Carputer Project

So there i was in my last car with a DVD Player stuffed in the glove box and two headrest screens AND an 80gb MP3 Player in the boot with the controller tucked up front, so when i got the new Lexus i thought, you know what im gona consolidate all of that lot and stick in a Computer... or Carputer as it is called.

After much research i settled on the following equipment:-

EPIA MII 1000Ghz Motherboard.
512MB RAM.
40GB Hard Drive in Removable Docking Unit.
Panasonic Slimeline CDRW/DVD Drive.
7” Lilliput Touchscreen.
Opus 90W PSU with intergrated controlled shutdown.
Griffin Powermate USB Multimedia / Input Device.
Roll Up Keyboard.

Complete Gallery pics can be found here.

The Motherboard Install

Tool Tray.

The Touchscreen Install

First I needed a flat secure base to mount the motherboard (mobo) on, so I opted for 20mm MDF. This depth also allowed the lid to sit flush with tool tray surround.

I used three lengths of M6 threaded bolt and some nuts to mount the removable lid to the base.

I used four mobo mounting screw things, and screwed these into the MDF and mounted the mobo to this. You can also see how I mounted the hard drive, although since then I have gone for a removable hard disk drive unit (pictures to come)

The Opus PSU was mounted onto another piece of MDF, such that the profile looks like the letter T, whereby the vertical piece of the T is the MDF.
This allowed me to put the unit in the cubby hole area of the boot

I Mounted a Belkin 4 Port Hub behind the glove box,, this allows me to add the rollup keyboard and store this in the glovebox., I can also plug in here the CD/DVD drive USB contoller, and the Griffin Powermate which will be used as a scroller/controller type input device.

This was the most difficult and most satisfying part of the Carputer project. I was stuck for a decent place to mount the 7” Touchscreen as I already had the factory sat nav screen where the ideal position would have been,
I also had the problem of adding an aftermarket stereo as the stock headunit does not allow AUX IN for the PC sound output to run through the car speakers, which in turn presented me with more problems as the stock headunit is a double DIN sized unit and the replacement is a single DIN unit and also the problem of keeping the factory Sat Nav system fully operational as once the stereo is removed the Nav stops working.

So I did some research and worked out a solution to bypass the stereo and allow the Nav to stay functional, details can be found Here.
I purchased a Toyota double DIN housing (part# 55413-53010)

and proceeded to chop this up and modify this to allow mounting of the Alpine headunit and the Touchscreen to fit.

Now obviously the Alpine and screen will not fit into the housing as is so I cut off the bottom horizontal bar and cutout the pockets. Then I put the Alpine headunit cage in place and using some contact adhesive I glued the horizontal bar I cut off earlier into position, this then made a single DIN sized hole for the Alpine.

Next I took apart the Toushcreen and mounted (glued) the front part of the screen housing into position below the new horizontal bar.
Then I added a couple of bits of plastic off cuts to the bottom halfs of the sides of the screen panel to ‘extend’ the main part of the original DIN housing.
After that I sanded the whole lot down with some 80 grit prepping for the liquid plastic.

Stage 2 - Saw me sand this down with 80 grit and begin the shaping process which involved adding more liquid plastic to fill any air holes that appeared during the sanding process, more sanding and shaping etc etc till I was happy with the shape.

Stage 3 - the painting process, after sanding with 240 grit I sprayed on some high build primer allowed to flash off and applied another coat, then once conmpletly dry I sanded with 400 grit and applied a Satin Black spray, once this was dry I applied some Gloss laquer.. but I wasn’t happy with this as it was just too shiny.

Stage 4 – I got hold of some SEM Textured spray in spray form, so I sanded again using 400/800 grit and applied the textured spray, allowed to flash off and applied another coat until all was covered. Once this was dry I applied some SEM Low Sheen laquer and that was then finished

Now considering this was my first time fabricating anything like this using ‘fillers’ im pretty pleased with the result, my only grumble is that I can see a bit if the screen that is not the main part of the display to the upper left hand side,, I think this was due to me sanding down too much.

Also I would like to have matched the colour up a bit more, as the A/C panel is black with a hint of grey in my eyes,, that’s why the satin black did not match, and the textured paint is more grey than black,, but hell patience aint one of my virtues so I’ll do that next time.

I used some Rigid Liquid Plastic and slapped this on the areas around the new horizontal bar and the newly extended sides, basically filling all gaps, toughs and steps then left it to set for 24 hours the end result looking like Stage 1.