For a while I had a PC running in my VX. It was an EPIA 800, in a custom box underneath the drivers seat, and a DC-DC PSU under the passenger seat. The display is a custom mounted 7" wide touchscreen LCD - running at 800x480. That's VGA, not NTSC. I molded the display case out of fiberglass and replaced the ashtray/lighter/cd changer with it.Originally posted by Amack76
hey everyone long time no see. bro your dreaming, no disrespect. what you are tryimg to do will never come in under 1200. as far as i can see a comp is your best bet with a standard indash lcd (preferrably one with dvi inputs as appossed top rca), but not the less a new prblem will arise, named confusion. imagine trying to opperate a pc while you are driving ( i have the kenwood kvt 911 and it is hard enough(check my gallery). another problem you will have is where to put every thing.possible locations in the vehicross cd changer spot, you can fit the nav their with serious mods(i will be doing soon) no biggy. but the computer is another story, the only hope you have is getting a micro atx. which A will be weak as hell, B requires a mouse & keyboard, and c still have no place for it (only place is maybe under the drivers side seat (not Passanger), but i could barely fit the brain for my kenwood under thier so i doubt it. then you got the power, radio, speakers issues......not to mention that i wouldn't drive around while banging a computer around. to much work. don't mean to kill your dreams. if you do it much luck to ya.
First, the EPIA being a MINI ATX, is only 170mm X 170mm.. Very small. Small enough I have that mainboard, a 30gig laptop HD, and radeon 9800 all squeezed into the same box - again under the drivers seat. There wasn't enough room for the PS, so that was secured underneath the passenger seat.
My EPIA wasn't weak as hell. It did everything I wanted to do, and only required minimal cooling (the trade off).
As far as it ridin' in the car, it was in there for almost a year and never once did I have an issue. Despite the VX's stiff suspension. Laptop HD's can withstand an enormous amount of shock, most usually rated for 300g's operating, and 950g's parked.
For GPS I was using co-pilot 2003, and it was great with the routing and voice driven directions.
It would have been trivial to install a USB camera for backing up, but i never did get around to doing it.
I ended up paying around $900 total for my current setup (almost a year and a half ago). Pretty cheap, that's a PC that does quite a few things. You can go cheaper then that by say using a desktop HD if you'd like. Others have done it without problems. I personally didn't take a chance as I didn't want to have to remove the system when I went offroading.
I also used sorbathane shock mounts on the system enclosure which shaved off about 70g's worth of shock.
Also you could purchase a NTSC monitor instead of VGA - though I wouldn't recommend it. The type of monitor I bought was a Xenarc, then I tore it out of the OEM casing and put it in my custom molding. The xenarc can be found for about $100's cheaper then the price I paid for it at the time.
I just recently ripped the system out preparing for an upgrade. New LCD with brighter backlight and dimmable inverter. Replacing the Epia 800 with a Epia M10000, adding a remote slotload CD/DVD, and new stereo with Aux in (I was using a FM transmitter for mp3 playing - it sucked).
I had photos of it running but never could find'em. Here's some pics of the indash molding I did for the monitor.
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