Digital Literacy Project» carputing

Yet Another In Car iPad Installation

Grant Swaim — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:35:47 +0000

His is yet another iPad stuck in a car. It is not embedded in the dash and you can actually swivel the iPad from portrait to landscape mode. This installation also has the iPad reporting OBD-II data sent to it via a blue tooth OBDII transmitter plugged into the data link connector.

Click here to view the embedded video.

iPhone Displaying Automotive Performance Info

Grant Swaim — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:15:39 +0000

Brian from Palmer Performance has ported his automotive OBD-II software package to an Apple iPhone. Check out this incredible integration.

How to Build a Car Computer, Step-by-Step

Grant Swaim — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:53:04 +0000

Curious about what it takes to build a computer designed for automotive use? Well, the folks over at MP3car.com show you how it is done from start to finish. Pretty neat, I’ll have to add building a carputer to my “bucket list”.

Note: when building PCs, it is best to use a grounding wrist band to protect electronic
components from an electrostatic discharge (ESD).

Fanless Compact Computers – Good Choice for Carputing?

Grant Swaim — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:21:42 +0000

Stealth Computer's LPC-450FS

Check out this fanless PC built on a small form factor from Stealth Computers. Let’s see, small, rugged, fanless, 12 volts…. seems like good platform for in car computing to me!

Stealth Computers offers a lot of specialized and small form factor computers, but this one really seems to be a good choice for automotive applications.

The fanless feature is nice because you don’t have to worry about the cooling fan pulling in those dust bunnies that tend to breed under the seat and other nooks and crannies of a car.

The extruded aluminum chassis and the shock mounted 2 1/2″ hard drive is no doubt a rugged package. If you want it even more shock resistant you can get a solid state drive and have no moving parts!

I have not used or reviewed this PC but it looks promising to me. Here is a link so you can read more about the LPC-450FS unit and I have included some of the specs below:

12 VDC Operation, ideal for mobile/field
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
3D Graphics with 16×9 Capability
Built-in Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0,
1394a Firewire, Audio, Serial and Video Ports
Low Profile Rugged Aluminum Chassis 6.1″(W) x 10.0″(D) x 2.17″(H)
Slim Slot Loading Optical Drives
Solid State Hard Drives (SSD) optional
Windows Vista & XP Pro Compatible,
Intel Celeron M440, 1.86GHz Processor
1MB Cache, 533MHz FSB
80 Gig HDD SATA (2.5″)
DVD/CD-RW Drive
1GB RAM SO-DIMM
On-board Video & Audio
Standard Price: $1095