I picked up my 5-door just over a month ago (the leather smell is gone... *sniff*), and already the need to make it my own has set in. I've had the idea in my head for a while that it would be pretty nifty--not to mention an interesting project--to replace the audio system with a PC-based setup. I mean, the glovebox compartment has plenty of room to house a small form-factor pc; with the audio components removed, a touch-screen LCD could be integrated into the center pillar. Seems to me that there's the potential for a very clean looking, and extremely versatile (CD/MP3/DVD, TV, GPS, internet, whatever the hell you want!) system. Not to mention the fact that you could use whatever media player you wanted, change audio profiles on the fly, get some cool lighting effects, control accessories, and so on.
My question to the forum is: Does anyone know, or have any experience with, such a setup? If anyone has any suggestions, tips, warnings, advice, ideas, etc, they would be massively appreciated!
There are a few issues/problems/kinks that I have thought of that need to be worked out:
-PCs typically take a good fraction of a minute to boot up... What if I want music NOW? And the converse,
-PCs must be shut down before power is cut... I don't want a 15 second delay between parking and being able to shut off the car.
-PC power supplies are designed to take 120VAC and distribute of 12VDC of stable, regulated power--I would need a way to take the 12V from the car's electrical system and stabilize it enough for a PC to use.
-Would a 7" touch-screen provide enough functionality to operate Windows and the desired applications, or would auxilliary controls be necessary?
-What about cooling issues? Taking an already-compact PC and confining it behind the dash is begging for overheating problems.
-Then there's the issue of getting everything to look nice... If I'm gonna spend that time and money, I don't want things looking hack. i've seen books and videos on fabricating fiberglass forms, but it sounds a bit daunting for a first-timer to fit a dash piece...
Anyways, there's probably lots more that I haven't thought of, so I'd love to hear what the rest of the forum has to say about this idea. Thanks in advance for your comments!
My question to the forum is: Does anyone know, or have any experience with, such a setup? If anyone has any suggestions, tips, warnings, advice, ideas, etc, they would be massively appreciated!
There are a few issues/problems/kinks that I have thought of that need to be worked out:
-PCs typically take a good fraction of a minute to boot up... What if I want music NOW? And the converse,
-PCs must be shut down before power is cut... I don't want a 15 second delay between parking and being able to shut off the car.
-PC power supplies are designed to take 120VAC and distribute of 12VDC of stable, regulated power--I would need a way to take the 12V from the car's electrical system and stabilize it enough for a PC to use.
-Would a 7" touch-screen provide enough functionality to operate Windows and the desired applications, or would auxilliary controls be necessary?
-What about cooling issues? Taking an already-compact PC and confining it behind the dash is begging for overheating problems.
-Then there's the issue of getting everything to look nice... If I'm gonna spend that time and money, I don't want things looking hack. i've seen books and videos on fabricating fiberglass forms, but it sounds a bit daunting for a first-timer to fit a dash piece...
Anyways, there's probably lots more that I haven't thought of, so I'd love to hear what the rest of the forum has to say about this idea. Thanks in advance for your comments!
