• CarputerBlog

This is a blog relating to my wireless CarPuter project.

Todayish

12/05/04

• The processing block is back in the car and is working fine, although I am not at all confident that I have found a final solution to the problems that have plagued me of late. I did a quick spot check with a multimeter while bending the main power lead back and forth to check for an momentary discontinuities. I also took a look at the battery voltages at the terminal, coming out of the leads and coming out of the alternator (with the engine on). All are within my supply's input voltage tolerances. The Opus PS is designed to handle very wide input voltages, such as are caused by voltage dropouts when you turn the ignition, alternator output variances, etc., so I don't think I have yet nailed down the problem, but at least I am eliminating possibilities.

• I am experimenting with a WordPress based blog solution that my friend Ryan has been using for quite some time. I may end up switching the CarputerBlog over to it at some point, as blogging via Wiki is inelligant in the extreme.

11/16/04

• Had to take the processing block out of car the other day and clear the CMOS. For some reason, every once in a while, VIA motherboards will fail to post (or respond to an ATX power on command in ANY way). This is a known issue in the forums, but of course VIA does not acknowledge that the problem exists. Clearing the CMOS (by moving the clear CMOS jumper) fixes the problem (until it occurs again...). It is very annoying to have to haul the processing block out of the car every time this occurs. I have rigged the processing block with quick disconnecting cables and have a 12v power supply in the house, so I can power up the CarPuter's core in the house. It only takes me a few minutes to remove or reinstall the processing block in the car. To access the clear cmos jumper, though, I need to undo 8 screws and partially disassemble the project box. After clearing the CMOS, I have to go through all the bios menus and adjust all the settings. All told, it probably takes me 30-45 minutes every time the VIA motherboard decides to puke. I am thinking of installing a shielded switch (cover plate to prevent accidental activation) on the exterior of the project box if the problem rears its ugly head again. It has occured twice now and it is beginning to get quite annoying.

• Been spending most of my "screw around with hardware" time tweaking my dream machine or playing around with my new iRiver H320 digital audio (and with the latest firmware video) player. I have spent an innordinate sum of money and time on both, so I haven't had much time to play around with the CarPuter, which more or less does what I want it too. I probably won't make any significant changes until Nano-ITX form factor motherboards start hitting the streets.

09/25/04

• Had one last car computing "meet and greet" to end out the summer. We will probably have a few small meets over the winter, but will likely be smaller, project oriented meetings. I am hoping we can do seminars in fiberglass/bondo fabrication and maybe a spot of welding. Anyways, the meet went very well and I got to see two car-puters that I hadn't seen before.
• Yuriy's carputer was especially a kick, as it has long been referred to as the most "ghetto-fabulous" car computer by the forum members at mp3car.com. Yuriy is a student from Russia and is working on an extremely low budget. He managed to build a car computer for music playback for something like $15. A good deal of his system is held together by duct tape and wishful thinking, but it seems to work for him
• Another person had a carputer built into his car stereo competition truck. I am not a fan of loud, low noises, but his set up was impressive if only on a technical level. His system put out several thousand watts through a multitude of amplifiers. In order to produce that level of power, he had to put in an extra heavy duty alternator and several isolated batteries. In addition, he had to tear out most plastic parts in the car to avoid rattling and reinforced the roof in several places to avoid the roof warping from the sub-woofer's "suck."

09/21/04

• Went to the Puyallup fair today and found a few vendors selling theese Super Joy III systems for ~$40. These things are basically a gamepad that has an original NES/Famicom/Nintendo system built right in, along with 75 or so games. You can power them off of a few AA batteries or a brick and it plugs into your TV via RCA cables. The system also comes with a secondary "slave" gamepad for playing 2 player games, and a light gun for playing duckhunt and other "shooters." I will play with it in the house for now, but plan on installing it into the car at some point. My Lilliput SVGA Touchscreen LCD has 2 auxilary video/audio inputs that should accomodate one of these, plus I also have a 5" Analog LCD that I could mount as a secondary display for people in the rear seat.

09/20/04

• Slimline external USB 2.0 cd-rom arrived today and works just fine off bus power alone. The USB hub in the car is powered, so I think it will supply enough current. If not, this device does have a port for plugging in a 5v brick (although none is included). If all else fails, I should be able to rig a molex connector to supply the needed power.

• Replacement 2.2 GB CF Microdrive arrive in the mail today and works fine in my USB 2.0 CF reader. I have yet to try it in anything else, but I have transfered a few gigs of files back and forth and so far so good. Next step is to try it in the EIDE->CF adapter and try runnning an OS off it.

09/16/04

• Purchased a slimline external USB 2 cd-rom on ebay for use with the car. Although I haven't tried it yet, the bios does seem to support booting from usb devices and I have read reports to that effect on the mp3car forums. I went with this cd-rom over a plethora of burners and dvd-roms for the simple reason that this one gets all the power it needs through the USB cable.
• Sent back the CF for replacement
• Going to cancel my t-mobile unlimited internet as it has been far too unreliable
• Been using the XM PCR with a piece of software called "TouchXM." As you might guess, this is software designed from the ground up for use with a touchscreen. I really like the big preset buttons that show what is playing on all the channels in realtime.

09/13/04

• The 2.2 GB microdrive was DOA. I have tried reading using it in three cameras, two "6 in 1" type devices and a PCMCIA adapter, to no avail. It makes a pitiful clicking noise several times a second when plugged in, but I don't think the platter is spinning. So, I have to send it back in the mail tomorrow. I hope my CF->EIDE adapter is waiting when the replacement gets back.

• Soldered up the spare power cable that mp3car.com was nice enough to send me free (no shipping, even)! I can take the processing module out of the car and work on the carputer on my workbench, plugged into my nice new super-regulated DC lab power supply. It will probably be necessary to take the processing block out of the car temporarily when I move everything over to CF.

• Installed the XM Satellite PC Radio in the car and mounted the new "microreceptor" antenna on the roof for clear LOS. I am trying out several software packages to control the radio. TimeTrax is working out alright and it is fun to have radio PVR functions in the car, but the interface software needs some work. I think the author concentrated on getting all the major functionality in place (in anticipation of getting sued out of existence), and is just now starting to work on usability

• I am looking into acquiring a slimline USB cd-rom/dvd-rom/burner for the car. The VIA motherboard support booting from USB devices, which would make reinstalling the OS much simpler (wouldn't have to remove hardware from the car). It would also be nice to have for installing software. Currently when I need to install something from a cd, I put it in a computer on my private wireless network, make an iso and then use daemon tools to mount the iso. It works, but is a little slow, particularly as wireless coverage towards the front of my house is a bit spotty.

09/11/04

• My 2.2 GB (billion byte definition, of course) CF Microdrive arrived today. Unfortunately, my CF to EIDE adapter is on a slow boat from China (Taiwan is China, just ask Bejing!). I have a shipping number, but who knows when I will actually see it. I am going to get a $10 CF->PCMCIA adapter and pop this thing into my notebook just to make sure that it works. I still have a hard time believing that this thing has a hard drive inside it. I also just read on Slashdot that the Rio Carbon MP3 player has a 5 GB CF Microdrive and they can be had for $250 or less. 5 GB would have been nice, as it would have given me some wiggle room, but I think I can cram the OS and most of the vital programs/data that I use down into ~2 GB (1.07 billion bytes/GB definition).

09/04/04

• XM PCR arrived a few days ago. Signing up for service was straightforward and my tuner was activated within 30 minutes . I have been playing with it on my desktop for a few days using the TimeTrax software and like it a lot. Everything is ready for installation into the car (including a mag-mount omni antenna from Magnolia HiFi, as it came with a directional panel), but I almost want to keep this one and get a second one for the car. I have really enjoyed some of the eclectic stations that XM offers. I can hardly wait to get in the car and turn the radio to Nascar. It is a good thing I just had the brakes fixed

• Purchased a 2.2 GB Microdrive and a CF to IDE adapted on Ebay. I plan on making the microdrive my boot volume and use the existing 30 GB 2.5" laptop hdd in a USB enclosure for media storage. Microdrives are designed to withstand much greater shocks than conventional hard drives (for use in cameras, mp3 players and the like). I am hoping this will spell an end to the occasional data corruption problems I have encountered due to head crashes.
• Updated the touchscreen driver to the latest beta available online, as the one that came on the installation cd would occasionally keep the system from going into suspend-to-ram standby mode.
• Installed XP SP2 (Yes, I like to play with fire). I really like the new wireless management tool. It is much more straight-forward to use than the old one. My only complaint with the new tool is that it seems to take it a while to get clued into the fact that a DHCP lease has taken place, so it sits in the system tray displaying this rotating icon until some voodoo happens.

• Got a "Just Wireless" Bluetooth headset for my cell phone for my birthday, so I am scratching my prior plans of using the car's bluetooth for the same purpose. The current flakiness of the Widcomm(Now Broadcom) bluetooth stack has long been a source of frustration for me. I may just pull bluetooth support from the car entirely and revisit it in a year or so once things have matured a bit.

08/27/04

• Ordered a USB XM satellite tuner for the car yesterday. The neat thing is that the USB connection is only used to control the tuner and fetch lists of current playing songs, but the actual audio is dumped via a line out port to the PC. There is an easy modification to the tuner that ads a digital optical out port, as well. Anyways, a little company called NeroSoftwrote a neat application called TimeTrax that is almost a PVR for radio. It can write out whatever you are listening to as a wav or mp3, complete with correct filename and id3 tags. It must do some sort of buffering, as you can decide to record something midway through a song and still get the entire thing. It can also be set up to record a station at a given time, or even be on the look out for particular bands/songs. This will be the first major upgrade to the carputer in a while and I am looking at taking a crack at something new.

07/27/04

• The meet and greet went very well. We had 5 fully functional cars show and around 15 total attendees. I was particularly impressed with one car that had undergone some custom dash work to make everything look "stock." I am hoping I can find someone with fabrication experience that is willing to give me some tips and do a custom dash (fiberglass/bondo).
• Lilliput arrived and has been installed. The screen is sharp and the touchscreen works well. My only real complaint is that it is a little hard to read in direct sunlight. Shielding the screen with my hands usually reduces the ambient light to a much more comfortable level, so I think I will create a glare shield out of thin plastic and paint it with some ultra flat black paint. I have seen some posts about people having success using certain thin films on the screen itself, but it would meean having to do without the touchscreen functionality.
• Nat at the mp3car.com store is being very accomodating by sending me an extra power input cable for the Opus powersupply FOR FREE! The power input connector on the Opus is a proprietary locking connector and I haven't been able to find a source for it locally. The power supply only came with one of these connectors and a short lead wire, which has become a permanent fixture in my car. Having a spare cable will allow me to remove the processing module much more easily for work in the house.
• Purchased a decent 12v (13.8), 6 amp continuous regulated supply for powering the Opus in the house and other projects. I probably should have spent a hundred more and purchased a good variable supply with built in metering, but I have been pouring money out like no tomorrow.
• Purchased a Logitech MX 900 Bluetooth mouse and have to say it is probably the best mouse I have ever used (and I am a major gamer and have tried dozens of mice/keyboard/weird gaming gadgets). The mouse works fine without any drivers/software installed, but you need to install the software for access to the special functions (mapped buttons, battery monitoring). I debated whether to install the software at all, as it is based on the Widcomm Bluetooth Stack, with which I have had many problems with in the past. Surprisingly, the software installed flawlessly and was easily updated through the web to the latest version. I am hoping this is a sign that the Widcomm software is maturing. The Widcomm software is practically the only game in town for those who want access to some of the more interesting profile types (like headset, hands-free, etc.). I have a friend who works as a tester of bluetooth enabled Win CE based barcode scanners and he almost starts muttering obscenities and shoots steam out of his ears whenever you mention Widcomm.

• Played around with PhoneControl and Float's Mobile Agent. Float's Mobile Agent was an absolute breeze to set up and really gives you access to a lot of neat and useful functions of your phone, but I have a feeling the interface is a little too busy for a CarPuter type environment. PhoneControl requires you to edit a bunch of ill-documented xml config files to get everything working, but is designed for touchscreen environments. I got PhoneControl at least partially working but it will take a little more fiddling before I will trust it in the car.

07/12/04

• CarPuter been running pretty smoothly of late. Only hiccup that has occured recently were a few bad sectors that developed as a result of hitting a pot hole at speed. chkdsk managed to clean everything up, but it still made me ponder going to a flash based solution for the boot drive.

• Purchased 256 MB of cheap generic DDR266 to swap for the 512 MB of Kingston DDR333 that was going to waste in the CarPuter. The memory footprint for the OS + all applications running is actually pretty low and the Epia motherboards still don't support the faster types of DDR (though you can still use the faster ram at lower speeds). My main desktop system was in much worse need of the ram than my CarPuter

• Purchased a Lilliput 7" XGA touchscreen from mp3car.com. This one set me back a pretty penny, but I think it will be worth it. The higher resolution will mean an end to squinting and the touchscreen will allow me to try out some of the sweet touchscreen oriented interfaces that people have cooked up (Media Engine, Frodoplayer and Media Car, to name a few).

• Getting very excited about the next car computing meet and greet set for this Saturday. It looks like there will be more people than last time and at least a few systems that I haven't yet seen. If you are interested in attending, checkout http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=768a154bb027e147e0b6267a7b07facb&t=27464

06/14/04

• I installed the Opus in the car today and it is a thing of beauty. I know, it is hard to get worked up about a power supply. Ordinarily, a power supply is one of those technologies where if it is working, you don't give it a second thought, but this one has totally changed how I can use my Carputer. Unlike any other supply on the market, the Opus can supply safe, steady voltages to the PC even while you are turning the ignition on the car. Before, every time I stopped to get gas, ran in to use an ATM, etc. I would have to turn the computer completely off and then wait a minute and 30 seconds for the computer to reboot after ignition. This had the effect of rendering the carputer virtually useless when out running errands. The Opus also supplies enough standby current to enable me to put the computer in suspend to ram mode instead of shutting the computer completely off. From reports from other users, most car batteries are fine with the slight drain, provided you drive your car every 2-3 days. The upshot of all this is that my "boot time" is down to about 4 seconds

06/12/04

• I received a pleasant suprise today when my new Opus 90W DC-DC ATX power supply arrived from mp3car.com. They are located on the East Coast and even using USPS for shipping, I had my order in hand within 3 days (1 not even an ordinary business day)! I wasn't expecting this to arrive till next week and I am pretty busy with the film festival for the next few days, so I may have to wait until Monday/Tuesday to get it installed. I may be able to install it inside the project box alongside the motherboard, if I can rig up some sort of mount for the HDD into the ceiling of the box.

06/10/04

• Drilled some small vent holes in the case and one larger one in which I have mounted a small fan (think I pried the fan from a pentium heatsink). Internal case temperatures are now 20-30 degrees cooler and seem to run about 125 degree F at full tilt.
• Installed a 30 GB HDD. It is only 4200 RPM, but it does seem to have a bit better seek times than the old 6 GB drive. I finally have enough onboard storage for most of my music. I hope to upgrade to a 60 GB 7200 RPM drive with 8 MB buffer at some point, but they are pretty expensive and I think my next major Carputer purchase will be a 7" SVGA touchscreen (either a Xenarc or Lilliput).
• Finally took the plunge and spent $175 after shipping on a 90 watt DC-DC ATX power supply from Opus Solutions. This power supply is unique in that it will provide strictly regulated output voltages to the PC, even while the input voltage is swinging wildly. This means that among other things, the PC can operate even while the ignition is being cranked (battery voltage typically drops to 7-9 volts while starting a car). The Opus power supply also features an integrated startup/shutdown controller, so it will automatically start your computer for you when you start the car and it will safely shutdown your computer after a user selectable time period once you turn off the engine. Couple this with a remote start kit for the car and I will be able to start the car from inside the house and have the computer and air conditioning ready and waiting for me by the time I get in the car!

05/25/04

I have been test driving the CarPuter for the last few days and for the most part, things are running smoothly.

• Skymap 2000 (GPS Mapping) is running much more smoothly under XP than under 2K. It seems to lock on to the sats quicker and position updates seem to be more frequent. Under 2k, the position seemed to lag behind by about a block when moving at residential surface street speeds. Now, it seems to be no more than a quarter block behind.
• Audio and video playback is running fine, although I am running into heat related lockup problems when I peg the CPU at 100% for more than 5-10 minutes. I think cutting a few small vent holes in the case above the CPU should be adequate. I really don't want to have to go to active cooling.
• Netstumbler .40 doesn't seem to want to play nice with the USB Orinoco drivers, so I am downgrading to the prior version until I can get new drivers that don't puke.
• GPRS internet uplink via bluetooth enabled cell phone is functional, but I am not too pleased with the reliability of T-mobile's wap gateways.

05/21/04

• 2:30 am and the day is done. Everything is up and running on my desk. I still have to configure the media player and move my media collection over, but the fussy bits can wait. I installed XP, Antivirus, all security patches and bug fixes, latest drivers and firmware, got WiFi and GPRS internet uplinks going and spent quite a while tweaking visual settings and optimizing performance. I managed to get boot time down to 1:15 seconds cold and 30 seconds from hibernate. My guess is I can shave off another 10 seconds or so off the cold boot time if I work at it. Anyways, that can wait till tomorrow. Actual installation into the car shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes, so I plan to do some serious test driving tomorrow.

05/20/04

• Purchased a VIA Epia ME 6000 motherboard. It doesn't have the onboard cardbus slot, but it does have USB 2 and Firewire. When push came to shove I just wasn't willing to spend an extra $70 for a cardbus slot.
• Went to Vetco and purchased a nice rugged plastic project box. If I am right in my measuring (which I seldom am), it should fit the EPIA plus an Opus 90W DC - DC supply nicely.

05/18/04

• This update comes to you courtesy of my laptop, a dlink bluetooth dongle, my new Ericsson t610 and $20/month all you can eat gprs!

05/17/04

• I finally have some cash to burn on the car. I started off by getting a Ericcson T610 cell phone with Bluetooth and upgrading my plan to include T-mobile's $20/month all you can eat GPRS data. The car will now have both cellular and 802.11b for internet uplink/remote management, as well as it's own 802.11b AP to provide a bubble of free internet around the car. I am headed to Compusa now to get a USB Bluetooth dongle for testing with my notebook. Can anyone recommend a good bluetooth GPS unit?

• A really active developer who goes by Zorro on the mp3car forums has written a very cool application called PhoneControl that allows you to use a bluetooth enabled PC to make/answer phone calls. So, with the integration of bluetooth into my Carputer, I will be able to make hands free voice calls using the car stereo.

• I am definately going to get a VIA Epia MII as the new motherboard for the Carputer. These have USB 2, Firewire, Sound, Video, TV-out, Cardbus and CF all on a board 17 cm on a side. I am currently oscilating between the 600 mhz fanless and 1 ghz with fan model. The fan is supposedly only produces 31 db of noise, which is nothing compared to road noise, but I am more concerned about the fan burning out and taking the Carputer down with it.

04/07/04

• The CarPuter project has been stalled (pun intended) for a while. I have been dumping what little change I can spare into my home darkroom. I also have had a number of rather nasty unexpected expenses recently. The main water coolant pump in my car broke and the engine managed to catch on fire before any dash alarms came on! Thankfully, it was pretty much just oil burning off and there were no actual flames, though a lot of thick black smoke. It ended up costing $700+ to get the pump replaced, as the radiator and a bunch of other parts had to be lifted out of the way just to access the pump. I also had a timing belt or two replaced along the way. I need to set aside around $350 to get the CarPuter project back on track. I figure I will get a Via Epia MII motherboard and a Opus 90 or 150 Watt supply to power the whole shebang. The new Epia motherboard is pretty neat, as it has a cardbus and compactflash slot onboard. This will make it much easier to integrate funny wireless devices like cellular network PCMCIA cards.

01/14/04

• The mini-convention went really well and it sounds like there is interest in making it a monthly event.
• Have a replacement system pretty much ready for installation into the car. I have a number of these small Flex-ATX based systems that I was using for clients in my active directory lab (a small network of computers that I have for test purposes). They are small, although not small enough to fit under a seat, so it will have to go in the trunk or sit on the back seat. I am going to have to get some extension cables and run everything under the carpet along the "center hump" midline of the car. The TV out support on the board seems pretty good, although only win 98 drivers are available. The drivers only have support up to DX7, which is kinda disappointing as some of the nicer interfaces require direct-3d from 8 or above. The board does have two PCI slots, though, so I may be able to put in another video card.

• Haven't been to HackNight in a few weeks and won't be able to attend for a few months unless the date changes. I am taking an advanced programming class Tuesday and Thursday evenings and have also been doing a lot of darkroom photography of late, so I have been kinda ignoring my car and wireless interests.

01/08/04

• I am convinced that I am the modern day incarnation of Job. I got everything reinstalled on the new HDD and moved the car-puter back into the car. Worked fine for a few days, but now the video on the motherboard has blown out. I don't get any signal on the VGA or TV-out ports, but the computer is booting (can ping and whatnot). I had the video blow out on the first epia board I used, as well. What little money I have atm I need to set aside to pay for taxes, so I can't really justify going out and blowing a minimum of $125 on a new mini-itx motherboard. Anyone want to sponsor a geek? Yeah, didn't think so.
• Carputer mini-convention is this Saturday at the UW. I am really bummed about not having a working system to demonstrate.

01/04/04

• Went down and saw CaseyHalverson at his new place in Federal Way. Showed him the CarPuter and he leant me a Fobbit phone. We made a wireless ip phone call from within the car, which was a hoot. Listened to Al Franken and used GPS while driving there and back. With the cold weather and icy road conditions (I saw a dozen or so cars in the ditches) I drove very slowly, so it was nice to have something to entertain me.

• The HDD has been having problems with the cold weather. The car has not been booting reliably until temperature in the cab has had a chance to warm up for 5-10 minutes. I checked some car-computing forums and a lot of people have had this problem, particularly with newer fluid bearing drives. Anyways, all the cold weather was finally too much for my drive and it has suffered some sort of mechanical failure. I can hear something loose inside the casing. I have a spare hdd I can use, but it means a complete reinstall and a lot of time spent configuring. Plus, there is no guarantee that this other drive will tolerate the cold any better. I may have to work out some sort of quick disconnect system and take the HDD with me for a while.

01/02/04

Done a fair ammount of work in the last few days, so I will consolidate it down to one entry:

• Installed a green indicator light to make sure I remember to turn off the FM Modulator when not using it.
• Installed powered USB hub.
• Now that I have easy to access USB ports I used my new 2.5" USB HDD to transfer music, videos and a few new programs over to the car.

• Played around with Media Engine 2, a nice "all in one" interface for car-puters. It features integrated Audio/Video/DVD and even FM tuning (some people take out their head units and then use a USB FM tuner when they want to listen to the radio). It also works pretty well as a task manager for launching external applications like GPS programs. I really like it, but navigation by keyboard isn't consistent enough for my tastes. It is really meant for use with a touchscreen.

• Bought some wire loom, heat shrink tubing, velcro, etc. and managed to get all the visible wires nice and neat. All the wires under the seat are a complete mess, still.

• Took the car to Novus and had them replace my cracked windshield. Expensive, but had to be done. With all the cold weather we have been having lately, the crack was expanding almost every day.

• Meeting with CaseyHalverson tomorrow to show him the car-puter.

12/29/03

Typing this from the car-puter while sitting in a parking lot waiting for an appointment. Listening to an internet radio station via Winamp 5 while killing time, as well.

• Mounted switches for the inline modulator and main power in the dash. I was going to mount a switch for the inverter as well, and then mount the inverter behind the head unit, but it looks like the existing power switch for the inverter is actually on the main input line, so on 150 Watt inverter you need a switch capable of carrying quite a bit of current. The switch I bought for mounting is rated at 3 amp, but I didn't want to chance it. I will probably wait until I get the illuminated switches from Belgin to mess with it again.
• I think I found a viable USB hub for the car. It is a hub designed for mounting in standard drive bay and is powered by a floppy power cable. Both Belkin and Siig appear to sell the same unit. I can get one for $35 at Fry's or wait two weeks and get one off Ebay for $15 or so.
• I am getting my windshield replaced shortly. The car-puter convention is coming up soon, so I may actually wash the car to make it look nice. One of the people going to the convention has a car-puter in a Porsche Spider, so I don't think my car will win any beauty contests. but it is about pride!

12/26/03

• Installed the inline FM modulator behind the head unit and put a cutout switch in the dash (So I can turn it off if I need to hear a radio station on the frequency it normally uses). It works VERY well with no interference or hum, so far. While installing the FM modulator, I was able to get a much better idea of how my dash is constructed and how to route wires. If I can figure out how floor console that goes down the center-line of the car is held together, I should be able to route all wires out of sight in the dash. I will probably also mount lighted power switches for the inverter and for main system power in the dash next to the FM modulator kill-switch. I did some searching and these switches look fantastic, if a bit on the pricey side.

12/25/03 - Merry Christmas!!!

Santa was very good to me this year in the way of car related stuff:

• Audiovox inline FM modulator

• Griffin Powermate

• Solar battery recharger

• Nostromo N50 gamepad

• New windshield (my current one has a crack)

• Sock Monkey! I know the sock monkey doesn't belong in the list, but it is too cool not to list

12/23/03

• Been organizing a car-computing meet and greet (too few people to call a convention) for early January. So far we have about a dozen cars coming and a number of people have volunteered to do informal talks on areas of interest to those of us who are nuts enough to run computers in their cars in the first place. So far we are trying to get talks going on:
• Custom Fiberglass Dashes
• User Interface Design
• Power Systems
• Audio Integration
• Boot-time Optimization
• Input Devices
• Voice Control
• Wireless Networking/Internet Access
• Managed to get hibernation working consistently. I have a feeling it was being held up every once in a while by the Linksys USB adapter. Boot time is down to 25-30 seconds from hibernate.
• Been reading up on voltage regulator circuits. I have been lucky enough to have peripherals that will run well enough off the voltages supplied by a PC power supply, but some of the devices I would like to power run at odd voltages, or require very stable supplies. I definitely want to add a 12 volt battery charging circuit, as well as a powered USB hub.

12/19/03

• 98 Lite is pretty cool. I managed to cut the boot time on a Pentium class notebook in half and applications seem much snappier.
• Won the USB hard disk enclosure.

12/18/03

• Been playing around with the idea of switching to 98/ME lite. There is a company that makes a product called 98lite that lets you easily strip out IE/Web integration and other resource hogs, while still preserving networking/application compatibility. One user I spoke with managed to get his cold boot time down to 17 seconds, with restore from hibernation taking roughly half the time! I am going to play around with a demo version of it on one of my pentium class laptops and see what I can do.

• Bid on a few bus-powered USB hard disk enclosures on Ebay. Remote administration is nice, but it requires the car-puter to be on (and the car also) and 802.11b isn't exactly a speed demon when it comes to moving audio/video around. When I get the remote ignition/computer boot system running, it won't be such an inconvenience, but for now I think an external hard drive that I can load up with media is the best way to handle things.

12/16/03

• Received the USB Orinoco client that I won on Ebay. I cracked open the case and with a little dremel work, was able to modify the case to let me hook up an external antenna. Installation into the car was relatively staightforward, although I had to do some rearranging of the USB devices so that only low power devices were plugged into the hub. Stumbling works well and I logged a couple hundred wireless networks on my way to HackNight.

12/13/03

• Was sitting in the car with the car-puter off when all of a sudden the inverter started making warning noises. I look under the passenger side seat to see actual 'ARCING' between the supply and the metal seat chasis. I pulled the plug promptly and nothing appears to have been damaged. It looks like the chrystler actually uses parts of the seat chasis to carry current to the motors in the seat! The power supply rests on top of the amplifier heatsink, which is also used as ground for the amplifier. At some point, the power supply must have bumped a live wire and formed a path to ground. I insulated the power supply by placing it inside a carboard sleeve lined with bubble wrap (made from the envelope my cellular cable came in). Both ends are open, so the power supply should cool normally, but there is no chance of it bumping against something conductive.

12/12/03

• With the ATX extension cable I was able to move the power supply under the seat. I managed to give my arms some nice cuts and scrapes in the process, but it was worth it. You have no idea how hard it is to fasten 2 atx connectors with one hand purely by touch! With the removal of the powerstrip and moving the power supply under the seat, there are no longer any visible components in the backseat, and leg room is now normal (although you can't tuck your 10 little piggies under the seat). Once I get rid of the inverter and get some wire loom, the only visible components in the car will be the keyboard/touchpad and the screen. I have some thoughts about doing a custom dashboard, with a false cover and sliding components, but that is a long ways down the line. I don't think my mechanical skills are up to that task, although my brother could likely help me in that regard.
• I am getting mixed messages from t-mobile on the internet capabilities of my phone. I have thus far been able to get their software to recognize the phone, but then again, I am not using the official data connection kit. One rep told me that my phone isn't gprs data capable, another told me that I could get a connection, but it would only be 9.6kbps. I may just wait and get a bluetooth phone, as I would really like to avoid dealing with yet another cable in the car.

12/11/03 - Evening

• The data cable for my cell phone arrived. I almost wet myself when I saw it, I was so excited. I am going to see if I can get my laptop to recognize my cell phone and if I can get it working, I will call T-mobile to have them data enable my account. I am told I can do so at virtually anytime and have it activated almost immediately. My brother and a friend of mine are on a big road trip and have been using their phone to update a trip log.

• I won the ebay auction of a new Orinoco USB adapter. The USB adapters actually have an Orinoco Gold/Silver PCMCIA card inside, so as with the PCMCIA card, you can hook up an external antenna. Between 802.11b clients, an AP and cellular internet, I will have one unwired car.
• Picked up a ATX extension cable at Fry's. This adds almost a foot of cable between the power supply and the motherboard and lets me tuck the power supply in a much better location. Passengers in the rear right seat should no longer have any obstructions keeping them from stretching out their legs.
• Wired in the USB hub. I am going to have some devices that require a fair ammount of power hooked into the hub (even the linksys USB adapter causes it to choke in bus powered mode), so I will need to make another molex adapter.

12/11/03 - Way to early

Woke up at 3 am this morning with WAY too much energy, so did some work on the car that I had been putting off:

• I got rid of the two power bricks in the system and consequently got rid of the unsightly power strip in the back seat. Both bricks were 12 volts, so I clipped the leads off the brick (after figuring out the polarity) and wired them up to Molex connectors and connected them to the car-puter's ATX power supply. Molex connectors are the 4 pin connectors that are used in computers for powering fans, hard drives, cd-roms, etc. One of the pins is 12v, another is 5 volt and there are two grounding wires. Depending on what you use for ground, you can get 12v, 7v and 5 volt from a Molex connector. I will probably use this method to power any other future devices, as well. One nice benefit of powering your devices from the ATX supply is that all devices power on/off when you turn the car on/off, so you don't have to flip a million switches. There is something attractive about having a bunch of switches in the dash, though.
• Justdeals has a bunch of new Orinoco USB gear up for sale on Ebay. It looks like I will be getting one for $30 with $12 shipping. There are enough of them for sale that nobody is bidding against each other. They look to be 8-10 for sale and only 4 of them have a bid. The shipping is a bit of a rip-off, but it is still less than the $50-60 range that new adapters seem to fetch on Ebay.
• Going to rummage through my pile of wires and bits and see if I can find a power brick that is 15 volts or higher. With a few resistors I should be able to turn it into a trickle charger. I might even put it into a project box with an analog meter so that I can easily view the charging status.
• Going to wire in the USB Hub, as the number of USB peripherals is likely to double in the near future.

• Been emailing back and forth with some other people in the northwest that have built car-puters (built is not quite the proper word as they are never done) and it looks like we are going to have a meet and greet in portland to compare notes, trade hardware and help each other out. Should be good fun and it will give me an excuse to raid Powell's City of Book, one of the biggest bookstores on the planet. I could (and have) spent all day there.

12/09/03 - Hacknight

• I think the best way to keep the auxilary battery charged is going to be a solar trickle charger. Building a genuine trickle charger that will operate off the 12.9 volts that the main car battery supplies while off is just going to be a royal pain. Additionally, it is going to be hard to prevent any backwards drain on the auxilary battery. By using a solar charger, there is no possibility of a drain back into the car. A brief search of froogle looks like I can get a panel designed specifically for this purpose for around $25.

12/09/03

• Did some measuring with my meter and figured out a few things. Most importantly, the voltage on the lighter jack drops too low when the car is off to effectively charge the auxilary battery. When the car is on, it supplies 14.3v, which should be enough, but this drops to 12.9v when the car is off. Secondly, there were two indicator lights that were draining a small ammount from the auxilary battery. LEDs don't take much juice, but i removed them all the same. I am looking at a few different approaches to charging the battery in the car, but most seem to involve the use of a switching power supply or some other convoluted process to boost the voltage. The auxilary battery pack is small and easily removeable, so I may just take it out of the car periodically and charge it. I have also thought about using solar power to trickle charge the battery while the car is off.
• The adapter for the phone has shipped, so I should be able to get the car online before xmas. It looks like the phone just uses a standard AT command set and that the "special software" is just a dialer. I am hoping to be able to hack the phone directly up to an AP, so that I can have access to the internet from my laptop anywhere within range of my car, without having to worry about keeping the car-puter powered up as well. If not I can use ICS as the go-between for the AP and phone.

12/08/03

• I am having problems with my tank circuit again. After working fine for the last several weeks, the computer has once again begun rebooting on ignition crank. My guess is that the battery has been getting drained somehow. My trickle charger in the schematic below is a high wattage 100 ohm resistor, which should limit the charging current to a max of around ~.1 amp. As the auxilary battery voltage and the main battery voltage approach one another, the current should slow to next to nothing (hence a trickle). When the car-puter is off, the outputs of this circuit are open, so if the battery is being drained, then current is flowing out through what I would consider the input of the circuit. The trickle charger/resistor limits the ammount of current that can flow back this way, but doesn't eliminate it. I could eliminate any current flow back through the inputs by adding another diode, but this would mean lowering the charging voltage even more. I should do some research into better trickle charging circuits, but more and more I think the solution to many of my problems would be to get a nice Opus Solutions DC-DC supply. I just have a hard time justifying dumping another $200 down the drain.

• Lost all four auctions of Ebay for the Orinoco USB adapters in a flurry of last minute bidding. Thankfully, there are a few more for bid, but they all have end dates of about a week from now. I wish I could find someone locally that could sell me one.

12/06/03

• I bought a cable for my phone off Ebay via a "buy it now" deal for $15 after shipping. I also bid on a bunch of Orinoco USB adapters. Hyperlink sells the Orinoco USB adapters with and without pigtail, so it sounds like they have an antenna connector inside. I have gotten real sick of dealing with all the wires in my car these last few days. It will be nice to do some things wirelessly for a change. I am also considering adding a USB->Bluetooth adapter at some point.

12/05/03

• I introduced my crappy "Soundfeeder" FM Modulator to my trashcan this afternoon and spent $30 on an irock. It uses a PLL circuit to make sure that their is no frequency drift. Besides the generally poor sound quality and hum produced when using the soundfeeder, I was having to retune it constantly to keep it on frequency. This irock sounds great and doesn't drift at all. It can be used with either 2 AAA batteries or with a lighter adapter (included). My only complaint is that because this type of circuit uses a reference crystal, you can only select from a few frequencies, all of which are around 88.5 (KPLU, our local NPR station). The irock seems to have enough power to blot out other radio stations, provided you keep its integrated antenna oriented towards the car antenna, but if you don't, you start hearing a little bit of the rival station coming through. It would have been nice to get one of the higher powered, tuneable transmitters from C. Crane, as they have a very good reputation, both for their technology and also for their corporate giving to groups like The Freeplay Foundation. I am unspeakably pleased just to have something that works without too much fuss.

• Spent some time talking to T-mobile people today. I can definately get my car online via my Samsung R225M cell phone. It will cost me $20/month in addition to my current voice plan for unlimited access. It is dirt slow (think slower than dialup), but more than adequate for my needs. I will also need to get a cable to hook the phone to the computer, which they were more than happy to sell me as a "Data Connection Kit" for $80. $80 for a serial cable, I think not! When I started spitting acid at them, they came back with "Well, it comes with the software too." I downloaded the software for free from their web page this afternoon and will be ordering the cable online for $18

12/02/03

Lots of pondering and minor shopping going on, but not a lot of actual work going on with the carputer.

• Went and bought some solder type serial connectors and a bunch of pre-wired molex connectors. I am going to build a little serial port dongle that feeds +5v down the DTR line on the serial port of the GPS. This has the effect of initializing the GPS as soon as the computer has any power, which saves a considerable ammount of time. The GPS ordinarily doesn't get initialized until the mapping program starts and asserts the DTR line. This means that ordinarily the computer takes ~2 minutes to boot and load all programs, and then a few more minutes to initialize the GPS. With this modification, I should shave a few minutes off getting the mapping going.
• Contacted Opus Solutions regarding their DC to DC power supplies. It looks like they are relatively expensive (~$200 for the 150 Watt), but do nearly everything I want. They operate off a wide range of input voltages and will operate cleanly through ignition cranking, can automatically turn on the computer when the car is turned on, and can automatically turn it off or set it to hibernate when the car is turned off. It can even leave the computer on for a set ammount of time after ignition off.
• I am going to ditch the power strip in the back seat. I am trying to eliminate the current car-puter fugliness factor and I am still having lingering problems with noise caused by both the transformers themselves and by movement of the plugs in their slots at high speeds. Right now I have two 12v power bricks in the system. I am going to ditch the bricks and wire them into the 12 volt of the computer supply via the Molex connectors I mentioned earlier.

11/29/03

• Been playing around with the Gravis Eliminator Pro for the last few hours. The software has a lot of neat features that are not very well documented. For example, you can make all sorts of macros and bind buttons to keyboard keys. The best part about this is that the gamepad program can do it on a per-program basis, so it may be a viable option for control of the various programs I use most often (Media Playback and GPS). I would really like to take apart a gamepad and mount it in 2 sections on the wheel I would have the 4-way switch on the left and about 6 buttons on the right. There is space on the backside of the wheel to mount the rest of the guts of the gamepad. Unfortunately, because this one is a wired USB controller, which would prove problematic in turning the wheel, I will have to get a different gamepad for this purpose. I looked at a wireless pad made by a company called Saitek today at Fry's and it looks like Thrustmaster and Logitech both make wireless models as well. Gravis, for whatever reason, does not, so I will have to find another manufacturer with functionally similar software. Some forums recommended a piece of software called Joy-to-Key, but I have not had a chance to look it over.

11/28/03

• I am in a "I want to break something" mood because I broke something. Not only won't the prism or orinoco cards that I have work in the PCI->PCMCIA adapter, but the adapter appears to have subtley damaged the Orinoco card. After trying the Orinoco card in my desktop via the adapter, I put it back in my laptop and it wouldn't detect any wireless networks. It was an old Gold card out of a RG1000, so I figured it was using out of date firmware. I flashed it to the most recent firmware/drivers, but still no go. I figured the detection problems might have been due to the old firmware, so I tried a friends Orinoco card in the adapter and it did the same thing to it! After inserting the Orinoco card in the PCI->PCMCIA adapter, it will no longer detect wireless networks, although everything appears to function normally, all diagnostics check, etc!!! But, it gets stranger. How, you ask? Well, in an attempt to get our cards to work, we tried using the RG1000 to reset the firmware. While attempting this, we had one of the Orinoco cards in a laptop and it suddenly detected the RG1000. We tried associating and got a reliable connection. After significant testing, we came to the conclusion that after being used in the adapter, the Orinoco cards could only see other Orinoco cards. WEIRD!

• Went to Fry's and exchanged the PCI->PCMCIA adapter for store credit. I used it to buy a USB hub and a Gravis gamepad for the car. I ended up using up all but 1 cent of my store credit, which seriously confused the Liberian check out clerk. He ended up having to call his manager while I sat their waiting impatiently, not caring about the 1 cent. Apparently to print out the receipt on an exchange, they do have to handle the remainders on store credit, so I sat around for 15 minutes while they figured out how to give me a penny!

• Got a Linksys PCI wireless card on loan from Harry to try out in the car. It has what looks to be a reverse SMA connector on it. I think I have a pigtail left over from use with the Wet11 that has the same connector, so it may work.

11/25/03

• Stupid FM Modulator is really annoying me. The frequency seems to gradually drift enough that I have to adjust it every five minutes to keep the audio in stereo. A PLL controlled (locks on a frequency with no drift) FM transmitter is definately on my X-mas list. Ramsey electronics also makes some higher powered units for people wanting to broadcast within a few blocks radius. It would be kinda fun to drive down the freeway and have people listening to my tunes!

• Sitting here at the Drinkmore remote admining my car, which is sitting up the street. I am still using the Linksys USB adapter for wireless in the car, but hope to remedy that soon. I bought the PCI->PCMCIA adapter from Fry's last night and tried it out on my main desktop, but haven't had any luck getting it to work with the two wireless PCMCIA cards that I have tried. Both cards were detected and the drivers installed fine, but no wireless networks would show up in the configuration programs. I am hoping that it is just a resource allocation problem of some sort, as I tried the adapter in a rather overcrowded desktop system with only 1 free PCI slot and no free IRQ's. It is a newer desktop, so it should support the newest PCI standards (2.1/2.2) that the card appears to require. I am going to try it out in the carputer anyways and see if I can get it working.

11/24/03

• I think I am going to build a custom little serial port dongle that disconnects the DTR line and instead send +5v down it instead. This has the advantage of doing no internal modifications to the GPS itself, which I presume Matt W. will want back at some point. I will probably get the +5v from the PS2 port, which is used to power the GPS already. One odd thing about this GPS is that it gets power from the PS2 port, but doesn't include a passthrough adapter. I think I will remedy this by scavenging a PS2 'Y' adapter for parts. The end result should be that the GPS receives power as long as the PS2 port has power and should be locked on all available sats before the computer is finished booting. This is actually a fairly important consideration for me, as I want the computer to be ready for use as soon as possible after getting into the car. One neat feature of the Opus DC-DC power supply is that you can have it boot the computer automatically as soon as the ignition is cranked. It just sends a brief pulse down the ATX start line, which wouldn't cause an already booted computer to reboot (I have mine set to not shut down unless the button is held for 5 seconds). You can get a remote ignition switch for under $100 that lets you start your car remotely from a pretty good distance. The end result would be that I could start my car, and therefore my carputer, remotely a few minutes before taking off and by the time I sat down, the carputer would be booted up and ready to use.

• Heading down to Fry's to take a look at PCI->PCMCIA adapters that someone claimed to have seen on the SWN mailing list. I have been hunting around town for one and they have thus far prooved as elusive as the Dodo.

• Tested out the hacked up GPS executable on my way to a client's home last night. It was actually quite helpful to have the GPS, as the weather was barely driveable and I couldn't really make out street signs. Mercer Island is a really confusing tangle!

11/23/03

• Copied the hex-edited executable to the car and it solves the problem. I really like Skymap 2000. The voice prompting features are nice, the maps are very precise and still pretty much up to date (Late 2000), and the program has a generally smoother and more polished feel to it. One thing I don't like about Skymap 2000 is it has a ton of buttons on its in program button bar. This causes the bar to wrap on any resolutions smaller than 800*600, which wastes a good deal of screen real-estate. Because I am using a NTSC display, I use 640*480 resolution. The screen is good enough that I have no problem making out street names, but it would be nice to see more of the map. I am looking for a way to remove the buttons, but it doesn't look promising. I am hoping to upgrade to a 7" SVGA touch-screen at some point, which would solve a lot of the minor issues I am encountering while using a low-res display.

11/22/03 Late night

For some reason, by mid afternoon my brain actually began to work, so I put it to use tracking down the problems with Skymap 2000.

• The first problem was that a .dll file required by the program (TTSMGR60.DLL) does not get installed properly by the program. I believe that the .dll gets copied to the the correct directory in the windows tree, but that it is not registered properly. I was able to fix this error by copying the .dll file into the programs main directory.
• The second problem that I ran into is that the program when started turns on the serial GPS, but doesn't wait long enough for it to lock on to enough sats to establish a position and it ignores the fact that the GPS stores the previous last coordinates in its memory. This causes the program to default (ignoring even the default location stored in the .ini for that purpose) to Calgary, Canada of all places. Because this location is damn far away, it takes a long time for the GPS to acquire enough satellites to establish the true position. According to my reading, this problem can be solved in a number of ways. The most lasting is to clip the incoming DTR line on the serial cable and then hardwire the DTR endpoint to the +5v line. That way the GPS has power from the second that your PS2 port does, and thus already has signal lock when the program starts up. Given that this is Matt W's GPS I am pursuing other, less invasive solutions. The other possibility is to hex edit the executable file to keep the program from doing the position check immediately upon startup. This can be accomplished by going to offset 0x4310DC and changing the bytes: C7 85 50 FF FF to E9 28 02 00 00. I will be testing this fix tomorrow morning and if it works, I will be happy to host the modified executable for those wary of a little hex editing.

11/22/03 - I hate mornings

• Could not sleep at all last night. I kept trying to, but ended up getting maybe 45 minutes sleep the whole night. As a result I am a total zombie today. I have knocked things over twice (including a liter bottle of water without its cap on) and keep finding myself slurring words. Oh yes, I am quite the sight. I decided not to go to PutUpANodeNight as I don't trust myself to drive; Assuming I did get there alive, I definately wouldn't trust myself on a roof atm. I did manage to get the rebuilt tank circuit into the car and it is working well. I don't think I am going to do any more work on the car today; My head hurts enough already.

11/21/03 - Night Owl Edition

• Rebuilt tank circuit so that auxilary battery should only be drawn upon while cranking and is trickle charged while not in use. I used a 100 ohm resistor in lieu of a real trickle charger. It should limit input current to under .1 amp and should slow to next to nothing as the two batteries approach a voltage equilibrium. I haven't had time to test the rebuilt tank circuit, as I started building it at 1:30 am, but I look forward to doing so tomorrow while on my way to PutUpANodeNight at Tom Marshall's home. I believe I was able to scavenge the diodes from the original circuit, although trying to desolder them without burning my fingers off was quite the challenge. We shall know more tomorrow.

• Finished downloading the western region maps for Skymap 2000 and turned them into an iso. I uninstalled the older Skymap Traveler software from the Car and mounted the installation and maps iso's wirelessly using Daemon Tools. I tried to install the new software, but kept on running into odd errors when trying to start the program. I think I might be in .dll hell. I would like to cook up some sort of image management system for the carputer to periodically image the hard disk when making major software changes. I have a lot of experience doing this on wired lan's, but doing it wirelessly is a little different animal. I believe the wired lan port on the motherboard has a PXE boot-rom, so I may just occasionally bring the car into the garage and connect it to my imaging server via a long cable.

11/19/03

• Started download of the local area maps, so GPS should be fully operational by end of day. I can't wait to try out the voice prompting features.
• Spoke with an electronics guru about other ways to approach the tank circuit problem. He came up with a solution that relied only on diodes that looked easy enough to implement. Unfortunately, it requires more high current diodes than I have available, so anything further will have to wait until Fry's gets in new stock.

11/18/03

I spent some time tracking down noise in the carputer's audio system:

• The slight hum I was experiencing (only audible at high volumes) came from a ground loop and lack of isolated inputs on the various sound devices. In a car, you typically ground any devices to the chasis/floor pan. This creates a relatively common ground for all the devices. I say relatively, because although the metal chasis is a good conductor, it does have resistance and therefor you get a voltage drop between any two locations. This causes a slight DC current to flow between the two "grounds" resulting in a slight "hum" on non-insolated inputs. This problem can be fixed by using a "ground loop isolator," which is basically a 1:1 transformer with RCA plugs on either side of the transformer. Connecting a signal to the input coil of the transformer causes it to produce an electromagnetic field, which induces a current in the output current. Because the inputs and outputs are not physically connected, a DC current cannot flow across, which kills the hum.

• The popping noise I was experiencing at highway speeds was NOT caused by the alternator, as I and some others suspected. After considerable investigation I discovered that the two transformers plugged into the power strip in the back seat were rattling in their sockets at high speeds, particularly when hitting slight bumps in the road or on unsmooth concrete. For now, I am going to replace the nice new power strip that cost me $30 with the old, crappy one that cost me $6. Both transformers are 12 volt. All the more reason to establish a single, highly regulated 12v DC bus to power the computer, display, FM transmitter, etc. I have never been completely happy with the power chain, but I am still hesitant to spend another $200 on an Opus power supply.

Other stuff:

• Went to Fry's and bought the high current resistors I need to modify my tank circuit. The current circuit is working fine, but I have a feeling I am placing too much of the load on the auxilary battery and wearing it out sooner that necessary.

• Drove to HackNight with Ryan and put the carputer through its paces along the way. GPS tracking worked surprisingly well, although it did take a while to initialize and get enough GPS sats. locked in. We also rocked out to some Pearl Jam along the way and it sounded great. No more snap-crackle-pop.

11/15/03

• The Skymap Traveler software I am currently using is way old and really wasn't meant for the newer versions of windows. I managed to get a copy of Skymap 2000, which, as the name implies, works on W2K. I installed it on my laptop and it works great, but it didn't come with either of the US map packs, so I am limited to the built in US overview maps that don't cover much under highway level. I tried getting it to accept the Skymap Traveler map packs, as it appears that they are the same basic data format, but no dice. Does anyone out there in Internet land have a copy of these cd's? ETAK has been out of business for years and it is getting hard to find original disks/parts. I am getting frustrated as I am SOOO close to getting it to do what I want and Skymap is turning out to actually be a decent program. Most reviews I have seen have compared it quite favorably to Delorme's and Microsoft's offering.UPDATE Many thanks to W. Niswonger who is making me an iso image of the disks I need. I can't wait to try out the GPS this next week. This newer version of the software supports voice command and audible direction prompting!

11/14/03

• Got Matt W's GPS working installed in the car. Seems to work best in the front dash. Topo 4 does support it, but needs to be run in 800x600 or higher. So, for now I am limited to using the Skymap software that it came with. The software isn't bad, but it hasn't been updated in a number of years, so the maps are somewhat out of date. The GPS doesn't seem to want to remember its last known location after a shutdown, so it needs to be reinitialized every time. Once it initializes, everything works very smoothly, but the Skymap software has a tendency to hang for 5-15 minutes while trying to reinitialize. Sometimes it comes out of the hang and sometimes it doesn't.
• Added short (6") USB extension cables so that I can more easily hook up and disconnect USB devices without having to find the right hole in the case. Added a stereo jack to 2xRCA adapter to allow for easier hook up to standard stereo components (new head unit and amplifier in the future) and to a ground loop isolator (to get rid of some of the low frequency hum).
• Spent some time field testing the tank circuit. While it is fullfilling its intended purpose admirably, measurement shows that the current running into the circuit while in use is much less than what is running out, which means that the auxilary battery is being hit pretty hard. I am going to experiment with putting in a lower ohm resistor to lessen the current draw from the auxilary battery, but for the long term I am contemplating building the following circuit:

  • 

    The basic idea behind this circuit is that when the ignition is cranked and the voltage on the inputs drops (to around 8 volts for 2-3 seconds), the two diodes prevent the current from being reversed, while the auxilary battery at around 13 volts picks up the slack and continues to supply the invertor with steady power. Once the engine finishes cranking and the input voltage returns to normal, the main battery will resume as the primary supply of current (as the high resistance of the trickle charger will cause most of the current to flow through the upper diode, from the main battery). The trickle charger (most likely just a fairly high value resistor) will keep the auxilary battery topped off, but for the most part, the computer will run off the main battery except for the 2-3 seconds that the engine is being cranked. Thanks to Harry Pyle for his exhaustive knowledge and instantaneous insight into all things electronic.

11/13/03

• Managed to get the position on the GPS reset. It is now finding 6 satellites from my southern-exposure living room windows. I was sooooo pleased when it actually showed my correct position on the map! I should be able to get it integrated into the car-puter in the next few days. This GPS is powered from the PS2 port and doesn't include a passthrough. I am using both of the ps2 ports on my carputer, so I am going to have to get a Y adapter or maybe make a Molex -> PS2 Female adapter. Afaik, the following is the correct pinout for a ps2 adapter:

• I am giving up on making a capacitor based tank circuit work. I simply cannot build up enough charge with cheap, readily available capacitors. I am going to instead turn the tank circuit into a "battery isolator," which is actually pretty much the same animal (uses high current diodes to keep current from backwashing while engine cranks) only with a battery instead of the capacitors. Going to go see what I can scrounge up at Fry's and Vetco. UPDATE Vetco had a bunch of 12v 7AH batteries for $9 each, so I snagged one and rebuilt my circuit using it. In short, it works!!! My computer no longer reboots when I crank the engine. This was by far the biggest annoyance when using the carputer for everyday use. I can't count the number of times I have stopped to use an ATM or some other 30 second errand and sworn out loud right after turning off the engine. Anyways, I am really happy to have this working. I may build a slightly better version of this circuit that will incorporate a few more diodes to switch between the main and auxilary battery and a smart trickle charger to charge the auxilary battery. I have to test it with an amp meter, but I have a feeling that a good deal of the load is now being placed on the auxilary battery, so I may be discharging/charging it a lot and thereby shortening the batteries useful life.

11/11/03

• Spent the weekend in Whistler BC and had a lot of fun. A broken headlight meant that I couldn't take the car-puter with me and had to drive the van, instead. I really wanted to take a road-trip with the car-puter, but it will have to wait.
• Replaced broken headlight. Headlights are a real pain to install, at least on my car. You have to be very careful not to get a single speck of dust or oil on the actual lamp, or it will burnout very quickly. I ended up having to clean off the lamp 4 times with alchohol and peroxide before I finally got it in place. While the Cirrus has a crappy system for replacing the bulbs, it is very helpful in leveling them. There are simply two wheels to turn for horizontal and vertical allignment and there is a bubble level built right in.

• Built Tank Circuit, but it isn't working quite as expected. I really wish I had a scope, but I only have an autoranging meter, atm. Circuit seems to be working fine as a "pass-through," running inline between the accessory jack and the invertor, but computer is still rebooting when cranking the ignition. I tested the circuit with a lighter load, and the tank circuit did supply current for a few seconds after ignition, so I wonder if I just don't have a big enough "tank" or if the diode aren't kicking in against the reverse flow quick enough. I might also be having problems due to being forced to use multiple, smaller diodes and capacitors rather than just one of each (very hard to find capacitors that big or individual diodes that will handle 20-30 amps).UPDATE Upon closer examination, I think I have an explanation for why the circuit is working but the computer is still tanking. The electrolytic capacitors that I am using are 63 volt ones, so they don't charge to nearly their rated capacities. While I could switch to using 1 or 2 F capacitors at 30 V, I think I will just get a 12v 7AH battery and use the present high current diodes to act as a battery buffer.

• Spent several frustrating hours trying to get Matt's serial ETAK GPS to work. ETAK (Sony subdivision) has not existed as a company for several years and there is no official or unofficial support for their products. Their PCMCIA GPS has a switch that allows it to speak the NMEA standard, but all their serial GPS products only speak "ETAK." The ETAK binary protocol was developed Rockwell and has been used in a few different GPS units. I was able to find full documentation of the protocol and it looks like some people are working on a virtual serial port driver to convert Rockwell sentances into NMEA ones. I tried the Skymap software that came with the unit, but it was unable to find the GPS when attached to either of my two comm ports. I also tried Delorme's Topo 4, which supposedly has decent support for Rockwell speaking devices, but it couldn't find the GPS either. I finally tried using a plain old terminal program to see what the ETAK GPS was spewing out on the line. Not only did I not get the expected string header, but I didn't get anything whatsoever. After checking the ETAK yahoo group, it seems that the ETAK GPS had a dead battery. I found the official instructions (PDF) for replacing the battery on this particular ETAK unit and began to follow the instructions. Everything matched up with the diagrams until about step five. Turns out that this ETAK unit has a nice metal groundplain totally encasing the unit, making it imposible to replace the battery without some serious desoldering. I was able to peak in through some holes in the metal and wasn't able to see a battery in the indicated location. UPDATE Turns out that this ETAK GPS does not have an internal battery and uses the PS2 port to get power. I earlier discounted this as a possibility, as the plug doesn't have a passthrough and I figured it was just a different type of serial port, since it was inline with the serial cable. I pluged it into the spare PS2 port on my laptop and am now getting the appropriate jibbersh when I look at the datastream in hyperterminal. I tried using it in the Skymap software and it now recognizes the GPS! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get it to initialize to my general location yet, as I have been sitting in a cafe with tall buildings all around and can't get a satellite lock.

• Played around some more with voice command using the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine. I managed to get noise rejection way up and virtually eliminated false positives. I am still having problems getting it to recognize certain words (play, for instance as it sounds like a lot of other words). I may have to manually enter pronunciations for vital words.

Recently

I have been working on the following recently:

• Wasted way too much time attempting to create a clear plexiglass case to replace current tupperware case. After much work with band saw, drill press and dremel, I had my beautiful case complete! Unfortunately, it would quite fit under the seat, by about a 1/4"! ARGGGGG! I took everything apart and started trimming the pieces to fit. To make a long story short, I ended up cracking the plexiglass base while drilling a new mounting hole. I didn't have a big enough piece to replace the base, so the computer is back in the tupperware box. I did have enough plexiglass left over to create a transparent top to the existing tupperware box. At least I will be able to plug in connectors without having to take the top off.
• Purchased right angle adapter for PCI slot to allow for addition of PCI cards without compromising the processing unit's low profile (It has to fit under passenger seat). Trimmed off excess PCB to reduce height.
• First stab at near spectrum infrared imaging using a Creative Labs web-cam in conjunction with a visible light filter made from exposed, developed 35mm film. It works! Using a remote control (as a infrared light source) in a darkened room ,I was able to take some rather spooky pictures!
• Worked on pannel mounted, quick disconnects for the main processing unit.
• Researched "tank" circuits to keep computer from rebooting during engine cranking. Looks like a beefy capacitor and a high current diode should do the trick.

• Purchased components for tank circuit. Got two 10 amp diodes from Fry's that have a forward voltage drop of only .5 volts at their full rated amperage. Most diodes have at least a minimum of .6 volts forward bias and it goes up substantially as more current flows through it. I bought two big 15000uf capacitors from Vetco. I was hoping to get them at Fry's, but they only stocked little wimpy 1000uf. Others have reported success with as little as 6600uf, but 22000-30000 seems to be a better range. Also bought a few resistors. Should be able to start building the circuit tonight. Will need to cut some heat sinks out of aluminum sheet metal for the diodes, as they will each produce at least 5 watts of heat at full amperage. I don't have any circuit boards handy, nor any project boxes, so it is going to be duct tape and bailing wire for a few days

• Picked up ETAK gps unit from Matt W. Haven't had a chance to play with it yet.