150 replies to this topic

[Podcake]

well, ice, that thing that my chavvy associates frequently tell me is so important in a motor car, ( if you can call the monstrosities that the particular ones I'm thinking of drive cars at all! mmmmm go ford fiesta with more plastic stuck to rust than ever before known 'phat isn't it').

well looking into it and taking much advice from other people I decided to ignore them all and design something myself ( it is the engineers way it seems). So i thought now where is my music collection? {answer: ON MY COMPUTER!} so here is a dilema I have. I have 487+ hours of backed up music sat on my computer, and I want it in my car. Now I COULD buy an I pod jobby, but that would cost a lot. SO lets take that spare PC that I own, mess with it and put that in my car to play all of my favourite tunes.

now my head unit ( if u can really call it that) is not to the usual ' ice standard' in that it came out of a landrover discovery and the speakers arent really top notch in that they came off an olf hifi unit ( dont u just love din plugs and sockets )

BUT to compare what i paid for it and what it provides i think i did rather well, £20 for a full system that plays 450+ hours of music, not bad at all that and the head unit is powerful enough to distort hifi speakers so it can go quite loud.

if i wanted to go loud i would just pull my PA system from my room ( 300W RMS a side) so i might upgrade it sometime soon or maybe not

and so it was, i dont have a very detailed list of what i did really but if people are interested i will certainly show them what i have done, i just thought i'd test the water a bit about this idea.

[mini_sam]

wow, you put a pc in to your car!!!!!! sounds cool, i have loads of music on my pc too 4 days worth on i-tunes, it would be cool to get that in to a mini! :grin:

[Podcake]

yeah I did

and even better i did it on a real budget.
also it beats the quality of tape and of a burnt cd ( becuase a CD can lose some quality when written)
because if you rip the music at a high enough bitrate its virtually the same as the CD it came off

hey if u want more details let me know
its a fairly easy addition to any ice system if people are interested

it is also possible that i can build one up from new parts for people if required but its gonna cost a fair whack with brand new parts ( but it would be a fair system)

[Dom]

any pics of this ?

[mini_sam]

yerrr, i would like to see where you have put a whole PC in your mini :saywhat: or have you just set up the hard drive in their?

[ed4ran]

PCs can be really small!!
I am in the process of putting a computer into a old cable tv box!! and that will probly end up in my mini when they are both done (it will control lots of things!!!!)

[mattvallins]

Ive seen the PC, its in an old school oscilloscope box atm, like the ones you used in Physics :tongue:
Its gonna get smaller than that tho, if he ever buys parts rather than getting them from skip-diving on the Uni Campus

[Podcake]

I do have some piks somewhere, will look for them.

To give you an idea it is roughly the size of an A4 sheet (except a litle wider) as a footprint and it is say less tall than the shorter side of a CD case

it has an LCD screen and most connections that u will ever want.

its not a hugely fast machine (400 Mhz) but I COULD make a fast one- the next incarnation is expected to come in arround the 2200 Mhz mark and I recon I can build the new one for about £200

[Pooky]

Do you need an power inverter mains adapter thing? (240-12V)

[Podcake]

thats how i run mine yeah ( but there are ways round it) u can get 12V power supplies

[Pooky]

This has really confused me! is it technically a PC or a just a hard drive? what controls does it have? A mouse?!

get those pics up! :tongue: :grin:

[Podcake]

ok, its an entire PC





those are naff photos really but they give you the idea. The piece of paper is A4 in size ( to give you an idea)- oh and plz excuse the junk arround the thing ( my room was a mess then)

it doesnt have a CD drive, just everything else

it cost me about £20 to make and it has a slot for a wireless card so i can upgrade it to have that ( which means i can leave it in the car 24/7 and not have to bring it in for updates)

i need to fix in a startup button in my dash but other than that its a worker. not very hifi really ( using a tape adapter :$) but it does the job

[minimanshane]

i see no pics

[Podcake]

fixed it

[ed4ran]

Heres mine as it is at the mo

Theres an A4 sheet for comparison

PIC1

PIC2

PIC3