XBox Dash Mod :)

[Cyric]

was talking to some of the guys in exclusive the ohter night, and they suggested using the xbox for the ECU as well! its only 8 bit registers so it wouldnt be too hard to make an adapter and then write a software app to control it, ive got the xbox SDK so i could either write it in .NET (C#) or write it in any other language and run it under linux.... ive got gentoo installed, how bout u?

[halz]

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!

[Cyric]

tried debian, but ive been using gentoo for ages so i just went with that... ive modded a cheep ass controller and replaced the memory card ports with usb ports so i can plug in a usb keyboard and mouse so that makes it much easier than trying to type using the controller!!!

oh we definately need to further develop the RSM idea!!!! i aint got anything funky in there as yet... any ideas where we start looking for the I/O details

[halz]

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

[halz]

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

[Cyric]

are you in the xbox-scene forums? paulb is about to release a LBA48 kernel patch so you can access drive space after 137G... here is the link but you might need to sign up

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?act...50entry687266

oh an i hate cables as well, here is a few things ive been working on

http://development.e-clips.com.au/anton/xbox/

i take it your a programmer as well? or you just like playing around?

you got msn or icq or something, might be easier than this... unless you figure anybody else wants to read it?

[Cyric]

http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article1...ages=PR&seq=204

[Cyric]

and i think this should solve the cooling problems in the boot http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/water-cooled.php

[halz]

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

[resonance]

You can keep chatting here, I think it's rather interesting.

:shake::

[Cyric]

ok cool... i have found a bunch of info relating to the factory ECU, pin 7 looks like a good starting point for an RSM...

heres what ive found thus far...

http://development.e-clips.com.au/anton/sh...ed/skyline_ecu/

[Airzone]

Hi,

Just a thought about power supplies. I don't know if any of you are handy with PC's, but an X-Box is essentially a PC. And a PC is essentially a 12 volt device, as with most PC hardware. There is a mini-pc scene built arount the mini-itx platform that basically tries to fit PC's into the weirdest areas possible. I'm doing such a project, and others have built PC's inside their cars, toasters, life sized dolls, and PS2's. http://www.mini-itx.com is their main site.

One of the items that you may find interesting are the power supplies available help in this quest. You can get some truly tiny PC power supplies that can handle variying amounts of output which themselves run on a 12v DC power source. An X-Box will need one of the higher rated ones because of the full sized hard disk and DVD-Rom. If you hunt around, you can find some that'll handle a PC with a few hard disks, usb devices, and a full sized dvd-rom.

With one of those, you will need to also know what voltages the x-box PSU puts out. I imagine it'll be much like a PC, running from 12v, 5v, 3.3v, and a 5v standby. I can't think why an x-box would use the old -12v and -5v rails a PC power supply provides, since they're for old comm-port chipsets.

If you could get it to work, you'll end up with a power supply that runs of 12 volts dc, is smaller than a postcard (and flat too), generates piss-all heat, and you won't waste all this power converting 12v dc -> 240v ac -> 12v dc needlessly (less strain on car electrics, plus less heat).

Also note, you will not be able to use a laptop DVD with your X-Box. It has a specific control plug that allows the x-box to eject the tray and do other things. Only a few DVD Roms can be modified to replace an X-Box DVD-Rom. Hard disks will be no problem providing you prepare them properly. Any good X-box mod site will tell you how this is done.

Any other PC hardware, such as USB hubs, wap's, etc should be either able to be run on 12 volts, or something less. In which case, you can probably look up how to make a power supply for it using voltage regulators and stuff. I found out how to make one of these to get a PS2 controller working on my PC, and it's not all that difficult. You just need to be handy with a soldering iron.

You could always just get an inverter, power board, and a few extention cords to run around your car, but I think you can pull these projects off without even touching ac power if you do it right.

[halz]

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

[Airzone]

The only thing I can think of is ripping apart an x-box and measuring the outputs of the PSU with a multimeter. But yeah, you'll be doing something custom for the plug. I was looking at diagrams of the mainboards, and it seems there are 2 types..

Ver 1.0/1.1 with a row of 15 pins in a straight line

Ver 1.2/1.3 with an ATX connector. I would not connect an ATX PSU to it though, 'cause you'd be almost assured to smoke your x-box.

I couldn't find any info on the net about what ampage and voltage each of the rails on the x-box psu put out though. So you'll need to do a bit of measuring for the voltages. For the current, you'd just have to hope the PSU can provide enough, otherwise you may have to run 2 in parallel. Also, to ease the strain on the 12v rail, you could run power directly from your 12v source to things like your hard disks, etc. As I recall, the lower wattage mini-psu's main fault was their lack of power on the 12v rail, meaning you couldn't power 7200rpm disk drives with full sized dvd-rom's. This sort of relates to normal psu's anyway, with their 12v rail being the most limited in terms of current (i have to run 2 psu's in my home pc to overcome this - 800 watt psu ).

Anyway, if you already have an x-box earmarked, I'd be looking around in it to try and measure the psu output voltages. As with a PC power supply, you should have at least the hard disk connected to the PSU before turning it on (or if you can't work out how to simulate a turn-on, leave the x-box mainboard connected and be really careful )

[halz]

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..

[Cyric]

yep was thinking about the micro-itx before the xbox idea but it dont play xbox games... but your right about the powersupply, a lot of people on x-box scene replace theirs with 400W+ pc supplies so they can run extra cooling and hardware... it uses all the standard PC connectors which have both 5v + 12v.... of course none of them actually tell you how they did it, just that its been done...

here is instructions on hooking up an ATX PSU to the xbox, they have already schematicd conveters and mapped out the voltages for all the connector pins http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?act...24&t=57838&hl=&

and this is a connector converter for v1.1 mobo's http://members.tripod.co.jp/barusan/XBOX_ATX.jpg

ill pop the lid off mine 2nite and wack the multimeter on the psu connector and see what it pumps out... and

[b0neR]

wh0a this is interesting, i never realised XboX's were so versatile, im only 16 tho, but i do understand most of the stuff being said, gets confusing at times, keep posting here plz

[ac1d3o3]

nice work guys.. post some pics when yous get this done.

sounds like a lot of work, but i love your ideas.

using hte xbox to show rpms etc would be interesting. id love to see it!

tech geeks all the way!!! hahaah

[hippy]

using xbox to show rpm?? it would be more easier to use a PC .. but yeah it'd be cool to have a PC or whatever and run in inputs and the PC to decode the rpms .. boost ... etc and display it as it is on a GTR ... program wouldn't be hard to write ... just the signals might be a little hard to decode thats all ... may need to build a custom board ... (i can do that!! !!)

[Cyric]

ok ive found a guy in AUST who can build us the ATX -> xbox converter, although looking at the wiring diagrams its like $10 worth of stuff so we may as well just do it ourselves... you can buy ATX power extensions so there is your female connector, then you just hack the other one off the xbox PSU and you got the male part... if you have an xbox 1.2 then you dont need to destroy your original PSU.... or you can buy a wiped out second hand xbox PSU and use the connector off that, there is 100's of them for sale on e-bay

http://www.x-pc.be/spec/sheets/710796.htm has the power specs for the xbox rated as 100w... no idea how they figure that as if you do the calculations on multiplier and the stepping of the cpu it add up to 37W, plus 8W for the board... even with the DVD and HDD it still dont add up to a hundred... so if we factor in a larget 7200 RPM drive and a usb hub that should take us close to 150W....

http://www.zantech.com.au/apowertech/PSU-1...-12vdc250w.html :D/http://www.zantech.com.au/apowertec...c250w.html halz found us a 12V dc-dc power supply rated @ 250W which should do the trick nicely

i think step 1 is to get the xbox in and functioning as a multimedia device, then chuck in the RSM after that...