Honda City CarPC

Over the last weekend, I upgraded the carpc of a Honda City 2007. The owner used to have a laptop running and the laptop was giving him some problems recently most probably attributed to heat issues.

Here are the details of the install.

For the power supply, we are using the ITPS (GP83) bought from store.mp3car.com. It costs us USD69.95 excluding shipping previously. (I shipped in this item together with a few other stuff, so not sure of the shipping of a single item)


The ITPS power supply fits nicely to the casing.

For those who want more information of the ITPS, here's the link to the pdf. GP83 ITPS

It's a good thing that the mini-itx casing we got can utilise a 3.5 inch HDD as the owner wanted to save some $$ and use his unwanted stuff from a old PC. Note that 3.5 inch HDD are not the best to use in a car environment. Not only do they draw more power, they generate more heat while running.



The back of the casing, showing where the wires will be coming out from. The big hole will be blocked with a piece of acrylic during the install.



Another picture showing the packed compartment of the carpc, and the location of the ITPS power supply



This picture shows the difference of my M300 mini-itx vs this casing.



This casing is available from MiniSQ in Novena Square for SGD75. Do note this price was without the original power supply that came with the casing as i had no use for it.

During the install.
Take a look at his screen. Due to the limited width of the city's console, the VGA screen had to be disassembled from its casing. A piece of plastic was cut to fill up any existing holes. The result, although not perfect, had a rather OEM look, with no buttons.



This is all the space the carpc took up in the boot. City's seat had absolutely no space and thus, installing underseat was not a option.



Unfortunately, our camera went out of battery and did not managed to take more pictures of the install. I wanted to show more of the wiring.

For now, just try to visualise until i manage to get the picture.
For the ITPS to work, we only need 3 wires. 12V, Ignition and Ground. The output of the ITPS will have a remote (to turn on amps). For this install, I use the ITPS to supply power to the VGA screen as well. Using the ITPS's regulated 12V power supply will prevent "waves" caused by the car's unregulated power supply. VGA screens draw no more than 2A, so it's still very little power for the power supply to cope

We use the yellow and black wire from the 4-pin connector.

A final shot of the city with the PC installed.



The owner is certainly enjoying his new entertainment center!

Intel Atom in my Hyundai Avante

I have a carpc in my hyundai avante for about 3 years now.
Recently I have upgraded to a ATOM chipset (from the old VIA mini-itx board)
Showing some pics I took during the install.

Testrunning the setup at home desk

The carpc with its mini-itx ATOM board

Fitting the VGA touchscreen

Fitment to the console


Mess of wires


PC mounted below driver seat

Amp mounted below passenger seat

First mounted and boot to Windows

My frontend

A full screen mtv

Integrated Garmin

Other items connected to the car pc
- starhub 3G mobile broadband via a USB-stick
- OBDII reader (Avante uses CAN-bus)
- USB dvb-t, dab and FM radio stick
- Bluetooth handsfree

Some people might ask... why put a PC in the car?
- Huge storage space. That's a lot of songs and videos.
- Big screen GPS
- Price.. it costs much less than the SONYs or Alpine double dins, yet performs as good. (Total setup is less than SGD 1k)
- Way better but costs not much more than the china-made 2 dins.
- I'm geeky and loved the curious look from frens exclaiming ... "You have a Windows in your car!!"