Hey guys, just been thinkin bout installing a spare computer I hvae in my TJ. Probably in the boot, maybe under driver's seat.

About the power supply... Native, a computer converts from 240 to 12v (internal computer parts use 12v apparently). What's my best option of hooking up the power to the computer? Inverter, or some other way that I'm not aware of?

EDIT: and what sort of power consumption am I looking at, with a 400watt powersupply? Am I gonna need a bigger battery?

Get one of those mini computers, the would be the easiest.

DC-DC power supply is your best option both DSE and Jaycar sell units.

computers use 12v, 5v and 3v. maybe you could ring the manufacturer of the PSU and see what they have to say? but yeah i'd say a bigger battery or maybe just two batterys. you could probably mod a laptop and get an inverter to drop the power from 14.4v to 9.6 for the car to the battery (cars dont actually run perfectly 12 volt, it changes and fluctuates but kinda stays around 12) but you could get a laptop (which runs cooler) and just rip it out of its case and hardwire the battery wires to the car so that its got power, or maybe even keep the battery in it and also wire the car in so when you turn your car off you can still have movies and tunes going.. just an idea i thought of then.

I would say using a laptop would most likely be the easiest option. Whether u want to use it in the boot, connect to an external, screen, duel screen etc.

The best part is the power supply. These days u can buy car kits to power your laptop, whether its a genuine part, or third party (like from targus or whatever)

Another good thing about laptops is that they are smaller, run cooler? (as long as u don't block the vents and fans of the unit) quieter and lighter.

Again, you can get a wireless keyboard and mouse to use with. The laptop i would imagine would be easy to mount (under seat etc)

Only set back are the prices and upgradability of laptops.

As said, if you're running a full blown computer, you're best option would be to use a DC-DC power supply. The drawback is that it will end up being more expensive then just buying an inverter.

You say you're currently using a 400w power supply. What peripherals are you running? (or plan to run).

Talk to Nick (Not me, 2much Nick), he's got a full wicked PC set up in his boot and everything else in the front seat :D

i have a pc built into my car, its not as simple as grabbing the box and wacking it in the back with a couple wires running too it.

doing this is something that should only be attempted by thoes with very good electrical and computer knowledge, its just too easy to stuff up.

i run a dc-dc power supply in my system, when i built my system, comercial 12v pc power supplies werent avaliable so i had to build it from scratch, quite a bit of work there.

anyway i have since installed a system for a mate using an inverter (you will need atleast a 300w inverter to run a small pc (ie a 500mhz system) the inverter is a heap less mucking arround and is alot cheaper than a dc-dc power supply, even though it is nowhere near as efficient

try

http://www.stevieg.org/carpc/

http://www.xenarc.com/product/mp-sc1.html

yeah man a laptop would easily be the best bet, you can get like P4's and stuff and just run it with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse (IR is line-of-sight) and just mount it under your seat, would be killer i rekon, just a couple of velcro straps to keep it in place two side ways and two facing forward to make sure he doesnt get to use those frequent flier points, in a crash if it came out it would probably snap your ankles haha, but as eek said, upgradeability but really.. if you only wanna run stuff like movies and music you dont need to constantly upgrade it! even a 1500mhz system should have a dvd player etc.. although putting them there would be a pain the bum, you could put a wireless pcmcia card in it but and just transfer divx stuff from your home pc (aslong as your close enough for the wireless to work haha) and just hardwire in a cig lighter adapter into the back of the lighter wires like some kids wire in neons. killer!

yeah man a laptop would easily be the best bet,

Honestly I would prefer not to use a laptop

a) cause I don't have the money to buy another one
b) cause I tend to use the laptop I have at the moment...
c) I HAVE a spare desktop computer (1.2ghz)

Thanks for those links AllPaw, interesting read.


doing this is something that should only be attempted by thoes with very good electrical and computer knowledge, its just too easy to stuff up.

OK I have plenty of the latter, that's not the problem at all. DC-DC power, will that chew up my battery any quicker or what? Also with DC-DC power, does that mean I circumvent the PSU and power the internal parts directly (PSU converts from AC to DC)?


You say you're currently using a 400w power supply. What peripherals are you running? (or plan to run).

It's going to be running a 1.2ghz AMD Thunderbird (I can probably underclock to 800 or 700 after I install, depending on how much processing speed I think I'll need) with 256RAM, just a GF4MX440 (no fan, low power consumption) maybe a case fan, but I don't think I'll need it - DVD drive, HDD, sound card (undecided atm, probably just generic Vibra 128, or onboard).

Basically, it'll be the bare minimum I can get away with to play music, play movies and act as a GPS down the track.

search google for a dc atx power supply. eg. http://www.morex.com.tw/80dcpower_car.htm

inverters seem messy why go to 24v if your only going to go back to 12v anyway.

search google for a dc atx power supply. eg. http://www.morex.com.tw/80dcpower_car.htm

inverters seem messy why go to 24v if your only going to go back to 12v anyway.
Yeah why use an inverter, it converts 12 into 240 and then your psu on your PC converst 240 into 12, 5 and 3V. Stupid waste of energy and that will burn your battery out.

If you know stuff about computers then keep reading on the net and you will fiind some 12VDC-12vDC psu that replace the one in your pc BUT your PC has a very large footprint and the HDD and CD/DVD Rom are not designed for moving , vibrating cars.

Again keep reading there are some good car solutions out there and you may be able to use the stuff you have but i am sure that you will get the bug and buy new gear anyway. If you want to get good DVD in your car then buy a ciggie adapter and just use your laptop.

If you want to add a sat nav system have a download over wireless for your camera jave an ability to email and browse whilst driving in eh city, have TV and Radio and 7.2 sound ion tap then the car PC is for you.

Keep reading on the Internet.

The magna forum is not wide enough.

OK I have plenty of the latter, that's not the problem at all. DC-DC power, will that chew up my battery any quicker or what?
Dude it cost about $5 for a circuit board from Dick Smith that will shut off when your voltage drops to an unaccessible level. All people with monster sound installs should use them. Once the voltage drops ie leave your lights on, play your 1200W amp whilst the engine is off the circuit switches off and the battery voltage is retained for starting your car.

Im curious, why would you want a computer in your car?? Its not like you can play a game while your cruising.... :bowrofl:

OK I have plenty of the latter, that's not the problem at all. DC-DC power, will that chew up my battery any quicker or what? Also with DC-DC power, does that mean I circumvent the PSU and power the internal parts directly (PSU converts from AC to DC)?


a Dc-DC power supply will not chew your battery as fast as an inverter (dc-dc is more efficient) but unfortunatley a car pc will drain your battery pretty quickly, ive never got more than a couple hours out of mine with the engine off before i needed to jump or roll start.

a dc-dc power supply replaces the power supply in the pc. you CANNOT directly power the pc's components from the cars 12v the voltage fluctuates way to much and will destroy the pc.

also as you probably know a normal pc requires +12 -12 +5 -5 +3.3 and also some require a power good wire (its a slightly delayed signal that tells the pc the power supply has leveled out, some mainboards dont need this.)



It's going to be running a 1.2ghz AMD Thunderbird (I can probably underclock to 800 or 700 after I install, depending on how much processing speed I think I'll need) with 256RAM, just a GF4MX440 (no fan, low power consumption) maybe a case fan, but I don't think I'll need it - DVD drive, HDD, sound card (undecided atm, probably just generic Vibra 128, or onboard).

Basically, it'll be the bare minimum I can get away with to play music, play movies and act as a GPS down the track.
well, firstly, you wont need that much ram, 128 meg will be sufficient the rest will just chew up more power, also underclocking the cpu is probably not a good idea, its also unnecesarry. a normal dvd drive wont track properly in a car, its just to bumpy, the laptop ones work better. also the standard pc case isnt practical, perhaps you could build something smaller out of plexiglass or even mdf.

Fans on the pc can be powered directly from the cars 12 as they arent really sensitive to voltage.

Im curious, why would you want a computer in your car?? Its not like you can play a game while your cruising.... :bowrofl:

Wireless network access, GPS capabilities, ability to play MP3s, movies, etc etc. You can get systems which do ONE of the above, but very rarely find one which does all of them, especially for less than $1000.

DC- DC converter sounds like the trick to me. Also, why is underclocking a bad idea? It could potentially mean a VERY stable system, producing less heat, and using less energy?

EDIT: what you guys think bout this?
http://www.zantech.com.au/apowertech/PSU-12vdc250w.html

Using an Athlon in something like this is a big no-no. In fact overclocking it is silly. The main fact that car=hot whereever you will locate your computer. The fact that Athlons (especially the older ones) overheat easily, and can die easily (Check out Tom's Hardware Guide and see their temperature tests with the Pentiums and the Athlons. The Athlon will fry itself as soon as you take the heatsink off).

my bad, i misinterpreted underclocking and thought it said overclocking.

Even underclocking the Athlon won't prevent it from accidental frying. So not only take account into power consideration, but also heat consideration.

Reasons for me having a car computer:
*Original reason was i have all my stuff on MP3's and I hated the stacker (THough this was 4 years ago, things have changed). The fact at that time there was no such thing as an MP3 head unit except a particular JVC model worth $700 and I could build the car computer for way less then that (which I did).
*My radio scanner is computer controlled.
*I want GPS, a logger, and back-to-base communications (EV-DO/1x)
*War driving (fun stuff)
*Vehicle to vehicle video comms (Wi-Fi)
*ECU Data-logging and realtime data output
*A fun cheap (originally, but now i have new ideas) project

Just to let you know, i've been there and done that, i've also built my own DC-DC powersupply, and i've got some of those points above going. However the car computer has been out of my car for the past couple of years due to a mishap (it came loose and went flying across the car) and have yet to fix the damage. And with the new ideas, i'm going to re-develop it with a totally new interface.

I'll post some DC-Dc poweer supply pics when i get home, and if i can boot the old beast. Petemal2000 - I wonder if you've built the same DC-DC power supply from the same schematics i've got.

Edit:
I will not be building any DC-DC power supply units for you guys, it was a pain in the neck trying to get the parts together and I had to get some parts by means of social engineering, and I am not prepared to go through it again. However if you are electronically minded, I can give you pics and schematics and sources to get you up and going, but that is all.

http://www.zantech.com.au/apowertech/PSU-12vdc250w.html

That looks like a very good built PSU. But be prepared to pay top dollar for it.

EDIT: what you guys think bout this?
http://www.zantech.com.au/apowertech/PSU-12vdc250w.html

Keep reading and stop posting. You need more research yet. Have a look at those car sites they have good links to other things. The PSU on one of them is half that size and does auto power up and down (esp low voltage) wake on lan/keystroke and lots of other "special for car" features.

Do a search in google for "Setting Up an In-Car PC" and two links should come up. One for
part 1 and the other for part 2 in autospeed. Click on cached and all the info's there.

I will not be building any DC-DC power supply units for you guys, it was a pain in the neck trying to get the parts together and I had to get some parts by means of social engineering, and I am not prepared to go through it again. However if you are electronically minded, I can give you pics and schematics and sources to get you up and going, but that is all.

please share. i am very interested in how you went about building this and which parts where hard to get ?

That looks like a very good built PSU. But be prepared to pay top dollar for it.

pretty sure that supply is up arround the 400 dollar mark, not a cheap toy at all, hence why i sugested that if your really going to go ahead with this then use an inverter, you also have to think of how your going to controll pc cause a keyboard and mouse aint much use flyin down the road, and the good old "ill get a fully sik touchscreen" excuse is all well and good but where are you going to buy such a thing without spending 3 fucloads? (i had enough trouble getting the touchscreen for mine, and i dont know where i could source another)

you also have to get sound in to your stereo some how, and that in itself can be a big problem as 99% of head units dont have an AUX IN plug on the back (stacker connections dont count)
then once you get audio into it, you will probably have a heap of noise, static, whine etc

(i have this discussion all the time with people and i usually end up telling them to forget it, they cant possibly pull it off and i dont have the spare time to fix their mistakes. they dont think about how much work is involved in building a viable system, even once its installed then it takes a ****load of work to keep the bastard working properly, cars and pc's are not a good combination.