I'm gunna try my best to post something in the DIY when my carputer is all said and done...

 

Its ALIVEEE....its ALIVe....oops

Sorry, seeing all those body parts lying around got me excited =)

 

I'm just doing all the up-front wiring I can this weekend. Including the touchscreen you see above...

 

Do you think that screen will ever open again??

 

I am more than confident of my skills as an IT Professional and experienced modder that it will. However we will find out in about an hour ;-).

Sin,
-Paul

 

Don't get too frustrated IF it won't open or turn on or tilt, you may get lucky if you haven't turned the motor shaft since unpluging it. Any how... good luck.

 

no dissassemble johnny 5

 

Came right up no problems! Though because the touchscreen added a wee bit of depth it seems a few rows of pixels are cut off from a drivers point of view. Shouldn't be an issue. The touchscreen overlay did almost nill on the brightness factor too! I'll see how much further I get tomorrow.

Sin,
-Paul

 

HOLY CRAP YOUR DOING IT...you've got HUGE ***** my friend...HUGE... Come on make a DIY for this please...please

Oh alsoo...you think there is anyway to put another screen in there...a much higher resolution one? or even is there enough room to cut around and stick a larger screen in there (higher res to)

 

I am getting very serious about doing this project myself. What equipment are you running? I am looking at the Xenarc carputer - either the PIII 1.2 gHz or the P4 2.4 gHz, depending on how much room there is. Are you adapting the stock nav screen? PM me with details if you can.

 

This is going to be VERY slick...! :D

 

Forget PM'ing the details, post dem bad boys! THis is practically the project that I have had in mind for awhile now (if I had an 8). I'd drop in a Lilliput in place of the stock nav screen. CPU would be 1.2ghz or better Via mini ITX in a custom "keybox" case. Powered by a Opus 90W power supply. I'd wire up the mouse antannae for the nav in the bose center speaker location (as I would buy a sport package). I'd consider wiring up an eraser mouse in the stock nav control location. Oh yeah... this will be slick as hell! :D

 

can someone please tell me what the heck that little square is to the right of the navi screen? you know the one that looks like it is tinted plexiglass...just a quarter inch to the right of the screen in the motorized unit (in the frame of the screen)

 

Your right, other markets (Europe/Japan) have removable control joysticks. I know the Mazda6 for sure.

 

this is the most interesting project since the dvd navigation project. good luck with everything and please post a DIY for the rest of us lamens can also upgrade our 8's to the next level.

 

I'm going to install an older Alienware 51M laptop with a 64mb ddr Radeon on-board. It's a P4 2.4Ghz w/ 512mb ram. I picked it up cheap and with a slight modification to the power switch I'll be able to wire something up front to put it into standby/wake up.

There isn't really room for a different screen as anything larger would probably interfere with the motor assembly inside. The touchscreen goes right over the LCD and screws back into place just fine. Though I'd be careful about tightening the screws too much. They would mess up the pressure on the touchscreen.

I'll try to do a write up on it later. I ran all the wiring the other night. It's progressing but since I'm in the middle of a bathroom remodel and trying to lure the lust of a new woman in my life, things are a little scattered on the project side of things lately.

Oh and btw, this is the keyboard I plan to use... with an adapter of course ;-)
it also will be used as a secondary mouse (w/ joystick2mouse app)
http://www.therage.com/cgi-local/Sof...html?E+scstore

Sin,
-Paul

 

Update?

 

ugh, seeing those parts everywhere makes me sad, good luck!

 

wait did you replace the screen with a higher resolution one and add touchscreen capabilities or did you just add touch screen capabilities???

 

No room for a 7" Lilliput or Xenarc in there? That... is a problem. The issue isn't about a touchscreen (as you just added that on), but resolution. For those that will be running nav software on the computer, they will need good resolution for accuracy and if it's not VGA it won't be good enough... at least that's the word from the guys on mp3car.com... So a 1DIN motorized screen is going to be the best bet maybe...

 

he only added a touchscreen to the stock screen if i understand correctly...

 

I'm sure we can get a screen that fits...but we must look for ones with no housing whatsoever...look to there companies too...or rip one out of the higher res portable dvd screens

 

Ｉ’d be taking it out of the case for mounting anyway...

 

I'm working on getting VGA to the unit. The problem is getting something that converts VGA out to RGBs. I think I have the solution though... you'll have to hunt for my other post or wait until I see if it works today ;-).

Sin,
-Paul

 

What about going VGA to RCA (video) and then converting that to RGB? Or... hmmm. I could almost bet that someone on mp3car.com has already done this (for another car/setup). Might be a good place to look.