• May 21st, 2008
• Joseph Crawford
• 7:53 AM (GMT-4)
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Since late 2000 I have been thinking of building a CarPuter (as they are called) however the costs were expensive. I needed to take the time to plan out how I would install the system, modify the vehicle as needed, etc. It was just more than I wanted to take on financially and time wise. Now however I am thinking about integrating one into a car I plan to buy within the next few months.

You might be wondering why in the world anyone would want to put a computer in their car.. There are many reasons, below are just a few.

• Music
• Movies
• Gaming
• GPS Integration
• Satellite Radio Integration

Just so there is no confusion I am not the first person to do this. Many people have done this so I am not engineering anything. I am simply going to follow guides that I find online and seek any assistance I may need from the community at mp3car.com, there is actually a nice post of someone installing a system into a 2005 Mazda3 which is worth taking a look at.

The ideas of what could be done are almost endless, the guys over at mp3car.com have really done a good job of outlining what could be done in their Car Computing 101 article. There are even relay switches that you can install in your car that can interface with a light meter and have your headlights switch from hi/low beams automatically as necessary. This is one thing that I am going to look at integrating.

The main interests for me to integrate this would be so that I could have all my music at my fingertips, be able to buy songs from the iTunes Music Store wherever there is a WiFi connection. I would also be able to throw on a movie for the kids in the back seat while on a long road trip. The only thing I would like to figure out is how to throw a movie on the rear displays while still being able to control the system from the front display. It would be very nice if I could have the option of only having audio while playing movies go through headphone jacks so that we could still enjoy music through the car audio system.

The following are the features I want to get out of my CarPuter

• Music
• Movies
• Wireless Internet
• GPS Navigation
• Satellite Radio
• Regular FM / AM Radio
• Remotely Start the car (not sure how to do this yet)
• Automatic Climate Control (hvac)
• Back-up Camera
• Back-up Sensors (beeps when close to something)
• Automatic headlight switching from hi/low beams with on-coming traffic
• Skype Integration (have yet to look into this but seems possible)
• Anything else I find interesting….

I am sure that the installation of this system will take some time and I plan to document it with pictures. When I do this I will probably create a page on this site that will outline everything I have done with photographs for every step (that will be the most time consuming). I have been investigating the products that I will need to buy in order to make this a reality. I plan to spend no more than $4,000 on the parts that will be necessary to install this system. Below is a list of parts that I know I will need.

• Mac Mini
• Xenarc 7″ LCD Display
• Screens for the headrests for the backseat passengers.
• GlobalSat BT-359 GPS Receiver
• CNX P-1900 DC-DC Power Regulator (Power Supply for computer)
• Griffin RadioShark 2 (Who wants to lose the FM / AM capabilities)
• Griffin PowerMate (Control Wheel that will be used for volume control)
• Fusion Brain (Controller for back-up sensors, hi/low beams, more..)
• XM Satellite Receiver & Antenna
• XM to USB Converter (to connect XM Receiver to the computer)
• Amplifier for interior speakers (brand not determined yet)

I am sure that there are other products that I will be required to buy including cables, fuses, switches, sensors, etc. There will probably also be other products that I will need to buy to incorporate more features that I wish to have. For now though I am going with a pretty basic setup so that I can get the GPS Navigation which is my main priority. Once I get the CarPuter installed the way I want it and running properly I will integrate things like the Fusion Brain to add more capabilities. I like the fact that I could have my car in the driveway and be able to SSH into my car and control it. I also like the fact that I could throw songs at my car from inside my home. I could also integrate a backup solution for my CarPuter that would backup the entire system to a backup drive at my house every night at a certain time. You can do anything on the CarPuter that you could do on your home computer. Check your e-mail, browse the internet, make calls through Skype, I could even work from my car if I wanted to.

If you have integrated a CarPuter or just want to throw any resources my way such as articles, how-to’s etc. Please feel free to discuss it in the comments.