October 1, 2008
Over the past few weeks, I came into the possession of a Scion tC and like a true geek, I’m embarking on a project which would make my car even more adaptive to current technologies.
I’m planning on building a “carputer“. The interior of the Scion tC makes this easy as the head unit is a double din which will probably hopefully allow a 7″ touchscreen LCD along with computer parts behind it to fit:
Over the weekend I did some research into what building such a thing would require and I’ve already got most of it laid down. I want it to be running Linux rather than Windows as I’ve seen in some people’s setups as Windows is a little too bloaty for me. I’ve actually already settled on a “distro” if you will and that is LinuxICE (Linux In Car Entertainment). Although it’s still in its very early stages, I feel I can contribute to this project and hopefully inject some more life into it. The other distro I came across was Moblin, and although it’s backed by Intel, I didn’t see it as something I could easily jump into like LinuxICE.
Project Goals
My immediate goals for my carputer is that it should hopefully be able to perform the following:
- Play music from hard drive, CD, and possibly iPod via proprietary iPod cable or aux cable
- Play video from hard drive, possibly DVD
- Share music folder on home network so songs could be transferred while car is in garage via wi-fi
I also have some other goals which are pretty ambitious and difficult — but if I were able to pull these off, I might as well paint my car black and get a vanity plate that says KITT. 
- Connect to my cellphone when in range via bluetooth and intercept calls so that I could enjoy handsfree calling while in the car
- GPS
- Car monitoring via Carman
- Backup camera which will activate when transmission changes to reverse
- Be able to utilize steering wheel controls for music selection
Progress
I’ve already jumped into skinning LinuxICE to better fit my car. Personally I wasn’t a big fan of the default skin:
So I tried borrowing design elements from the official Scion website and incorporate it into my skin:
Obviously I’m still early on in this project and I have plenty of elements left to skin and custom scripts/programs to develop. If you have done any similar projects or can input on stuff that’s already been developed to help my cause, please let me know by commenting
Hey Sam, it’s Cory. Just wondering how this project went.
Unfortunately it’s on hiatus as I don’t have the funds to buy the hardware for it nor the time to develop it any further. Once I find a job in the summer I’ll definitely pick this up again.
Sam that is awesome, can I get one for my Hyundai?
[...] I’d like to pursue some other projects I’ve had sitting on hold, one of which is my carputer [...]
Hey Sam, did you get a chance to finish this project off?
I would to see the finished project, I want to build a mini-itx computer into a car and I’ve been looking into others builds, the whole power management system seems very complicated but I am determined to have a good crack at it!
Last summer I tried picking up this project again but when I was shopping for hardware, I was really discouraged at the touchscreen LCDs that were available. Where I live, the temperatures can sometimes reach -40ºC and a lot of the screens I was looking at could only handle something like -10ºC so I gave up on the project for now until I’m able to obtain a touchscreen LCD that could handle the cold temperatures.
Well I’m not too sure about temperature but check these guys out, http://www.caltronind.com/open-frame-monitors/LBT-0842O-8-inch-led-open-frame-monitor.php
They may have one suited to ur need and they’re led
Good luck!
Thanks for sharing this. As I mentioned, other touchscreen monitors I were looking at could only handle -10ºC, but the one you linked could handle -30ºC which should fare a bit better. Although it does dip down to -40ºC over here sometimes, it’s not as common so this might do the trick.
Good luck with your carputer efforts as well!
Wow where do you live? Antarctica!
Well My attempts will just be a dream for now, I’ll stick to modding my Computer til I got the money for the car I want then the Carputer will be created!! Also since tech nology seems to be getting smaller, Cheaper, Faster and more eco friendly I’m sure by the time I start it’ll be as cheap as chips.
Goodluck and keep us Updated as will I!