In Car PC / earth. Help Please.

[corallus]

Hi
I'm new to this forum and feel a bit cheaky asking a question straight away.
I have an L reg 3.0 TD Auto which I love.

I build PC's and am now building an in car PC with ITX board for my surf.

My question is regarding the +/- earthed chasis of the Surf???

Am I correct in thinking the surf is not a '-' earth on the body like most cars and therefore any earth return would have to return to the battery?

Hope you can help!
Thanks
Rob

[Morr]

The surf does indeed have a -ve earth chassis, as virtually every vehicle does these days.
However using the vehicle chassis as a direct earth may not be the best idea due to the spikes the alternator can put out. Similarly beware of many itx power supplies which use the 12v input from the car to directly supply the 12v rails for the pc as a number of these supplies do not regulate the 12v line, leading to the possibility of firing excess of 14v to your 12v rails, not good.

[corallus]

Thanks for the quick reply!

The PSU is an advanced unit which protects against spikes/lows between 5v and 22v and prevents damage or rebooting.

Going be quite a project as it is going to run GPS/MP3/DVD/TV/Digi Radio/Mobile internet via a touch screen monitor.

Will post pics along the way if anyone wants to see.

Has anyone here done this mod already?

[Morr]

Sounds like you have things fairly well sussed out
Yep, did have a guy post pics of his PC install in a 3rd Gen before, looked quite good. Have a search on the forum, should be easily enough found.
Certainly post pics of your progress and completed installation, I'm sure many would be interested in it.
Its something I've been planning and thinking about for a long time, originally planned (long, long ago) using a PC104 board with LCD display purely for mp3's, then itx's came along, and decent (read VGA) small sized monitors became available, my desired spec keeps growing along with the costs! Ah well, one day .....

[codlord]

Yeah I would be very interested in pics/details/progress/costs - I like projects like these, looked at doing it myself a year or so ago but could not find a decent touch-screen monitor for sensible money. I wanted a proper monitor, not a TV screen - Is yours going to be using a TV screen with component input from tv/out or a proper monitor with vga input?

Also what are you using as an amplifier or how are you connecting MP3 output to your speakers?

[corallus]

I'm going to use a tft motorised fold away single din with vga input.
Pc to 5.1 amp to speakers.
External usb dvd drive in glove box, PC in boot side panel I reckon...?
Deciding between ITX and ATX - both can be used - ATX has faster chip sets at the moment.

[bell end billy]

Have a look here.

http://www.yotasurf.co.uk/forums/sho...t=computer+car

[30Surfer]

Thanks for the quick reply!

The PSU is an advanced unit which protects against spikes/lows between 5v and 22v and prevents damage or rebooting.

Going be quite a project as it is going to run GPS/MP3/DVD/TV/Digi Radio/Mobile internet via a touch screen monitor.

Will post pics along the way if anyone wants to see.

Has anyone here done this mod already?

Have you been on 'pimp my ride'...???

[Gamedawn]

.... and here http://www.yotatech.com/showthread.php?t=64575

[contaminated]

I'm going to use a tft motorised fold away single din with vga input.
Pc to 5.1 amp to speakers.
External usb dvd drive in glove box, PC in boot side panel I reckon...?
Deciding between ITX and ATX - both can be used - ATX has faster chip sets at the moment.

I'm building one at the moment. Without a doubt the best bet is a mini-ITX form factor, it's about the size of a CD case with on board everything. They are low power too and you can get a DC - DC converter with auto start-up quite cheap. PC fires up when you turn the key

I've got tones of links if you want them, but start with www.mini-itx.com and look for BMW PC. www.mp3car.com is good as well.

For the screen your spoilt in a Surf because you have a double din. The flip screens tend to have video input only. You'll struggle with resolution and during the day the screen is usually rubbish (although somewhere I do have a home made patch to improve it a bit). These on the other hand are the dog's danglies and have a propper VGA input.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lilliput-7-Tou...QQcmdZViewItem

You can get them into a surf din slot no probs.

Some pics of yours would be great. Might encourage me to finish mine!!

[db2boy]

I have one up and running in my 3rd gen too Built and installed it about a month ago. I went the laptop route for a number of reasons.

Rgds

Ant