So... Although I dont own a TL... I love the car so much. I hope to get one in a little while. I have been thinking overtime on some mods along these lines and am lookin to see what'd work out.

So this is what my imagination lit up just so you can help me see how many weeks of having a torn apart TL it would take....

What if instead of a PS2 you put in a laptop. It IS a touchscreen. would it have a complete connection between the laptop and navi screen so it feeds it right to that and you could have a windows touchscreen in your car? lol. I love it.

And then just put in a switch like on the switches for the dvd to navi conversions for what you have between a laptop and navi.

This is what I was thinking to get that to work: get this k... hard install a lap top cradle in your trunk. something along the lines of this:

and then usb2 a external hard drive to your glove box.

The best part about the laptop: BLUETOOTH TO YOUR PHONE!! that = wireless modem for your laptop. Soo when you have the computer screen on your navi, you can actually connect to the internet. need a keyboard?



Welcome to the bluetooth keyboard. After you have a laptop in your car... options are endless!! Throw 50 gigs a music in your laptop and play it directly to your car.

I am sure ther are tons of stuff to make this work seemlessly, but It just sounds soo awesome. I have been looking around for info on this, and other cars have similar things, but i've never seen it sucessfully hooked it up to a touchscreen, yet alone one that is OEM... which would make it that much cooler.

 

I don't think the touchscreen will work with Windows, but I'm not sure. You will definetely have to do some jerry-rigging to get it to work. And probably end up spending alot of money getting it done.

Good luck

 

I'd thought about this too. I don't think you'd ever get the touch screen to work with the laptop. The existing aftermarket units send a video input to the screen, but none enable the touch screen features. You'd need a custom cable and compatible drivers for the laptop. But, as you noted, a wireless keyboard would suffice. In fact, it would probably be much better. The onscreen keyboard would be a pain for typing emails and URL's if you use it regularly. Luckily there are a number of small wireless keyboards with built in track balls or touchpads. You could also get a Firefly remote to control the DVD, MP3, and photos.

Great idea to use the phone as a Bluetooth modem! I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking along the lines of a hi-gain omni directional Wi-Fi antenna on the rear deck so you could pick up an internet connection by war driving. I guess a combination of the two would be best so you don't eat up your cell phone minutes when you don't need to.

I'd do this in a second except that I've found one insurmountable obstacle in the process...My wife will go Lorena Bobbit on me if I spend $3000 to do this.

 

I'm thinking windows tablet pc edition might be worth a shot here (load on standard laptop and play through the nav screen). To Techzilla's point though, this could be problematic due to the screen taking in a composite video image - but might be worth investigating.

Start here for more info and, for a later "phase" in the project go here for creating TL-specific apps to that platform (hey, why not?). This could be very cool . hmmmm...thinking of the possibilities....

Nice idea on the bluetooth modem.
BTW - a few phones, such as some blackberries, provide limited bluetooth that does not include the modem/data link capability - just something to check, it seems that most phones are carrying it now though and it should become less of an issue...

 

great idea, keep us posted of any progress

 

Thanks for the links to the info man. I know its gonna take tons of research. I have a friend who is about a year away from an electrical engineer BS and I was talkin to him about it over lunch, he sounded pretty excited to help me out here. I mostly am going to figure out most of the logistics before I dig in. I hate running into suprises... especially w/ stuff like this.

We were also thinking about running linux with a windows emulator. but i dunno, just barely threw that idea out there.


Oh and in my origional post I said usb a hard drive to your glove... that'd be pointless... lol. I meant an external dvd player.

Also I was just wondering if at all possible... there is NO point in me having a cassette player. If you could put it there... or take it out period. I dont have a TL still (I talk like it will be in weeks, ha) so I dont know. I would want to put the dvd player there or maybe one of those radar detectors that feeds to sensors on the bumpers. Ideas of if this is possible?

 

Get this in black
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/6c82/

and youll save a lot of room on the keyboard..Personally, if you can pull this off even w/o touchscreen I think that would rock hardcore. I am a big geek though....If you can pull this off, let me know the details!

 

hey thanks for that frogpad info. I have seen that before. I didn't know it was bluetooth though.. that helps. The only thing with that is you have to learn to type all over again, lol. but the cool part is no one else would be able to use it, or easily and quickly anyways.

Hey I am looking for some detailed info on the head unit for the navi. Anyone know if there is more info than just the drawing of it and part number in the helms? Anywhere on the web, i havne't found anything more than a few pics in this forum. Any links to threads would be helpful too.

 

Sounds like a good idea, expensive, but good. Splicing into that touch screen and other stuff liek that would get a little complex. Also getting good qual 5.1 audio. But if you have the financial means go ahead. Keep us posted.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by EleVatE

We were also thinking about running linux with a windows emulator. but i dunno, just barely threw that idea out there.

Linux is cool, but I'd opt for a Windows setup in this situation. An emulator is going to run Windows apps slower than Windows. And there are way more Windows apps for this scenareo than Linux apps.

Here's what I had in mind (after adding your Bluetooth modem idea):

Equipment:
Laptop computer
DC adapter for laptop
Vsokolov video converter
FM modulator
Bluetooth card for laptop (if not built-in)
802.11 wireless card for laptop (if not built-in)
Hi gain omni directional Wi-Fi antenna
Wireless keyboard with built-in touchpad or trackball
Snapstream Firefly remote
Media software (Snapstream Beyond Media, or similar)


Optional equipment
External DVD player (located in glove box for convenience of changing DVD’s)
External hard drive (for storing additional MP3’s, DVD rips, photos, etc.)
Portable printer


Functionality
Video output from the laptop will go to the Vsokolov video converter and display on the LCD
Input for the laptop will be through the wireless keyboard/touchpad and Firefly remote
Internet connectivity:

• 802.11 wireless when in range of a wireless access point
• Bluetooth connection to a cell phone for dial-up access

MP3, photo, and DVD playback will be handled by Snapstream Beyond Media

 

Yeah I think the windows PC tablet is going to be the best, from what i've researched so far...

new techy stuff i have thought about... my friend (the electric engineer to-be one) is writing a program im helping him with that will compare two databases. so what we are having it do is look through my list of 7000 mp3s and compare it to another computer... any file that doens't show up in both it logs and then it will go and transfer the acutal songs from computer to computer. sooo this = if i download songs on my compute rin my house... when i pull my TL in the garage, it will get all the new songs when i run the app on my laptop.... Yeah I thought that was pretty bad ass.

Techzilla, just some questions..

What do you have the FM modulator listed for?
I didn't think about the wi fi antenna... might or might not do that one.

I know nothing about the items:
Snapstream Firefly remote
Media software (Snapstream Beyond Media, or similar)

Got anywhere I can read up on them? or just a run down on em and how they'd apply to what im doing. That'd be helpful.

And yeah... the external DVD would be a MUST... but why would I want an external hard drive... the external hard drive would be just as easy to remove as a laptop hooked to a cradle... and an internal hard drive would read faster.

A portable printer, lol. Great. didn't even cross my mind. I dont think i'd do it though... not worth the time to me. But just proves one you got that laptop installed... options are pretty endless..

 

I am actually not anticipating it to cost over 3... maybe 4 grand, nice laptop included.
unless I encounter any unforseen things...

The guy who did the headrest install/navi conversion before had it all done for under 1500. And I am not even looking at doing headrest LCDs... but maybe while I have the car torn apart it might be worth the extra few hundred.

Either way I REALLY need some additional info on the head unit though. I am not finding ANY.

 

I wouldn't do the printer either, but I guess it would be doable if someone had the need. Just a joke to show the range of options there are.

The FM modulator is to get the sound from the laptop to play through the stereo. You could also use a Blitzsafe adapter I suppose.

Check out the Snapstream stuff at www.snapstream.com. It's pretty cool software for managing MP3's and photos. Because the TL's LCD is pretty small, I looked for something that would be easy to read quickly. Winamp, iTunes, and Windows Media Player would probably look really small on that screen. The software also has Tivo-like functions, but that's kind of useless in this scenario. The Firefly remote is an RF remote that lets you control the software. The RF part is nice because it isn't line of sight.

The remote wouldn't be necessary if you could get the touchscreen to work with a tablet PC, but I would be surprised if that's doable.

The external hard drive would only be useful if you wanted to store ripped DVD's or something. Since they're really big, they'd fill up most laptop drives pretty quickly. Not a necessity, just an option.

 

I had read somethin abou an alpine system that did exactly what your engineering friend described...sync up your cars HDD with your homes MP3 collection via 802.11x If my memory serves me correctly, I read it in wired approx 1 yr ago, however a brief search a la google has not turned up any results....I thought that was a great idea, and still do....Unfortunately, I live in an apt and share a garage. But..whaddyagonna do. The frogpad thing would definitely suck in the beginning, but once you get the hand of it, it could be really cool...also save a ton of room...

Basically though, if/once you get the lappy hardwired to the screen, you're options are limitless...well, until we get to the specs on your laptop, anyway...but all in all totally rad...If you got this to work I'd def be going the same route.

 

Yeah... there are a few of those. One is called Omnifi. I dont remember the other ones. The reason this program would be so great though is because if i instalelled that unit seperately... thats just one more piece of added hardware and added wiring in my car. And I am kinda already over my head in the amount of research and work I have ahead of me. so this will not only be right on the hard drive im using but will be faster to transfer... and easier to install(cuz im instlaling it anyways)

 

hmmm... Were you looking to do something like this?

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=35352

Its my ride by the way =)

 

That's stunning moahdib... I saw that before from one of the links... If he have the Navi version I think that it would not be as cost effective unless he can find a way to interface the touchscreen to the laptop.

 

Very Nice! That's cool that you have the touch screen working with your laptop. If my car didn't have NAV I'd follow your setup exactly. But, I'm looking to use the factory NAV and LCD. I don't mind scraping the touch screen when accessing the laptop to keep the stock LCD.

 

Where can we find more about the touchscreen connections? Are they behind the dash? Is there something in the tech manual that shows a pinout? With the pinout, perhaps we might be able to determine what type of connector it is.

 

Not only we have to be able to decipher it, but we must make a connection to the laptop (USB/PS2), create drivers etc... Way too troublesome...