halz

Okay, just so I dont look so completely useless.. I printed out the RSM manual from the apexi usa site and had a good look through. Found the settings and so on and figured it all out.. Is quite easy really isnt it - just paniced because I thought something could be wrong with my baby

hmms. stupid question.. where/how do you adjust it.. there appears to be nothing on the actual light to change.. just a cable running under the speedo area.. must there be another box hiding under there? Any ideas why it was fine after getting the car started again.. and now its not.. very strange ..

oh my...

Hey, I just started up the R33 tonight to keep the battery charged as I'm not driving it very often lately and i noticed something different.. The car has installed a pivot shift light - pen style one mounted on the steering column.. previously it would turn on around 6500rpm odd - which is perfect.. However, tonight the light turned on whenever over 3000rpm. I could confirm this by looking at the RSM. This is really strange and only just started happening tonight On the weekend I had to jump start the car as I hadn't started it for 2 weeks and the battery had gone flat.. too flat for even the alarm to work.. I would have thought, if anything, this would have something to do with it.. however it was fine immediately after jump starting the car. How do you adjust these and how could it adjust itself somehow?? Any info be most appreciated, thanks!

pedator.. yeah my ideas are similiar.. But I don't even see the need to run the USB upfront.. there are RF wireless xbox controllers available - these can control all of the media player functions without much hassle.. If I get really keen I might run an extrension upfront for a IR remote.. a bit more 'user friendly' - i doubt it XBox will be in the boot - probably in a custom box with some nice foam padding and mounted vertically to save some room and to ease vibrations on the HDD a little - Will probably run an indash lcd at the front - i dont really want to hack things up etc. - if i somehow aquire a lot of money itll be a dvd player as well I dont think its really going to be all that difficult - a few little annoyances that i've thought of: - Have to run wire from igniition to trigger the xbox to turn on when you turn on the car etc. - might be able to do this the same way as you do an amp.. - Probably run a big cap to smooth out the power - will this help alleviate the problems when the starter motor initialy draws all its power? - Probably have to do something about batteries etc. - Have to somehow found the money for all this..

woah a bit of interest since i last looked.. Looks like power is finally sorted out (as above): - Zantech 250W DC->DC PSU (company located in VIC) - ATX -> XBox Converter from xbox-scene... (guy located in Aust. or will just build ourselves -> pretty simple) Thanks for the info on the battery. I will probably eventually be running 2 amps and the xbox.. looks like a battery upgrade/additional is in order.. Running out of room in the R33 fast here....

A bit of multimeter work should work wonders.. There is a lot of info about this at mp3car.com and divx-car forums i have just discovered.. Looks like there is a lot of reading to do..

nice post.. I have looked into some of the PSU's you can buy off the shelf that are straight DC->DC - mostly in ATX form factor. Now, I know the XBox is basically a PC and AFAIk has an ATX style PSU. However, I'm not entirely familiar with the configuration of the plugs into the mainboard - will be customer of course. The downside of this, was the PSU would cost more than the Inverter and would create a hell of a lot more mucking around.. with the possibility that it wouldnt work.. It's something I'll have to weigh up once I have the $ in hand are are prepared to dive in feet first.. If there are any examples of epople doing this already spefically with xboes, i would be incredibly interested.. though being the first would be cool too

Some very interesting developments indeed.. Though, I have a feeling that it may take some time to get the wireless adapter out into the market.. I'm not sure on the practicality of water cooling in a car.. water + electricity doesnt mix at the best of times - let alone on a bumpy road Well.. a 300gb drive is looking a possibility now.. See pm

btw, I have used gentoo a few times.. was quite nice and speedy - though being on dialup the downloads and stuff kind of got me down.. Reminded me a lot of ports in BSD.. which is a ncie feeling actually

Not sure on how to get the input.. I don't know enough about car electronics and so on.. I guess we could use a Serial-> USB type converter to get serial input.. but I have no idea what the input would be like or even where you get it from Once you could accurately get the speed / rev's of the engine the rest is a piece of cake.. I tried using a wireless keyboard/mouse, problem is that a nice compact notebook style wireless keyboard is very had to find with usb input.. I have two PS/2 ones but even with the $30 PS2->USB adaptor it was incredibly flakey.. Using a standard USB keyboard/mouse of course works a treat though. You may have noticed - I seriously hate cables I Modified a controller cable.. Basically chopped the cable used CAT5 male/female as connectors so I can plug the originally controller together or I can unplug it and plug the USB female adaptor in.. seemed to work quite well. But nowdays there are ones you can just buy.. its too easy

Yeah i've got debian on there.. I'm a debian user from way back so that was really cool. That said, I've never really used it, I do development all day in Linux on my notebook so I dont really need Linux on my tv.. plus I really found that the Media Player does everything I've really wanted to do on a TV based unit.. I've also thought of using the XBox like a RSM - showing speeds / trip meter and stuff - quite simple programming once you have the I/O downpat.. but then my car already had a funky Apexi RSM.. so that idea kind of fell away Using the XBox as an ECU sounds quite interesting.. though I hate to imagine a program bug in that.. ouch!

I'm not really a fan of the head mounted ones.. I'm looking at some of the indash options myself.. I'm not going to be driving and watching movies so I'm not all that concerned that it won't be visible all the time.. I'm thinking more MP3's etc. playing on the Media Player while im driving - just the ultimate capacity sound source unit.. Some of the Pioneer indash dvd/tv options are very tempting.. but will mean I'll have to keep saving to upgrade the speakers and such It's all fun.. planning it is half the enjoyment I rekon..

haha.. I can see that happening with my friends too ! What setup you have at the moment? I've still got the previous owners setup with clarion splits front and rear but with a _really_ pathetic ultravox HU that will get replaced.. oh how it has to be replaced.. What screen you looking at getting? There are some very tasty options out there.. but some $

Yeah hoping to mount as much as I can next to the battery.. but I'm not sure its going to be entirely possible.. From my plans so far I have to find a place for: - XBox - Inverter - A/V box from HU if i go that route.. - 4 channel Amp for Front/Rear - Monoblock for Sub's.. The space is looking a bit limited hey.. Of course I'll be wirelessing it up while driving.. fancy wardrifting?

Well, with a big of google action, I discovered: On the back: 100v ~ 127v ~ 2.1A 50/60HZ Power (Watts) = Voltage (Volts) * Current (Amps) 100v * 2.1A = 210W 127v * 2.1A = 267W So 300W would be the go, but would be better to go higher if you intend on running other devices.. Possibly get a 350-400W if I run the Wireless bridge as well - not sure on its power requirements.

yeah i'd be doing all this myself too.. I'm down past Hastings, but not quite as far as Balnarring. Take the car and bike up and down arthurs seat every now and again You looked much into the power side of things? I've heard of people just getting the inverters from jaycar and the likes - as long as it has enough output for the xbox I guess..

Cyric - i just noticed you are in clayton - i am a bit further down the mornington peninsula.. I own a R33 GTST Series II as well We'll have to catchup and discuss ideas sometime.. when my clutch is fixed.. Any good suggestions on places to get this done down our neck of the woods?

Nice idea, but pretty extreme. I am attempting to collect the funds to do a similiar thing in my R33 at the moment. However I have summarised it down into: - Xbox in the boot - Xbox modded of course with 80-120gb hdd - Ethernet to Wireless bridge for uploading new files once parked.. or on the move - Inverter for xbox in the boot (unless there is a better option?!?) - Wireless (RF) controllers (logitech make some etc.) that should work fine in the front seats. - Possibly extend the IR remote receiver to the cabin - but not necessary if controllers are working. - XBox boot Xbox Media Player which can then read mp3's/ogg's/avi's/divx's etc. from the HDD - and can also launch other programs if needed - The Media player is really what convinced me to try this - i literally use it every day as a replacement for my dvd player/winamp/etc. - its awesome And in general.. - xbox plugged into auxiliary in to in dash lcd HU (best to use the enhanced a/v pack) - in dash lcd HU possibly have tv and fm - audio out of HU run back into the boot to the amps/etc. - speakers/amps.. thats a whole nother post My concerns: - getting the inverter and power running okay - cooling - gets hot in a skyline boot i imagine - probably take the case off the xbox - needs experimentation to find the best option.. - price.. xbox is cheap.. the indash lcd's i like are expensive - Vibration etc. - i think this should be taken care of with the following: -- hardcore foam base (not that spongy) that can take most of the road vibrations out -- possibly suspending the xbox off the base with spings/etc. so that it floats -- either of the above for the hdd -- never use the dvdrom anyway.. but perhaps something similiar.. -- if all that fails then i'll worry about a notebook hdd and/or dvdrom