Car PC TT01 Work blog

Hi Rob,

yes it is indeed a touch screen. Your finger effectively works are the mouse pointer and you tap or double tap the appropriate area. It works beautifully.

Had it set up in the car for six months now, and I'm really pleased. I love my gadgets and this is my favorite one. It was a lot of work, but I got there in the end. I still need to sort out a definitive 'free' radio solution, but there is a brand new AM/FM PC radio developed specifically for car PC Front End programs which I will be buying soon. I'll post details once it's in. Other than that this pc is capable of doing everything that my desktop does.... and more than even the latest incarnation of iDrive to be found in the new 7 Series.

Been distracted elsewhere of late, but I'll get back to this pc in the coming weeks - once I've finished installing a cut down, but no less impressive (IMO), system into my new van.

You're in Manchester right ? I'm only in Blackpool, so would be easy to meet up for a natter about your project if you ever wanted

a MF would certainly be a cool thing to have, but for me at least I think it is beyond my programming skills, as far as hooking it up into a pc environment that is.

Martin's excellent interface, as and when it becomes available in UK, looks like the best way forward if you solely want MF controls of your existing BMW stereo. Linking BMW hardware into a windows pc would require a LOT of effort I'm sure. Perhaps it would be better to use a USB I/O board and a program like Girder to link the actions into the PC. I aim one day to have a play with this but like everything these days, it is simply lack of time that is stopping me.

The driver centric nature of the centre console makes it easy for me to tap the screen for the actions I want, and once you are familiar with the layout you can almost do it without taking your eyes off the road.

My setup is (perhaps) over complicated compared to what was in there before, but I do now have every CD I have ever bought/downloaded in the HD, digital telly, GPS, Google/email, DVD and HD DivX etc playback, and pretty much anything else I want that a 2.0Ghz 120GB pc can do though. For me that is something I love, though I appreciate it is not everyone's cup o'tea

Certainly doable if you can figure out a way to hook into the BMW Amp. This is not a standard amp with easy I/O connections. I did away with the OEM amp and installed 5CH Digital one instead. The input levels are different and there are crossovers inside the OEM amp to complicate things further.

Apart from the MF side of things there is no need to retain the stock HU or AMP. I have a CD/DVDr drive in the glove box for that random CD or DVD I want to play, and there are radio tuners specifically for pcs available now, which I will be buying very soon...

This is where I bought my PC Unit
http://store.mo-co-so.com/

They also do this radio tuner.
http://store.mo-co-so.com/hqcti-p-95.html

I think Sama (a member/friend on here) managed to hook into his Stock amp before ripping the system out and selling his CSi, so might be worth a chat with him about that.

I guess it all depends on how competent you are with electronics. Some things are hard for me but easy for others, and vise versa.

A great place to find info on car pcs, containing many very experienced people is...

http://www.digital-car.co.uk/index.php

in here you will find threads on practically everything car-pc related past and present. It helped me a lot during my install, and keep going back there for pointers on doing other stuff.

Zitat von rob840;50319

I am a trained auto-electrician and computer engineer, also have done a lot of electrical circuit design work in the past, so hopefully will be able to cope with the project quite well.

Where did you get the screen from ?

Hmm, that CarPC stuff looks a bit pricey..

I have a spare laptop, newish with damaged LCD. Could that be used as a CarPC ?

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ahhh, well you should be laughing then. I'm none of the above, just someone who has installed a few car stereos in the past... This was a step up from that clearly !

I got the screen from here...

http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=10877

I guess it should be possible to use the laptop inners, once you can solve the power issues. The dedicated car pcs use the M2 ATX power supplies which can cope with the irregular supply provided by the cars batteries. My pc had one of these in as standard, and I have a stand alone one for the screen, tv tuner and usb hub, just to be safe. Also purchased from Lin ITX.

Costs can get out of control easily. I put a £1000 aside for the project, and I reckon I have spent that easily if you include 'everything' I have bought for it. Looking at other peoples installs it would seem mine sits firmly in the middle ground regarding expense.

Rob, that sounds like a good plan, assuming you can get the VGA screen output to feed the new touchscreen you'll obviously need. Laptops typically have an internal ribbon feed to their screens dont they ? You will also need a USB feed for the actual HID of the touchsceen. Not a problem though if you use a hub.

Then you have the audio I/O to sort out. Being able to switch between the PC and BMW HU would be good.

There is no 'right' way to do anything with car pcs. I chose a particular path and stuck with it, but I've seen many variations on the theme - thats where digital-car.co.uk comes in. If it's possible there probably is someone on there who has done it.

I use a Front End program called Road Runner. It is a free community based program, so long as you dont try to sell it on, and there are loads of skins available from people who are much better than me at graphics programs. I use a an iDrive clone skin developed by someone known as 'Enforcer'

http://en4cer.co.uk/forum/index.php

but that is just because it seems to suit the BMW best. You can get loads of novelty ones too, such a ones that look like the iPhone, or even, wait for it, Knightrider

Paul, I havent seen that one. Will have to do a bit of googling to see if is readily available. My Hartge fettled wheel has the blank inserts where MF button clusters could fit. So in theory, if I could get hold of the MF inserts and an interface that can be hooked up to Windows XP then that would be perfect.

Looks like you're sorted then mate

Next step I guess would be to buy a new centre console from the $tealers for the princely sum of 30GBP, and a touchscreen. Fettle it somehow (right at the top of this thread I showed how I did it), but there will of course be other ways. I can provide you with a bezel for the HVAC relocation (if you like), again I showed what I did higher up the thread.

The TS does plug into the VGA out connector, and has a usb plug for the actual touch sensor side of things. It needs a seperate power source, so a M2 ATX is recommended. The TS comes with a cig lighter 12V plug, but I wouldnt want a voltage spike going through it if I'd spent 170 squids on a screen !!

You could probably power the laptop from the M2 as well for added piece of mind.

I'm looking forward already to seeing a different take on an e31 install

Hi Christoph,

just signed up to the HacktheIBus community and waiting to see if I get accepted

Read with interest that link you posted. Am I right in thinking that this interface could enable me to control certain actions of WinXP using IBus steering wheel buttons, in much the same way a 'HotKeys' on a desktop keyboard do ?

Ideal options would be of course: Volume, Mute, screen switching, cursor UP/DOWN etc

this is my steering wheel at present

and you can see there are inserts L & R that can accomodate MF modules from e39 M5 wheels (for example).

This is all very interesting.......

Thanks Christoph

I had no idea this product or program existed. I knew there was a good reason the 8er Forum community was merged Worldwide !!

It leaves me with a bit of a dilema now.... I recently started work on modding some spare (blank) inserts to take SMG paddle shifters, which, with a little modification to the steering wheel will fit where the MF inserts would go.... The smg switch mech takes up all the available room inside the new inserts and so I now have to decide whether to proceed with this, or go for MF inserts instead

That said, I also have a pair of e90 IBus MF controls on my desk here. Whilst these dont fit my wheel of course, I could make use of these somewhere else, and use them purely as external controls for quick access of basic functions. I'm not too keen on this idea though for aesthetic reasons.

I guess I could put my hand in my pocket and buy a MF SMG e46 wheel and fit that, once a suitable way of hooking up the dual stage airbag is found/learnt .... it has been done a few times by CA Automotive UK, but they are secretive about how it was done to protect their bsiness interests. Understandable I guess....

Hi Rob, I've seen Martin's wheels before and they are great. However he doesn't have a carpc fitted (to the best of my knowledge) and his MF controls a Becker HU and other functions such as Cruise control etc.

I'm after Ibus control of WinXP environment, not the car's stock electronics.

The interface posted by Christoph will do this for me, hence my dilema as to what to do. E46 SMG wheels with MF controls and Paddle shifter are big bucks, even second hand.

http://www.ca-automotive.co.uk…PTUzJmNvbXBfaWQ9OA==.html

look at the bottom two pictures. I think this car belongs to a member on here, if not then he was the e31 that CA has converted. Total price including a new e46 wheel would be nudging £1800 or thereabouts. Ebay wheels occasionally crop up for under a grand, but they are as common as the proverbial rocking horse doo doo, (with airbag). There is one currently on ebay, without airbag, but you dont want to know how much a new AB is from the $tealers...... !!