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Mini-ITX Linux Car PC
 Building
an in-car mp3 player is something I have had on my mind for
some years now. It had occurred to me that a PDA would be an
ideal control system for a Linux based pc. I had originally
planned on using a Psion series 3c for this purpose, however
I now have a Handspring
Visor Deluxe which is ideal for this application and all
the hard work has already been done in the form of Giantdisc.
Advantages
of this setup are security (pda can be removed from the car
so no expensive screens are on display) and you get all the
usual palm programs available too.
I
already have a spare PC and the Visor that I had planned to
use for this project, although I have now decided that the new
Mini-ITX
motherboards are probably a much better solution as they are
so small and come with so much on board. There isn't much in
the way of Mini-ITX cases available yet but one of those that
is available has a 12V DC input, which is ideal considering
cars run on 12V (or thereabouts).
All
I will need in addition is an FM Modulator (to feed audio into
the in-dash cd player) which I can get very cheap from work.
As
the EPIA boards have built in TV out an upgrade to a TFT LCD
is possible in the future using the cheap screens designed for
in-car use.
VIA
EPIA Mini ITX Mainboard
 The
VIA EPIA is a range of very small (170mm square) highly integrated
motherboards from VIA, the current models are the EPIA-800 which
has a built in VIA C3 CPU running at 800Mhz and the EPIA-5000
which has a fanless VIA Eden ESP 5000 running at 533Mhz.
Both
models have S-Video & Composite TV-Out in addition to standard
SVGA. Also included on the board is a 10/100 Ethernet LAN, integrated
AGP2X graphics with 2D/3D acceleration, AC97 sound (with S/PDIF
output shared with composite video-out), 1 PCI slot, 2 USB ports,
IDE, PS/2 mouse & keyboard connectors and serial & parallel
Ports.
 Cubid
2677 Mini ITX Case
The Cubid case is interesting because it is powered from 12V
DC provided by an external AC Adapter. This means an inverter
will not be necessary in a car although regulating the 12V supply
would be advisable. It's only a small case (only 295W x 63.5H
x 273D mm), mainly due to not requiring a power supply inside
the case but it can still take a hard drive and a slimline
laptop style cd-rom drive.
12V
Regulator
The basic car electrical system gives you around 12-13V when
the engine is off and 13-14V when it is running. Not good for
a computer, so the basic idea is to use a simple voltage regulator
which takes an unregulated voltage in and outputs a regulated
voltage. The LM1084IT-12
is a 12V, 5A, Low dropout voltage regulator in a TO220 package
to which a heatsink will be added. The low dropout feature is
nice as the cars supply varies so much.
There
are plenty of other things that can be done with a car-PC, such
as playback of DVD, VCD or DivX movies, navigation etc.
Of
course, most of these require a real TFT LCD screen for display
and some sort of control interface.
UK
Suppliers:
Links:
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