Hard drive and screen fitted in car - woohoo

[JMC 0]

Cool, just had all the bits turn up for a new project - thought it was about time to make something new, and AV sounded like it would keep me occupied for a bit. Anybody have any do's and don'ts for getting video into the car??

[mrbeige 0]

Those necvox screens are pretty good from what I can remember, and Alpine head units can't be faulted. 8) Good skills 8)

 

Are you just running the one screen?

[JMC 0]

At the moment yep, although the Necvox control box has a splitter so it can run a second screen. Still going to keep my Alpine 9815 and run either the 9861 or the multimedia harddrive as "Aux In" as I like the sound processing of the 9815.

[JMC 0]

As I have nothing better to do on a friday evening, I've just made a up a loom to operate the hard drive and screen from the cigarette lighter (just to see if it works).

 

Amazingly it did :shock: for about 10 seconds :cry: . Found out that I need to have the engine running (and hence charging the battery) for the controller for the screen to work, and I'm using the 12V out from that to power the harddrive. The screen controller says it is expecting a 13.2V supply. Looks like either a yellow top battery, or be resigned to run it only when the engine is running. Decisions, decisions....

[dinkus 10]

Looks like a nice setup, it's just a shame that nobody makes decent quality screens with VGA inputs - they all have composite inputs. Hmm, could probably get someone at work to lash me a circuit up tho :lol: That's getting silly.

[JMC 0]

Nah, not silly Dom. I prefer the term 'dedicated' :lol:

 

I really, really want to get the Alpine in there somewhere as it is a fantastic looking headunit, but I really really want to keep the sound processing from my 9815. Might have to hold out for one of the new Alpine processors, they should be available soon :D

[JMC 0]

Well I hooked the harddrive up to the Aux in on my Alpine 9815 this afternoon, uisng a cable I got from US Ebay for less than it would have cost me in the UK (madness, £9 shipped from the us, and £12 here). Guess what, it worked. Always amazed when these things work first time. Right time for a celebratory beer now :D :D

[JMC 0]

Got the hard drive and screen properly installed in the car today. Decided to mount the hard drive unit in the glove box. The screen is yet to be fixed somewhere as I am not 100% on where it is going to go. Sound works through the Aux In on my Alpine, and the 160Gb hard drive currently has enough to keep the passenger happy (all of Futurama, half a dozen films and about 6 hours of music videos). Dead chuffed with it all especially as it all came to less than £200. Now where to mount then screen....

[Blue_Joe 0]

I was thinking of doing a similar thing in the future with mine but actually losing the glovebox as I am thinking of trimming the dash in leather and then mounting the screen where the glovebox was, but mounted flush into the dashboard as opposed to bolted on

[JMC 0]

Sounds like a plan.... The only issue is that you would need to have the front of the hard drive somewhere in line of site as that is also controlled by remote control. In theory it wouldn't be too difficult though and a leather covered dash would look very, very good 8) Another alternative would be to use a DVD playing headunit (like te Alpine 9861) and then there is no need for the hard drive of course.

[Jim 2]

Nice work mate! Liking the idea of a HDD loaded full of content in the car.. very cool :D

[skinnyman9000 0]

Looks good. Ive got a blaupunkt headunit and hard drive in my C. It works very well, but the folder system is a lil difficult to use sometimes.

[.A.N.T. 0]

Nice work...

 

Was impressed when I sat in it a fair while back, I'd like to see what you've done since!!

 

 

One thought though... Hard drives and hard suspension... they don't like being knocked, and if your suspension is solid what vibrational damping is there in the unit? As the arm is tracing across the disk surface a large bump (like the one that wrote off my front wheel this morning) could knacker the drive??

[Andi 2,147,483,647]

One thought though... Hard drives and hard suspension... they don't like being knocked, and if your suspension is solid what vibrational damping is there in the unit? As the arm is tracing across the disk surface a large bump (like the one that wrote off my front wheel this morning) could knacker the drive??

 

3.5in hard drives, I would agree with that. I suspect the head will crash within 6 months, and you'll lose everything... Well known CarPC fact I'm afraid!

 

2.5in (laptop) harddrives are far better though - and should last a lot longer. Less platters, less heads, and actually constructed with being moved whilst on in mind.

[JMC 0]

Nice work...

 

Was impressed when I sat in it a fair while back, I'd like to see what you've done since!!

 

 

One thought though... Hard drives and hard suspension... they don't like being knocked, and if your suspension is solid what vibrational damping is there in the unit? As the arm is tracing across the disk surface a large bump (like the one that wrote off my front wheel this morning) could knacker the drive??

 

To be honest in now looks like it did then. Given that I don't want the unit anywhere obvious (and the fact that I am inherently lazY), I've left it all in the glove box. I can then get it out if I want it (oh er missus). I've test driven it around some nasty roads round me, and so far so good. However I can well believe that in the long run it will be a problem.

 

If that's the case then I'll just have to install the Alpine 9861 I currently have on my shelf and do it properly :D :D