I got my mini back together this weekend and here are the pictures with the Computer Installed. The computer does audio, video, weather reports, gas station prices, obd II data, GPS, internet, email, and handles phone calls. I can use the touch screen input or voice command if I'm on the go.

TouchScreen installed in Dash



Flip up access to battery and wiring



Computer Installed



Carpet back down and things looking stock



CAI finished and Installed

 

Wow, great job.

 

Top job!
I did similar but put my 7" Lilliput screen where the OE Sat Nav screen used to be, tight squeeeeeeeze though.
Put PC in CD Changer bracket in RHS of boot.

 

Nice clean job

 

Not to steal this thread, but I would love to see pictures of that. Do you mind posting some?

 

Thanks yall.

Chris, send us a link to some pictures if you have them somewhere. I always enjoy seeing what other people have done.

 

Will try and post up some photos soon...............

 

Kirker912,

That's awesome!! you need to show more detail!! What kind of screen, computer etc etc. Sounds like Chris is holding out on us too. That is awesome and I would love to do a mod like this to my car.

 

My setup is a 7" Lilliput touchscreen VGA 800x480 LCD squeeeezed into where the 6.5" Sat Nav Screen used to be.
Underneath the Toggle Switch Pack is a 4 port USB hub with USB DVD/CD drive, USB GPS (Garmin Mobile PC), USb Card Reader & USB IR remote.
PC is an NEC Flex ATX SFF Mobo with 60GB 2.5" HDD, M2-ATX PSU, 1GB RAM, AGP VGA card, PCI USB card & PCI Wifi card with Car2PC interface for sound fed to stock HU via CDC input.

 

Is your Mobo in a case or did you make something to put it in? how do you like it's daily operation? what i'm looking for is if the system is a pain to use.

 

The screen is a 7" lilliput that I've got set to 1024x768. It's got the backup camera wiring but I haven't seen a need for it in the mini.

The computer is a HP Mini 210 with 1.66g processor and 1g ram. Sound is coming from a USB soundblaster card that runs to the aux input on the head unit. Voice commands and phone calls use the Andrea Array microphone. My Ipod runs in hard drive mode for extra storage space. Extra USB ports are provided by a powered 7 port hub in the console. The fan runs off custom fan controller and separate power switches reside under the front seat. It reads engine data via the OBDII port.

 

Mobo is mounted to the Desktop PC cutdown backplate which is then screwed to the CD changer bracket.
Daily op is fine, though resume is a little slow and screen shows fingerprints.

Some photos attached......

 

Chris what OS and front end are you running?

I delt with the pain of waiting on the system to boot/resume every time but now that I've got windows 7 optimized resume is almost instant. Cold boot takes about 50 seconds, but that only happens when the car sits for a few days which isn't very often.

 

Running Centrafuse 2 over Win XP Pro SP3.

 

Wow you guys bring a whole new meaning to a "smart Car"

 

very impressive. well done!

 

Sweet Job. Chris is the computer running into the naviscreen?

 

That was my original intention using a VGA to RGsB converter and a VGA switch.

But I could never get it working reliably so I pulled out the naviscreen and fitted a Lilliput 7" VGA LCD touchscreen that is now the PCs main display, with a 15" LCD in the roof for rear view passengers to watch!

 

Very nice and functional!

I would get a few parts from radio shack and put together a moisture alarm for the battery box. Some of us end up with lots of moisture and/or water in there. Sometimes as much as a few inches of water have been reported in there.

Just may not be good for that cooling fan to be blowing moisture into your computer.

 

The cooling fan blows hot air out of the case, not into it.