project thread: in car mp3 player

[putty_thing]

lo,

it was a long time ago that via released its first mini-itx stuff, really bloody small motherboards, which run off virtually no power and don't need any active cooling at all (see here (http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/mini_itx.jsp)) - this plus usb2 ports, onboard lan and video (plus all the legacy stuff) mean the possibilities are almost endless. just think of the things you can do with a 17x17cm pc - me and addz did.

so, the objective, to create an in car mp3 player - sure, its been done before, thats why we're going to have bonus features.


objectives:


easy interface, should be as usable as a standard car headunit
powered entirely off the battery
resistant to power disruption/general abuse
flexible - i may want to do more than just play mp3s
more as i think of them


anyway, this thread is going t\o be a project log w/ pics, so follow it if you're interested, as at least for me, this project seems to have alot of scope.


[prologue]

it was before christmas that the mp3 player was first invisiged, and the first step was to do some reaserch into the motherboards we were looking at using, and more importantly, howto power on in the car.

christmas solved the problem of finding the cash to get hold of the motherboard and with it i grabbed a dc-12v atx psu from http://www.mini-itx.com.

[the bits]

first bit was the motherboard, i went for a VIA EPIA CL6000 - its running a 600mhz via eden/c3 cpu with requires no active cooling at all (only a heatsink), it also sports a pair of ps2 ports, serial, 4x usb2, onboard sound and my favourate bit of all, dual onboard lan :D even better, the nics support wake-on-lan, but more on that later..

yes, i could have gone for the 1ghz c3, but i'm not after power here, and i also don't need it. more power means more heat, so the fanless box quickly becomes noisey, and anyway, no fans makes a cleaner solution.

http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/epia-cl_2.jpg

the dc-dc psu

http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/psukit.jpg

[power 1]

first thing to note - you don't get 12v out of a 12v car battery, at least, not most of the time. sure, leave a battery on the floor, connect a multimeter to it and you'll see around 12, but when the car the voltage hovers more around 13-14 volts (just over 14 with my rover 600) - this will fry sensitive pc components when they're expecting 12v.

so, the first step towards powering the box is getting 12v to the psu - more later...

[power 2]

addz finished the voltage regulator/power supply today, this means we can input unregulated ~12v (+/- 3v) from the car battery and output smooth 12v and 5v; for the power supply and an additional mystery device ;)

for reference the box is running slackware linux.. i'll write some more stuff up on that later.

pics:

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/100_1925.jpg

the finished unit:

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/100_1928.jpg


.

the project so far:

http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/sofar.jpg

[BirdofPrey]

man u ave far to much money for a student!

Looking into this alot of info can be found here (http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/carpc.jsp)

[Blackstar]

man u ave far to much money for a student!


I second that!

[putty_thing]

i really don't :(

more updates coming soon.

[Drazhar]

Well...to further BoPs statement may i be the first to ask...




...can i borrow i fiver?

P.s. Good luck with the project...will be very interesting to see the results ;)

[addz]

the voltage regulators have been tested, im gonna build them tonight i reccon.

[putty_thing]

addz finished the voltage regulators - updated.

[SHimmer45]

looks very interesting.. good luck.
be good to c if it any cheaper than buying an ordinary MP3 cd head unit.. or perhaps the REALLY expensive DVD systems etc now tht would be cool asthe small displays suitable for car i fairly priced

[putty_thing]

the good thing about it is the flexibility of the unit, when its in, i'm not going to have to remove anything to upload mp3s :)

[addz]

as putty said the voltage regulators have been built, pics shown above

this box takes in the 10-14 v the car battery gives out(on the kettle lead connector on the left) and gives out a steady 12 and 5 volts on the phono connectors.

hopefully this should all be going in puttys car on saturday/sunday if all goes well!

[Sc4mpi]

just wondering what the header unit is going to be.. i see the board has a pci slot so could u purchase a aduigy 2 platnum thingy and use the card in the pci and the live drive as the header unit... every thing can be contoled via the remote. that would be class also give u the old 5.1 surrond and eax just incase u fancy like getting some movie quialty in the car lol :P (jsut a thought)

[addz]

heh its an idea,

its easier just to set the volume etc on the computer at a constant and controll it via the main car head unit and the palm. And less money ;)

[BirdofPrey]

yeah all u need is some form of imput on the head unit (eg an aux in) and a mini jack-phono cable!

[putty_thing]

i've already got both :)

[putty_thing]

we've made alot of progress over this weekend, including getting the pc into a case, and actually getting sound out of it into the car.

well, where should i start?..

saturday

the next logical step was to see if all the stuff we'd been messing about with would actually work in the car. we got all the bits together, and proceeded with the only next step we could think of - plug it in and see if it explodes or not*.

*ok, i admit, addz insisted we test it first..

http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/Img_1370.jpg

well, we plugged it in and it worked pretty well, i'd setup the board to boot as soon as it gets power, so it all turned on before i'd even gotten the atx connector in properly, however there was a problem, only a slightly clicking was coming from the hard drive (rather than the normal supprisingly annoyingly high pitched whine, fluid bearing my arse..) - we guessed it wasn't getting enough power, so i started the car, and sure enough the harddrive spun up. now for some testing..

keeping a constant eye (and finger) on the temperature of the voltage regulators (which were apparently bloody hot ;)) addz stayed in the car - i went up to the garage to see if i could talk to the box. oh, i didn't mention did i, the extra 5v output of the power box is for a dlink wireless access point we're putting in the car, so i can admin the box over the air, without even going out to the car (we promised bonus features) :D

http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/mp3upload.jpg

guess that works then :)

we packed the stuff up and retired to the top of the garage to discuss the results - it was all working nicely, but the harddrive was cutting out when the car was off, it was clearly an issue with a lack of power, but we didn't know where the lack of power was - was it the dc-dc atx psu that didn't have enough grunt, or was the 12.6v coming out of the battery not giving us enough juice?

after abit of deliberation we braved the cold, dark outside once more to investigate - the battery was still outputting 12.6v, but this was dropping to 11.5 on the other side of the 12v voltage regulator (due to the regulation process), still, that wasn't *too* bad.

[side note, when the car is on, the battery outputs 14v(ish) so the voltage regulator was solid @ 12v]

we then looked at the power the harddrive was getting. in a harddrive the signalling and data stuff is done at 5v and the motor is powered by the 12v input, upon checking the molex we found the root of our problem - the dc-dc psu was only giving us a meagre 10.4v due to the extra voltage regulators on it.

we went back up, and knowing what the problem was the solution was simple, we took 12v straight off our regulator and spliced it into the molex going to the harddrive, and had the additional soldering done in 5 mins and we went back down to the car - needless to say, the hard drive spun up first time.

that was about it for saturday.. onward virgin soldiers!

[putty_thing]

righty, sunday

today was mainly taken up getting the pc into the project box we'd picked up from maplins.. this was the result:

http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/theresult.jpg

what can i say, addz is pretty handy with a jigsaw.



so, we had it boxed - what now? more testing :D

http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/Img_1401.jpg
the camera just loves him.


http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/Img_1403.jpg
the whole testing setup


http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/sunset.jpg
the world called time, so i did some pics inside


http://jim.thebiggame.org/mp3player/Img_1416.jpg
a shot of inside the box

more pics of the project can be found here (http://putteh.com/gallery/mp3box/)

[addz]

which looks damn sweet might i add, took us all fecking day! and yes i was a bit a stickler for testing as i made the ciruits i didn't want to be responsible for blowing up putty's new mobo, hd, car, me, jim or any thing else in contact with it. ;)

I also have just finnished the keyboard controlls to go in the dash to turn the thing on and off. I rigged up some switches to a ps/2 controller board and putty has set his mobo to turn on on any keystroke, also putty did some clever stuff(i dont understand) inside linux so that it turns fully off with a ctrl-alt-del command. Groovey :D

So yeah, its going well so far al we need to do now is implement it fully into the car and figure out a way to get some wires through the bulk head. I still reccon a angle grinder is the best solution... xD :D ;)

[BirdofPrey]

run the wires down the electrical ducking, or thru the pedal holes

[addz]

there are no "pedal holes" as such and the ducting looks as if there aint much room for any more cables tbh. Dont worry we will find away, we only looked for about 20 mins :)

[BirdofPrey]

You could "armour" (use heavy duty shrink wrap) and them and take them out of the bottom of the car, and in thru the cabins floor, there should be some dranage holes somewhere!

[tuBBymAN]

can i just say omg!!! and this is possibly the most impressive thing i have ever seen done! Jim you should try pitching this to kenwood they might be very interested or at least rover. Coz i certianly would love one in my car. Bet it ain't cheap tho

[addz]

its not too bad the mobo is about ?120 (this includes an embedded cpu), the DC-DC power supply was about ?40, the HD was free cos putty already had one as was the RAM, spent about 20-30 quid to build the voltage regulator, and about another 20 quid for switches, boxes and other bits and bobs.

Oh and my salery ?7.36 an hour, dont forget that one putty! ;)

[Drazhar]

Still, if mass produced and made to order i'm sure even that price would come down. I'd definatly have one of those in me car if it was affordable.

[BirdofPrey]

I u look on the net a pre built unit of lower specs that puttys is at least $1000, puttys is like $2000!

[addz]

wtf?

it cost around ?200 quid where did you get ?2000 from

[BirdofPrey]

naah the pre made ones that i found here (http://www.i-zone-3.com/components.htm)

[addz]

putty's are quite abit lower spec than them, they are p3's and p4's. We're using a Via 600mhz C3 system here.

That other stuff on that site is pretty bitchin though, AI for your car and stuff crazy!

[Jynx]

This is getting better by the minute. Great project guys.

[putty_thing]

just out of interest - is anyone actually reading the blurb, or just looking at the pictures? :p

cheers for the feedback though guys :)

just to quickly address the comparisons made - the idea of this project was for a clean solution to what i wanted to do. no fans, no huge screen and a small box running linux is what i'd call a clean solution - this thinking went into every bit we designed, just trying to keep it simple and clean/efficient.

[BirdofPrey]

I love the touchscreen tfts. they rule

I am reading the blurb, its cool!

[Jynx]

Ich bin reading die blurb.

[Drazhar]

Yes, More blurb please!

[tuBBymAN]

i have been reading the blurb this is a very interesting thread and i have been telling my house mates about it and they reckon its a great idea

[addz]

of course its a great idea me and putty came up with it,

anyways we pretty much finnished it today its all in and working just needs some finishing touches aesthetically.

Heres some pics of the progress.

We got up at 9 o'clock to start implementing it, and in true Great British fashion it was pissing it down :( Did that stop us....NO! :) (Note the two Umbrellas)

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/implementation/outside.jpg

Then we figured the next best plan of action was to find out how to route the power cable from the battery in the main car (thanks Julian :) )

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/implementation/frombattery.jpg

Then we started to take out the seats to begin mounting the computer. The original plan was to put the computer under the driver seat as the passanger seat already had the CD changer under it. But disaster struck, as we lifted out the drivers seat we discovered there was not enough room for the computer. This was because the drivers seat has lots of extra gubbins like height adjustment and stuff and this all took up space. So we had to figure a way of putting it under the passagners seat. With a bit of a re-jig we managed to fit in the CD changer and the computer under the seat.

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/implementation/underseat3.jpg

Once the computer was mounted the cables were neatly bundled together and stashed under the carpet (out of sight out of mind and all that ;)). And also they were plugged into the unit.

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/implementation/underseat1.jpg

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/implementation/underseat2.jpg

Also the power switches were routed through the dash. These will be mounted up properly soon, didn't have time today cos putty needed to go to uni.

http://www.thebiggame.org/crew/addz/jimsmp3box/implementation/switches.jpg

So thats what we did today. We're almost done, just needs a few extra tweaks, holes cut etc etc. Also the WiFi is in there but we didn't get any pics of that yet as its not properly implemented yet (its in the glove box atm).

Addz

[LR.]

Whoa! Thats a hella amazing project putty! (and addz of course... :) ) I can't believe how much work has been involved! Nice work!

[Jynx]

Damn you guys that looks like soo mcuh fun but not as easy as first thought.

[tuBBymAN]

yeah if only i had the time and money to do that in my car

[BirdofPrey]

What u doing for i/o devices?
as fancy as a touch screen, or just some keyboard, and an old lappi screen?

[putty_thing]

we're using a palm pilot interfaced via serial to search, organise playlists, start and stop the music - works pretty well.

its called giantdisc - http://www.giantdisc.com/

[tuBBymAN]

looks pretty good there mate i need one of them things hopefully get one with the job ;)

[Drazhar]

I got a hp Pocket PC, they're loads of fun.

[Blackstar]

I got a hp Pocket PC, they're loads of fun.
I was considering getting one for a long time, but then I realised that I really had no use for it whatso ever, what do people actually use them for other than to interface with GPS?

[BirdofPrey]

You think puttys is impressive (which it is) look at this! (http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html)

[tuBBymAN]

i must admit i thought about a handheld pc for uni That is pretty hardcore and very nice looking too

[putty_thing]

but its a mac!

[BirdofPrey]

Hey, whats wrong with macs?

[Jynx]

Nothing, if you use it for one of two things, picutres or music. OH and you dont want to ever customise anything.

[SlyDave]

tis not shad buts his bro:) i like buttons and gizmos in my motor as well as it goin fast ask putty :P
135on m27 not bad cuase only 140on clock which i have done :)
(any pigs reading this its a lie i never did it)
so any hows hope it all goes well and ill have one of u if it works and the price is right!!
or u can use my motor as the next project car with some crazy idea and we can sort some form of money out l8er :)

[BirdofPrey]

Ahh Shads Gone Towniesish!

[Jynx]

read you fool!

[tuBBymAN]

hehe eye sight these days is terrible

[SlyDave]

Ahh Shads Gone Towniesish!
Indeed, listen to what Jynx said. Try reading the god damn post.

My brother is also no towny or even townieish, he's just got shit written english (much like my self.)

But yes, the night he brought back putty_thing and I from portsmouth was very "intresting" to say the least, and to think, hes want a faster car...

[BirdofPrey]

Ahh it makes partial sense now!

The snow had clouded my brain!

[putty_thing]

i split this thread to clear some of the spam and car stuff ;) the new thread is in general lanware.

as for the mp3 project - the box has afew ui problems, which me and addz have yet to address, and which we couldn't have forseen (you can't beat actual testing).

firstly the box powers on as soon as it gets power - we now know that this is BAD due to the battery (via the regulators) still not supplying enough juice (v) to spin up the harddrive, we also might try a slower harddrive to remedy this.

the power buttons need mounting properly, and a master power switch fitting, also a fuse it needed for safety (so my car doesn't get burnt down) and we're going to change the layout of the powerbox due to concerns over heat dissipation.

oh, and linux keeps crashing for some reason - we think its a sound card driver issue, rather than a general stablility/heat issue.

[Jynx]

Omg, I knew it had been ages but seriously, your getting close to 2 years downtime.

SORT IT OUT!

[Blackstar]

Well not any more!!!!! f00l

[putty_thing]

Yeah, thanks for resurrecting this...

Reading through it again I'm tempted to try and finish it - if I remember correctly there was an issue with the voltage regulation still, we fixed the overheating, and I'm even noticing updates to the giantdisc (http://www.giantdisc.org/) software, which was rather unstable before..

[tuBBymAN]

yeah but the question is now can u fix it to the bike! lol :P

[eaterofpies]

we sort of fixed the temp thing and the voltage reg should be cool now as your using that laptop disk . . .

[Jynx]

Well not any more!!!!! f00l

eh?

[Blackstar]

your getting close to 2 years downtime.

[BirdofPrey]

You realise the 7" screens are only like 160quid now, and can run off the crap 12v systems.

[eaterofpies]

youd really need a touch screen though if you were going to have a screen . . . either that or a wireless card and keyboard so you can run kismet :)

[BirdofPrey]

I was refering to a touchscreen, there that much on miniitx.com

[eaterofpies]

a 7 inch touch screen costs 200 quid from mini-itx.com

[BirdofPrey]

Meh, you try getting a 19" for a kiosk system....