Feel free to send me an email or IM any time. I would love to chat and hear what you have to say.

About Me

2005-09-08T19:33:00.000-05:00

While working on the intro to car computers series of posts, I realized that I skipped a lot of the basics when starting this blog. Some of you might be wondering who I am and what's up with this crazy web site. Here I will try to answer a few of your questions.

My name is Jon Heizer. I am currently a 21 year old college student attending Bradley University in Peoria, IL, USA. Its a nice mid sized private school in the middle of the state. When I am not in school, I live just outside on St. Louis, Missouri in Belleville, IL.

I started this blog after I had been working on my carpc for about 6 months on and off. When attending school full time, there is little time to go outside and work on the car. During last school year, I devoted most of the carpc time toward writing my own front end software. It has evolved to be a good base for my car computer. So far this school year I have been trying to spend more time documenting exactly what I have done in creating my carpc via this blog.

You can find all of my contact info here.

I hope you all enjoy what you find here and visit often.

Part 2 - Types of Computers

2005-09-08T09:24:00.000-05:00

The first Item that needs to be discussed is the types of computers that you can use to run your car computer setup.

Powerful Desktop
Example: Intel P4 or High Speed Athlon Desktop Processor
Pro: Can run everything under the sun
Con: Takes a lot more power to run (needs bigger power supply)

Low Power Desktop
Example: Via Processor
Pro: Significantly lower power consumption
Con: Significantly lower processor power

Laptop
Pro: Easy to remove from the car to prevent theft
Easy to obtain power adapters to power the computer from the car
Con: More expensive for high speed machines
Small problems on auto power on

As you have seen in previous posts, I opted to use an AMD Athlon processor. I mostly made this choice because I had one lying around, but I also like its speed and moderate power consumption. You will see over the coming days there there are infinite ways to set up your car computer and everyone's is unique to that person's wants and needs.

Part 1 - What is a CarPc?

2005-09-07T17:15:00.000-05:00

I have received a few requests over the past few days asking my to explain further what a car computer can do. I decided to start a series of posts titled "10 Steps to Understanding Car Computers." I hope over the next 10 posts I can explain in detail what you can do with a carpc and how all the pieces work together. I will also attempt to explain why I have made the choices I have.

Why?

Why would I want a car computer? Well many reasons:

Mp3s
Movies
GPS Navigation
Weather Information
Traffic Information
Games
Emulators
Web Browsing
Phone book
Email
Am/FM/Sat Radio
......

As you can see the possibilities are endless. Everything you can run on a standard desktop can be done on a car computer. It is still deep down a standard windows, Linux, or mac computer.

Over the next few days I plan on explaining many more topics that will help all of you that are new to the car computer world better understand what I am doing.

No time to play...

2005-08-30T17:35:00.000-05:00

Ever since I have moved back to school I have been so busy. I am very active in our ACM group on my campus and that has been keeping me busy with a few meetings. I am also part of a evolutionary computation group and we are in the process of rebuilding our 20 node dual processor cluster.

The car computer has been sitting on my desk this whole time. I have not ever had a chance to try and boot it up let alone reinstall windows and get this awesome bluetooth mic working. Right now I have just been using it on Google Talk . Hopefully things will slow down soon.

On my free time I have been trying to check out other people's carpcs since I cannot work on mine. I have seen some really nice work. Keep up the good work and I hope to be back in the game soon.

Start Up

2005-08-23T00:51:00.000-05:00

Lately my car has been grumpy when starting after it has been sitting for a while. This has been happening for a few months now and nothing I have tried has corrected the problem. I have been making sure I have changed the air filter and ran fuel injector cleaner through it often. Nothing has had any effect. On Sunday I installed new spark plugs hoping that might do it and for a while it seemed to have helped. Well, today it didn't want to start right up again. Guess I will have to keep trying things or take it in. I also found a few minutes to work on another project before heading back off to school. More pictures and details on this will be posted in the next few days once I take some pictures.

Vacation and Moving

2005-08-08T22:49:00.000-05:00

I will be on vacation for a few days then moving back to Peoria, IL where I go to college. I am not sure if I will have the time or any topics to post on over these next few days. Hopefully once school gets going things will pic up again.

Case

2005-08-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

While the computer case has been sitting in my house I decided to give you more details on its construction. I started out with a thin piece of plywood I found in the garage. I placed the motherboard on top of the board where I wanted it to be. I then took a thin finishing nail and a hammer and tapped marks into the board where the screw holes were. Next I drilled out the holes, added a touch of wood glue, and screwed in the motherboard screws that come with any standard case. That left me with this.

I then cut 3 pieces of 1x1 lumber for the 3 corners. This will hold the top on. You can see 2 of them in place in the picture above. Next I needed somewhere to place the hard drive.

I attached 2 of the 3.5 to 5.25 adapters on each side of the drive. I then screwed it into the bottom and the pole sticking up. It worked rather well.

Since I had it all apart I decided it looked a bit bad in the car since I cleaned everything else all up. I decided to paint it black to match my Sub box. I picked up a can of flat black spray paint.

Here it is with its top on with a fresh coat of paint.

With the motherboard installed:

And everything back together!

If you look on the right side there in a chunk out of the side board. This will be the slot that the trunk lid hinge can pass through when using the trunk. Before there was no board here. I added it to protect the computer from any rain if had to open the trunk. Before the it was in the back of the trunk so it didn't matter.

Overall it was extremely easy to build. If you want any more advise or have any questions feel free to ask!

Not my week

2005-08-06T12:27:00.000-05:00

I got up on this wonderful Saturday morning all ready to reinstall windows on my carpc. My first step is to grab the extra CD-Rom I hook up to it only when I need it. Ok, its in my spare parts box. Wait... I moved my computers and all my other electronic stuff back to school last weekend except for my laptop. That means no extra CD-Rom lying around which means no windows re-install untill I go back to school. On the bright side, I have started doing a bit of work to the case. Updates on that will be psted soon.

Still at it

2005-08-04T17:50:00.000-05:00

Well, after a few days I have yet to get it to work. Still looking for any advice from anyone anywhere... My next step will be to reinstall windows when ever I can find a long enough stretch of free time to do it in. Any help??

Arg!

2005-08-01T21:50:00.000-05:00

Well, I can't get this Headset to work on my carpc. I was gone for the weekend but first thing after work today I brought the PC inside and plugged it in to a monitor and ethernet. No more remote desktop problems :D Well, Now i cannot get it to detect the microphone. It detects the device but will not act as a microphone. Works great on my laptop though. One thing I thought was weird, under the Services tab there are none listed on neither my laptop nor the carpc. Any bluetooth experts out there care to give me any advice?

Failure!

2005-07-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

Initial tests resulted in complete failure. Not because of the microphone, not because of the dongle, not caused by too much noise, but the stinkin' remote desktop conenction. For what ever reason I could not keep a stable remote desktop connection long enough to copy the blue tooth install over and run it. Finally I got the dongle installed and had to reboot, but after that never made another remote desktop connection. I could not set up the mic to connect. Oh well, guess I will just have to suffer one more trip with out the ability to chaneg songs. Hopefully I will be able to get it to work on Monday when I get back.

Success

2005-07-27T23:40:00.000-05:00

The new microphone is a success. For once, I actually had to read the instructions. I never would have guessed that holding down the button on the microphone for 4 seconds turned it on and 10 seconds put it in roaming mode to connect to the PC. So far I have only tested it inside using my laptop. It has a pretty high quality reception. The only thing I am worried about is it seems to pick up everything in the room some. Hopefully this will not be a problem in the car. So far it seems like the perfect solution to go with my software. I am going to be taking a small road trip this weekend so hopefully I can get it all up and running tomorrow after work in teh car for a long weekend test. I will let you know the results for my first in car tests tomorrow night.

Hard Drive

2005-07-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

A box arrived today. It was my hard drive. I was a bit sad that I have yet to recieve my bluetooth headset, but it is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I own a bunch of these Maxtor hard drives and they all perform wonderfully. This one is no exception. It has already been installed adn being loaded with back ups from multiple computers. Come back tomorrow for my first impressions of the bluetooth microphone and dongle.

Online Shopping

2005-07-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

Once you get me going, I can't stop. I just found this great deal on a Hard drive, 200GB for $70 with OUT REBATES. Can't beat that. Check it out. http://shop2.outpost.com/product/3492233
I am going to use it for backups. All to ofton files get lost to a failing hard drive, but not any more :-)

Credit Card + Paycheck = $$$

2005-07-21T18:56:00.000-05:00

After my desire last night to have a good quality microphone to pair up with my car computer, I ran into the bluetooth head set below. After a bit of thinking today I decided why not and ordered it a few minutes ago coupled with the Linksys Bluetooth dongle seen here.

Being home for the summer working sure make me more willing to buy a few fun things here and there. I still can't seem to get myself to spend $300+ for a touch screen though. Thats ok as this will compliment my voice recognition software front end nicely. I have a feeling my future posts are going to turn more towards the software updates as I test this puppy out. Don't worry, a review of the device will be posted as soon as it gets here. Well, time to get some more work done to help pay for this thing.

Mic Noise

2005-07-21T00:17:00.000-05:00

In the description of my carpc application, I mention voice activation. Since i do not own a touch screen, I am attempting use voice control for the majority of the functions. Coding for this has been relatively easy, it has come down to the mic wiring that stinks. Massive amounts of moise are being introduced into the wire, making any distinguishable words disappear. That is why I am now looking at this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16826106934

I has been debating purchasing a bluetooth mic to use with the system. This will allow wireless connectivity to the PC and the mic to be very close to my mouth.

My other option is to purchase a usb microphone. This will hopefully also lower the interference that is ruining my voice rec. experience. Hopefully I can reach a decision soon and post results.

Heat = Bad

2005-07-19T22:16:00.000-05:00

As the title says, heat is bad. Summers in southern Illinois don't get extremely hot, but temperatures in the high 90's is not rare. part of the car computer is being able to access the internet and local wireless network from within the car. This is used to transfer files, remote desktop for service, and access the internet. As seen in the post below, I placed my linksys wifi adapter in the rear against the back window. This allowed me to have high signal strength while living in my college apartment. I was able to have a good signal parked a block away. Since moving back home, the summer heat has set in. That pretty wifi adapter has taken a new shape...

As you can see, it is not quite the shape you would expect.

The whole side was split open and the top was sitting lose.

From the side you can get a better idea of how the once flat surface have been molded by the summer sun.

On a side note, the computer could care less about the added heat. I have never had a problem during the summer. The only weather related problem I have encountered was last winter while visiting Michigan. It dropped to sub zero temperatures. Power on resulted in a loud sound coming from the hard drive as it attempted to spin up. A few days sitting in the warm house and all was good.

MySunfire.Com

2005-07-18T21:03:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! MySunfire.com is now the official link for this site. After countless years of designing web sites of other people, I finally have purchased my first domain name for personal use. I am not quite sure why I have never done it before, but it sure is nice having a real address to give to people. Spread the word and more updates to come in the next few days.

Newsletter & Xml Feed

2005-07-17T22:24:00.000-05:00

Sign up to recieve the weekly new letter that contains information on the updates that had occured over the previous week.

The sign up form is located at the bottom of this page.

I also added an Atom Xml Feed link for MySunfire.Com.
You can subscribe to it here: http://mysunfire.com/atom.xml

Tail.Net Update

2005-07-14T00:04:00.000-05:00

I have been using this program a lot at work over the last few days. It has really made my life a lot easier, but a few things could be improved upon. I added an open screen that will allow you to select a previous file in order of last viewed. This will make working through the folders to find the popular files a thing if the past. Another small update lets you see the time the file was last updated to the screen. This provides you this a quick way to see if the file has been updated recently. Also, A new icon was added to replace the ugly .Net default. You will have to check it out to see it! hehe. Download link is the same:

http://MySunfire.Com/Downloads/tail.zip

Tail

2005-07-10T17:51:00.000-05:00

On unix there are tons of little tools that are useful when working on a program. Tail shows the end of a file and tail -f will watch the file for changes and show them. This makes tail very yseful for watching file that are being written out to disk like logs files. I wanted a simple version of this tool for windows so I wrote one in VB.Net yesterday.

You can download the program from http://mysunfire.com/Downloads/tail.zip

The code for this program is very simple. It consists of a new win form project with a textbox set to dock fill.


   Private FilePath As String
   Private FileName As String
   Private WithEvents Watcher As IO.FileSystemWatcher

   Private Sub frmTail_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
       Try
           'Open Dialog to ask for file to tail
           Dim diag As New OpenFileDialog
           diag.InitialDirectory = "c:\"
           diag.ShowDialog()
           FilePath = diag.FileName

           'Show File
           ShowFile()

           'Set up file watcher
           Watcher = New IO.FileSystemWatcher(FilePath.Substring(0, FilePath.LastIndexOf("\") + 1))
           Watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = True

           'Sub string off file name
           Filename = FilePath.Substring(FilePath.LastIndexOf("\") + 1)

       Catch ex As Exception
           MessageBox.Show("Error Opening file!")
           Me.Close()
       End Try
   End Sub

   Private Sub Watcher_Changed(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.IO.FileSystemEventArgs) Handles Watcher.Changed, Watcher.Deleted, Watcher.Created
       'if file have changed then reload it
       If e.Name = Filename Then
           ShowFile()
       End If
   End Sub

   Private Sub ShowFile()
       Try
           'Wait for the file to finish being saved byh other program
           Threading.Thread.Sleep(10)

           'Open file reader and load the end of the file
           Dim rdr As New IO.StreamReader(FilePath)
           Dim text As String = rdr.ReadToEnd
           If text.Length > 10000000 Then
               text = text.Substring(text.Length - 10000000)
           End If

           'Store it to the text box
           txtFile.Text = text
           rdr.Close()

           'Scroll to the end so the bottom is always shown
           txtFile.Select(txtFile.Text.Length, 0)
           txtFile.ScrollToCaret()
       Catch ex As Exception
           'If the file was not accessable for what ever reason
       End Try
   End Sub

Pictures Hot off the Camera! (Part 1)

2005-07-07T22:33:00.000-05:00

Tonight instead of building the false floor, I decided to get everything cleaned up and working. Almost all of the wires are hidden from view and everything is in workign order. The amp is screwed down. The sub box is braced in the corner for now with small pieces of wood screw to the floor. The PC stays in place on its own to be honest but I added two large screws in front of it just to help hold it in place. I also tested out the red lights. they are both on top of each other right now for testing but light up the trunk pretty well as-is. Overall, tonight was pretty productive! Let me know what you think so far.

Pictures Hot off the Camera! (Part 2)

2005-07-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

New Trunk Layout

2005-07-06T20:55:00.000-05:00

I started rearranging the trunk tonight. I spent a good deal of time moving things around, searching for what I believe is the best layout possible that will look cool and still have maximum trunk space. This is my plan so far.

I have found that I can stand up the computer case in the far left corner in the space behind the wheel. If I remove one of the case side braces that it will not get hit by the trunk lid supports as the trunk closes.

The sub is now placed in the far back right corner. This will leave a large square space between the sub and left side to place bigger items in the trunk.

The amp is going to sit directly in from of teh amp, pushed to the right as far as possible. A false floor is going to be built up over the amp to hide all the wires, protect the amp from water when opening the trunk, and allow items to be placed onto of the false floor. The floor is outlined in green. the center square on the floor is going to be a window showing off the amp. there will also be vents and/or a fan to circulate the air on the left side of the box.

There is also going to be a change in lighting. I have a pair of red lights that will replace the stock trunk light. It is very dim and the 2 red lights should go nice with the red bass strength and red lights throughout my interior.

Before tonight I had the sub and amp installed but the wires were a mess. Tonight I reran all the wires behind the side wall carpet or under the floor carpet. It all looks sharp! Tomorrow will be the the making of the false floor and final mounting of the PC case. Finally, everything is comming together!

Car PC Pics

2005-07-05T22:01:00.000-05:00

By Request: :-)

PC Sitting in my room

PC in car trunk

PC in car trunk zoom out for size

Linksys USB G Wifi Adapter

Microphone for voice input

The box is made of wood. Hopefully I am going to be making this all smaller and shove it back in the corner behind the tail light. Free time permitting....

Coding Objects

2005-07-05T20:25:00.000-05:00

Well, as said long ago, I am writing my own program to control the computer placed in my car. It is written almost exclusively in vb.net with a few classes written in C#. I am very object oriented in my coding style. Everything is represented by string objects that wrap the waned functionality into an easy to use object. Here I will discuss a few of the classes and how they are designed.
The following is the layout for my description:

Project

Class

Object/Functionality

Well, here it goes...

Car Amp - Contains all the forms for the entire application

frmAddress

In the future will be a complete address book with Sync with MS Outlook 1/2 complete

frmAlbum

Access Music library via album

frmArtist

Access Music library via artist

frmEmail

Send/Recieve Email

frmExit

Closing menu with options to exit, shutdown, hibernate, or suspend

frmLauncher

Launch external application

frmMapPoint

Give embedded control to MamPoint maps

frmMenu

Main menu to access all other forms

frmMiniMode

Small screen mode

frmPictureViewer

Integrated Picture slideshow

frmPlaylist

Edit current playlist

frmProgress

Custom progress bar for loading unknow size/length item

frmSkin

Select the current skin to be used

frmSync

Control all aspects of the file sync options

frmVoiceCommands

Edit voice rec. preferences

frmWeather

Recieve weather updates via web

Main

Init of all items

PluginInterfaceImplementation

.Net Remoting Remote Control Interface

Custom Controls

Clock

Custom Clock Control

PictureButton

Custom picture box to be a skinnable button with mouse down effects

TextButtom

Custom buttom with mouse down effects

FileSync

FileFunctions

Handles file copy other misc functions

FileLoctions

Class to hold sync source, destination and other options

FileSync

FileSync object

FileSyncOptions

Options for the sync class

FileSycWatcher

Custom file watcher to watch for a drive to be come available

GeneralClasses

DeleteFuctions

Delete files/directories even if readonly

FreeMemory

Gets the amount of free main memory

Advanced Logging Class

SpeedTimer

Used to time different functions for speed performance

ImagePoints

Bacis Skin Utility

KBTextbox

Custom Textbox that uses the custom buttom to show an onscreen keybpard when a textbox is clicked on

Mp3Tag (C#)

Used to modify mp3 tags

Music File

AudioCD

USed to play Audio CD's put in the cdrom

DirectXMusic

Class used to handle the directx playing of a audio file

DirectXVideo

Class used to handle the directx playing of a video file

Player

Media player Logic that combines all teh other classes in this project

Playlist

Contains a list of Song objects and has various functions

Song

Object of a single song

State

The current state of a player instance

PluginInterface

ICarPlugin

Contains the .Net Remoting interface for remote control of the Car Media Player

PluginTest

Test Plugin implementing the ICarPlugin interface

SpeechEngine

SpeakText

Wrapper for SAPI text to speech

SpeechEngine

Controls the voice detection and handles the events

XmlLibFunctions

Used to create Xml Playlists and the xml catalog of all music files
Contains advanced xml file access functions

RemoteCarWS

Proof of concept web service able to control the car player over the ICarPlugin interface
EX: WebPage -> RemoteCarWS -> ICarPlugin -> CarPlayer

To be added from other project

CarRipper

Rips CD inserted into Mp3 Format
FreeDb Lookup on CD info

Mp3 Retaggings service

Creates a fingerprint of an mp3 song, looks up the tag information and corrects it on the local machine.

Well, these features are all between 90-100% complete. When I stared this I didn't expect it to turn out so long but it helsp to explain how the application is structured and a few things that will be added in the future.

Wiring

2005-07-05T19:32:00.000-05:00

So, have you been wondering how this all is wired into the car. Well, thats a story of its own.
Red = +
Black = -
Blue = + Accessory

As you can see, two wires have been run directly from the battery. First a 10 guage wire was run from the battery, fused with a 30 amp fuse, controlled by a relay, and attached to a second cigarette lighter plug. This controls the radar detector and switches it on and off with the car. My stock plug in powered on all the time.

Next, 4 guage wire was run to the trunk. This is fused with a 60amp fuse. It connects to a distribution block to divide the wire in two for the computer and amplifier. The blue accessory wire also runs along the side of the car to switch on the amp and teh relay that controls the computer. The computer is set to power on when power becomes present provided by the inverter.

Overall this system has turned out to be great! Tons of music and an Amazing sound system!

Carpc Application

2005-06-29T23:55:00.000-05:00

Well, enough about the car. Now its time to talk about the application I have been developing over the last year on and off to control the car computer via touch screen, voice activation, and serial buttons. The entire thing works for teh most part, but is still faaaarrr from finished.

This is the basic set up of the main menu of the application. The entire thing is skinnable. This is just a test interface so I can run it for now. I am not a big graphics/photoshop guru, but hope to be soon. Just from this you can see the application includes a few features. Overall it includes:

Fully Skinnable
Direct X 9 for music playback
Voice Activation
Completely tweakable via xml options fiels
Advanced Playlist
Weather info
Picture viewer
Integrated IE
Auto File sync to remote machines for music updates
Map Point integration for Navi
and Much much much more

Well, got distracted and didn't finish this. Will continue another day...

PICTURES!!!

2005-06-27T21:15:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I finally had a chance to wash and wax my car with the assistance of my wonderful girlfriend Jen. We spent all afternoon washing it and giving it a nice coat of Meguiar's 26 wax. Since it had been a while since I had last washed it, it was covered in bugs and junk from driving to and from college. I decided to try Turtle Wax's Bug and Tar Remover. It works great! It definitely helped get all those little messes off. I also went out and bought new floor mats since the little plastic ones I bought years ago for $5 were getting pretty gross. I didn't take any pictures but with a cleaned out interior and new floor mats, the car is looking better than ever. Well, enough chat. On to the pics...

Car Audio Setup

2005-06-14T22:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I have been really busy and have not had time to add to this until now. Here I will discuss the Audio components that I have installed. I have not take any picture since the sub and amp have been installed but I will take lots of pictures shortly.

Headunit: Awia CD player 40wattX4
Front speakers: 5 1/4 Cerwin Vega Stealth Series
Rear speakers: 6x9 Pioneer 3 way speakers

Sub: 12' Infinity Reference 1242w Dual Voice

Amp: Rockford Fosgate Punch 3001P RMS: 300 Watt@2 ohms Born Stats sheet rates @ 395watts

Welcome!

2005-06-07T22:25:00.000-05:00

Welcome!

I own a white 1999 Pontiac Sunfire SE. Over the last year or so I have been slowly adding a carpc to my car. Basically, this is a desktop computer tweaked for car use and filled with 25GB+ of music! It sure makes my car rides to and from work a lot nicer. I have been developing my own software to run on the computer. I also just purchased a amp and sub to install in the car. More details will follow in coming days along with pictures. I am going to hopefully be cleaning the car all up in the coming week or two and giving it a nice wax job. Should make for some nice pictures.

This blog is basically going to be a log of the progress of the car modifications, car computer, audio system, and the car pc software I have been writing for the last year.