Adding A Carputer To My '03 350gt Prem... Want To Solve The Nav/movie/music/internet Problem Once And For All!

[Chris Rogers]

perv,

good luck tossing a decent screen into that housing. been there already. size will be the issue for the earlier ones. as for setting it up with a car PC - yes. use linux and not windows. there are a LOT of linux apps that will do GPS. as for the TV idea - yes - find one with dual diversity or dual tuners. a single tuner WILL NOT do it.

I'm currently researching this idea as well. mapping the OE buttons - you can try - they are a proprietry databus. best if you are good with hardware that you pull out a DSO and trap a few signals off the Tx & Rx lines. the rest of this is easy enough.

so are you a software engineer or a Electronics engineer?

can you make the thing stable enough so it doesnt need constant rebooting?

as for getting audio and video into the OE system - if you are capable of doing what you are thinking then it shouldn't be a problem.

google is your friend on those issues. I have the AV leads here to do it.

[mjay]

what do you expect - it's Natasha Yi - an asian american model... they had too much Macdonalds there... a bit on the round side

Hey, you wanna feel the heat you gotta have the meat...

[Matfan]

perv,

good luck tossing a decent screen into that housing. been there already. size will be the issue for the earlier ones. as for setting it up with a car PC - yes. use linux and not windows. there are a LOT of linux apps that will do GPS. as for the TV idea - yes - find one with dual diversity or dual tuners. a single tuner WILL NOT do it.

I'm currently researching this idea as well. mapping the OE buttons - you can try - they are a proprietry databus. best if you are good with hardware that you pull out a DSO and trap a few signals off the Tx & Rx lines. the rest of this is easy enough.

so are you a software engineer or a Electronics engineer?

can you make the thing stable enough so it doesnt need constant rebooting?

as for getting audio and video into the OE system - if you are capable of doing what you are thinking then it shouldn't be a problem.

google is your friend on those issues. I have the AV leads here to do it.

A civil engineer unfortunately, so if I could build this out of asphalt or concrete I'd be laughing.

I am, however a car/computer nerd and over the years have done carputer installations in my own 32, 33 and 34 skylines (and my awesome suzuki sierra!!!) and it's usually been a case of trial and error.... and error....

I'm less razor blade and more sledge hammer if you know what I mean.

Anyway,

The plan is to replace the existing screen with a 7 inch-ish touch screen with d-sub & rca inputs

The rca would (hopefully) be used for the existing hardware and the d-sub used for the carpc

the carpc would be a mini-itx job with e6300 processor and solid state hdd with m2-atx psu

i actually agree and disagree with your thoughts on XP however, I've found that using modified versions like lastxp v20 solves a lot of the usual I NEED TO REBOOT XP problems.

The front end would be centrafuse or similar.

So it would be a case of mount the pc in the boot/under seat/glovebox etc

run power and ignition to the m2-atx

run audio and d-sub to stereo and new screen.

One other option is to use a touch screen overlay for the existing screen... food for thought....

Oh and the oem buttons... i prefer the sledge hammer approach. Basically you buy a $10 usb gamepad, rip it to bits and use the gamepad buttons under the skyline buttons. Assign keyboard values to the gamepad, setup short cut keys for the front end and bob's your uncles lover. You can get a bit more technical and use a usb joystick controller like the BU0836 but that is just throwing good money away.

I've got a similar system working brilliantly in my Sierra... To put things in perspective, after 3 days of stupid driving at moreton island the wheel bearings gave way (perhaps because of the amount of time the car spent in the air.... or perhaps the hard landings) but the carputer is still going strong.

Basically my whole point is;

Why settle for patch up jobs? Why spend thousands of dollars modifying a system that wasn't that great to start with?

Touch screens are the way to go. They're more precise to use than buttons, switch's and remote controls.

Why have a 6 stack cd player when you can have thousands of songs, movies and pictures on a HDD? While everyone except me has an IPhone, most don't realise they can tether it to a carputer or laptop to have internet on the go.

Carputers are awesome, absolutely awesome. Anything less is just... boring.

[Chris Rogers]

we need to talk. ring me in the morn after 9am

[V35_Paul]

we need to talk. ring me in the morn after 9am

Sounds serious

[Matfan]

Sounds serious

To be honest... i'm a little bit scared.....

[kesium]

Yeah your pretty much on track to what I'm imagining. I thinking using a centrafuse front end running on a 4th gen barebones "car pc" (from www.mo-co-so.com) is def the best solution to drive this thing. I'll get the solid state HDD, GPS reciever, FM transmitter and wifi card locally so I'm not blowing a lot of USD.

As for the monitor replacement, Def gotta find something with a form factor small enough to cram into the dash. The Double DIN Lilliput 629 or 701 are both are 7inch (800x480 res), so it might be a tight fit. I also found a 6.4 (600x480 res) from http://www.cybertouch.com/s6401x.html. This smaller screen might buy the space required to fit it within the OE housing, problem is it seems these only have one input either serial or USB and not both.

What I'll really need to figure out is how to incase these in the OE screen housing or pull out the old drummel to make the hole a little bigger. That'll be a pain as then I'll need to mod the whole sliding action. This is something that is a probably a deal breaker.

The button idea is feasable, technically not an issue. but again I really am trying to keep the full OE menus working. (trip counter, fuel usage meter, etc.) I'd only replace the buttons that are not part of this. Im looking to installing a mic as part of the hands free integration and then all that would be needed was to assign voice commands to certain centrafuge actions. Now I'll I gotta do is make it some like kit like these guys: http://www.knightridergps.com

But we are in aggreement, its a no brainer. this does everything except change the OE menus to english. But this isn't a big deal as I also imported my girlfriend from japan.

[Chris Rogers]

To be honest... i'm a little bit scared.....

nope just want to offer suggestions. I may have found a source for overlays call me.

[Matfan]

Yeah your pretty much on track to what I'm imagining. I thinking using a centrafuse front end running on a 4th gen barebones "car pc" (from www.mo-co-so.com) is def the best solution to drive this thing. I'll get the solid state HDD, GPS reciever, FM transmitter and wifi card locally so I'm not blowing a lot of USD.

As for the monitor replacement, Def gotta find something with a form factor small enough to cram into the dash. The Double DIN Lilliput 629 or 701 are both are 7inch (800x480 res), so it might be a tight fit. I also found a 6.4 (600x480 res) from http://www.cybertouch.com/s6401x.html. This smaller screen might buy the space required to fit it within the OE housing, problem is it seems these only have one input either serial or USB and not both.

What I'll really need to figure out is how to incase these in the OE screen housing or pull out the old drummel to make the hole a little bigger. That'll be a pain as then I'll need to mod the whole sliding action. This is something that is a probably a deal breaker.

The button idea is feasable, technically not an issue. but again I really am trying to keep the full OE menus working. (trip counter, fuel usage meter, etc.) I'd only replace the buttons that are not part of this. Im looking to installing a mic as part of the hands free integration and then all that would be needed was to assign voice commands to certain centrafuge actions. Now I'll I gotta do is make it some like kit like these guys: http://www.knightridergps.com

But we are in aggreement, its a no brainer. this does everything except change the OE menus to english. But this isn't a big deal as I also imported my girlfriend from japan.

You just love those imports don't you!

[Mr Eps]

nope just want to offer suggestions. I may have found a source for overlays call me.

mmmm

...still sounds serious.

[g33k]

My 2 cents?

My CarPuter install (which was linked earlier i believe)

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Ca...10-t261099.html

I have no problems with the setup as it is.... stable, no reboots, works a treat.

Im running XP SP3 WiFi/GPS/Internet all work fine (not that i FB at stop lights or anything........ )

Chris is right (as he always is) with the TV Tuner, my USB Tuner works......... but bearly - stronger antenna or dual tuner is a recomendation....

Be careful with your OBDII purchase, its not as simple as one would think - Chris is your main man for this - we had a good long discussion about it =)

Other than that, i plan to post vids/pics of the GPS and suite in action - just fine tuning some audio config with the speakers (parts arrived today)

Good luck in your PC build! =)

[kesium]

Be careful with your OBDII purchase, its not as simple as one would think - Chris is your main man for this - we had a good long discussion about it =)

I'm thinking of getting the ELM 327 USB for my OBDII connection. From all my research this seems the one that's compatible with both the 350GT and centrafuge. What sort of problems did you encounter? Any tips to avoid? Also can you breifly explain how you incorperated the immobilizer into this?

I'm pretty handy with software, I'll be running lastxp v21 with the rebuilt custom "Kay" core. This should set a solid foundation for the OS.

[g33k]

I'm thinking of getting the ELM 327 USB for my OBDII connection. From all my research this seems the one that's compatible with both the 350GT and centrafuge. What sort of problems did you encounter? Any tips to avoid? Also can you breifly explain how you incorperated the immobilizer into this?

I'm pretty handy with software, I'll be running lastxp v21 with the rebuilt custom "Kay" core. This should set a solid foundation for the OS.

I have the ELM 327 Bluetooth and also had tried the ELM 327 USB from MoCoSo - neither will interface with the OBDII computer in the way that you are hoping - it doesn't decode the protocol correctly. (This is the case in my V35 Premium in any case)

The Nissan computer, (as it is a jap import) uses a protocol mixture - you need a specific cable to interface. I've ordered one, ill let you know my findings when it arrives, if it works, and where you can get it. But yes - im afraid you wont be able to use that one to interface.

I'm told that certain scan tools will work, but CentraFuse will not interface as the ELM 327 circuit can't correctly initiate the protocol for decoding via OBDII. Of course, you call always by a lovely Nissan Consult 2 interface, but you'll be in a few $ =)

Its GPS linked, as such, everytime the car starts the GPS links through internet and sends GPS position every few minutes. Its custom code which i wrote myself. I've also modded the PC so that if there is no code entered on startup, the speakers LOOP a "THIS CAR IS STOLEN" message through the speakers - but thats a bit extreme i think ;-) more fun than anything else. I've wired the head unit through the positive of the PC so it has no choice but to turn the speakers on.

Hope this helps.

[kesium]

I have the ELM 327 Bluetooth and also had tried the ELM 327 USB from MoCoSo - neither will interface with the OBDII computer in the way that you are hoping - it doesn't decode the protocol correctly. (This is the case in my V35 Premium in any case)

The Nissan computer, (as it is a jap import) uses a protocol mixture - you need a specific cable to interface. I've ordered one, ill let you know my findings when it arrives, if it works, and where you can get it. But yes - im afraid you wont be able to use that one to interface.

I'm told that certain scan tools will work, but CentraFuse will not interface as the ELM 327 circuit can't correctly initiate the protocol for decoding via OBDII. Of course, you call always by a lovely Nissan Consult 2 interface, but you'll be in a few $ =)

Its GPS linked, as such, everytime the car starts the GPS links through internet and sends GPS position every few minutes. Its custom code which i wrote myself. I've also modded the PC so that if there is no code entered on startup, the speakers LOOP a "THIS CAR IS STOLEN" message through the speakers - but thats a bit extreme i think ;-) more fun than anything else. I've wired the head unit through the positive of the PC so it has no choice but to turn the speakers on.

Hope this helps.

Thanks a bunch. I'll hold off buying the OBDII connector for now. Thanks!

Edited March 31, 2009 by kesium

[Chris Rogers]

looks like I need to pull my finger out now..

time permitting I'll grab an industrial unit and start playing. they at least have everything inbuilt.

[zei20l]

im liking what i read here. im also considering a completely different option

i dont need TV or GPS, just music and probably some videos

im gonna chuck a PS3 into the car with a massive ass hard disk. yes overkill, but the price might make it worthwhile for me.

plus a bluetooth remote makes taking to it easy. installation and power would be the hardest. but install in the boot of my M35 and an inverter to power it is pretty simple.....

i guess an xbox could be an option too. id go 360 so it can be turned on via the controller

[Chris Rogers]

mmmm

...still sounds serious.

after a 35min coversation - maybe. they know a bit more than they did prior to ringing me.

[V35_Paul]

im liking what i read here. im also considering a completely different option

i dont need TV or GPS, just music and probably some videos

im gonna chuck a PS3 into the car with a massive ass hard disk. yes overkill, but the price might make it worthwhile for me.

plus a bluetooth remote makes taking to it easy. installation and power would be the hardest. but install in the boot of my M35 and an inverter to power it is pretty simple.....

i guess an xbox could be an option too. id go 360 so it can be turned on via the controller

Dude the PS3 uses almost the power of a fridge and not a bar fridge a big one.

[n15m0]

Dude the PS3 uses almost the power of a fridge and not a bar fridge a big one.

Wow seriously? Mines on most of the time at home.

[zei20l]

its in a car, why would i be worried about power consumption??

yeah they chew up the juice, but comparing it to a fridge?? no way, stop watching today-tonight