rainman6272

I know I boasted about a carputer months ago and never really showed my face around here again (except for some lame thread about mileage). But at long last, I've transplanted the system that I had in my truck into my 2000 3.2TL. The computer and amp were all brand new for this installation. I had the screen in my truck, but the housing would not fit in the dash opening where the HU was. When I started I wasn't even sure that I could fit the screen without the housing in there, but with a carefully machined sheet of ABS and some binary epoxy, I managed some magic. I also had to remove the backlight inverter and driver circuitry to the clear little housing you see below with the rad striped caution tape. The computer itself is a special VIA motherboard designed to work with their socket 370 C3 chips. The processor uses less power than a light bulb (albeit a big one) so it doesn't spit out a ton of heat into my trunk and drain the battery when I'm running it with the car off.<P>

The system is GPS enabled with an OLD Garmin antenna that sits next to the subwoofer inside the cabin. Next to that I installed a Wi-Fi antenna that pokes out of that same board covering the trunk and such (i have pics of neither).<P>

The case itself is 1/4" acrylic from TAP Plastics in San Leandro. It's held together with those special little corner cubes that I sunk brass anchors into to hold the case together. Very sturdy, but unfortunately it doesn't conduct heat well. <P>

The system's controlled mostly with an IRMAN IR receiver that plugs into the serial port and sits below the monitor where the diagnostic cover is. I've had the receiver since my first carputer in 1999 and I'm not about to change it. I haven't found anything better.<P>

For regular computer operations there's a wireless gyration keyboard and a joystick mouse tucked neatly into the center console.<P>

You'll also kindly notice the BIOS branding that displays the Acura logo every time the computer's turned on.<P>


One thing that I am NOT happy with is the super tiny DC-DC power supply from Mini-Box. The thing sucks in every decibel of engine noise and it vomits it into the audio and video. It's not strictly engine noise either because much of it, I can tell, comes from hard drive activity. I'm debating a different power supply or switching entirely to an inverter AC system (which I really detest).

tumas

supersikwidit

Tsx536

^^ yaddamean

NFLblitze1

you should look into maybe getting some sort of faceplate to go around the screen...cause it looks akward and u can see small spaces between the dash and the screen...nice work tho

jz-97-c7

looks nice....i need to drop one of those in the mdx

hornyleprechaun

Looks nice man.. I got my carputer in, but have to redo the bezel for the monitor since I messed up the first one really bad.. If you think your power supply is giving you noise you should go to mp3car.com and do some searching or post a thread asking for some help.. Most of the people over there are pretty helpful

phipark

Pretty cool...

rainman6272

Well, i'm pretty sure the power supply problem is related to the power supply itself and not merely there being too much engine noise for it to deal with, because I took the whole thing out and hooked it up to a 12V 6A power supply and I could still hear the HD noise in the speakers and see it on the screen. I'd like to find out if the other Mini-Box power supplies have the same problem before I sink $100 into a new PS.

AcuraTLSFan

what did you use to hold the lcd panel to the front bezel? I'm trying to the the same thing, trying to use bondo but it doesn't stick well

rainman6272

that white stuff is A+B Epoxy that you can buy from a Leslie's Pool Supply or a similar type of place. that's not actually how the bezel is held to the lcd panel though. i just used some really short wood type screws. when i screwed into the plastic though i ended up with little white bumps where the screws came too close to poking though the plastic. sanding it with some wet dry sandpaper fixed it right up. the A+B Epoxy is mostly there to hold the brackets i cut off from a standard dash adapter i bought from Crutchfield so i could fasten the whole thing to the console properly.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Sick setup man