Custom Car PC - Astra Coupe

davemark

Posted in Uncategorized on July 27, 2007 at 11:39 am

The Car

OK where do i start , i have been with car PCs since 2000 but back then they were very basic custom made power supplies and bodged wiring and simple MP3 play back. Now in 2007 new products are constantly coming out for in car design. My Friend James started a forum called www.digital-car.co.uk which become a quick success, with now over 4000 Members dedicated to In Car Computers if you are thinking of going ahead with a car pc, the community at digital car will surely be able to help.

OK so what area did i look at first? Well the main area i wanted to get right was the dash, i wanted something that looked stock yet looked different , hard balance i know but i think i got there.

So first things first i went to source a spare dash for my car (i don’t recommend chopping up a decent looking one), i cut out the approx screen size. Mean wile i had taken apart a 8″ Touchscreen (www.linitx.com) I glued the front bezel into the dash ready for custom molding.

Next Came the filler, this is a very time consuming task but keeping at it i got somewhere eventually, Also i decided that i wanted the curve of console to match the dash so i filled in the standard clock display.

After Several hours of work, Sanding/Filling/Sanding Filling the dash started to look like something that i had in mind.

Mean Wile why the dash was drying, i started to think of PC location, i decided i wanted to keep everything up front to save running cables down to the boot so i started to look closely at my glove box which had this handy removable tray

I placed out some components, a 1.5 Ghz Jet way (Linix.com) M2 DC PSU (Linitx.com)

My first plan was to actually mount a Voom2 Enclosure in my glove box but as soon as i removed my glove box it was apparent that i did not have the depth needed, This did not stop me having that funky Voom2 Front, i custom mounted the front/drive caddy’s

OK the PC was complete, had a quick test fit in the glove box, notice on the above pictures i used the easy connector lead that comes with the Voom2 for easy removal from the car if needed.

The Next job was to blank of the whole to the right of the PC , i decided to do a bit of a custom mod there with a Blue LED Fan

Mean Wile my amplifier had turned up and it was to much of a temptation when i saw that it fitted in the bottom half of the glove box

OK so we are getting there now , PC is in amp secured in glove box , this glove box was getting heavy !!!!
I then started to finish of the wood pannels , i added one to block of the bottom amp and a quick test fit in the car.

I tryed to paint the wood panels but i never really like the finish of paint so i decided to cover them both in black speaker cloth which had a great result (WARNING STAPLE GUNS HURT IF USED WRONG!!!!)

It was defiantly coming along, mean wile the dash had a bit of a change, i decided i wanted to use the bottem din slot for a Volt meter + some extra switches so the bottem din got blocked of with a bit of ply

Time to get it all in the car , wireing wireing wireing

Ok then comes finished item , i added a grill to the 40mm Fan and painted the dash silver, added volt meters + spare buttons and it looked ok i even added a griffin power mate under the handbrake.

How ever i was not completely happy, the dash had started to show imperfections and looked a bit tacky, i decided to cover the dash in alacantra material which was the best move i could do , dash looks much more stock/classy, added some aluminum dials and job done.

Finial Pictures

Finial Thoughts

On the whole im very happy with the way the build has gone , theres a few hardware issues to sort out and some software troubbles but nothing majour the dash is due to be re done soon. im upgrading the bottom buttons to savage style but unfortuanly this will mean a full re trim. Only other future change maybe will be screen as in direct sunlight it can be hard to read.

Specs

Jetway 1.5 Ghz Mini ITX - Lintix.com
512 MB RAM - Linitx.com
80GB Laptop Harddrive - Linitx.com
M2 DC-DC CAR PSU - Linitx.com
DVD/CDRW Laptop Combo Drive - Linitx.com
Voom2 Case (hacked apart lol) - Linitx.com
8″ LCD VGA Touch Scree - Linitx.com

Tanks to -

www.digital-car.co.uk - UK Car PC Forum
www.linitx.com - UK based car pc parts suppler
Regards

DaveMark

Comments (16)