With winter fast appraoching here and the car sitting I finally start getting around to putting in my carputer system.It consists of a 7inch touch screen,purpose built carputer I pieced together from alot of research on mp3car.com,Im running 2 alpine amps....mrd-500(sub) and frd-600(4channel) For speakers im using type r 6.5 in front kicks I made,type r 6x9 in the rear,2 type r 12's..soon to be 4 12's. This neat lil carputer does it all and is always upgradeable.I wanted dvd,bluetooth,internet,large music base,dbl din that looked clean installed,and a good sound output.For the lil over $500 I spent..this was well worth it compared to aftermaket radios.And i dont listen to am or fm so not a loss at this time. I tried it out a few nights ago and was shocked how much it brought my system to a much fuller listening experience in our cars.Individual speaker eq and gain with time alignment..no distortion period. I plan on getting a decent gps program in the future..maybe add a cam and more screens just for show. Here is a rough fitment of the screen in dash.The carputer itself will be mounted and molded to the passengers side dash beside the radio pod so that i can reach the dvd drive or plug in external devices fron the front aux and usb ports.

very nice! What are you running for a pc? I've been toying with the idea of tossing in an older miniITX board I've got kicking around or grabbing one of the new ION-based boards. What did you get for a screen? touch-sensitive?

The parts I was are:

intel blkdg45fc motherboard
intel 2.8g processor
western digital 2.5 320bg harddrive with free fall sensor
dual kingston 4gb ddr2 of ram
samsung internal slim dvd drive
m2-atx 160watt power supply
misc stuff i needed after i assembled that carputer itself wwere the sata cables for the harddrive and dvd,dvi-vga adapter,3 headphone to rca adapters,1 push button(reset) and im using the factory amp/gain button on the dash as the master on/off

The screen i got was a no name i found on ebay super cheap ($60 new)just to try it all out and i ended up really liking it.I molded the case of the screen to the radio pod really quick and hooked everything up.

Im also able to use my alarm to trigger the "stereo" on and off.the power supply shuts the carputer down 30 secs after ignition is off and goes into hibernation.Its also connected to my aldl for engine monitoring and tuning since i already had all the tuning software before.

just to note i also used the voompc2 case to fit it all into...the hardest part of the entire thing was fitting everything in that bastard lol.i also modified it for the fan to fit.sectioned the top for the fan to be removed from the top of the case and so i can easily blow out any dust without pulling it apart..ever again :P

All in all..when i bought all these things back in jan.They were a lil more expensive and i waited for the best deals to save on the cost.there are way too many options that will affect how expensive it can be and that mostly pertains to..how bada** do you want your carputer to be when ppl see it lol.

if you want simple music/movie and internet and touch screen.you can get away with alot for hiding the carputer itself with smaller cases and run an external harddrive and dvd drive and be on your way.

I was looking at those voom cases, they're quite the interesting setup. I gave myself a little bit more room by going with a shuttle-style case for my last build (room for a full size hard drive and a full size optical drive works for me).

and wow have touchscreen's come down in price.

very interested to see the final product

u should ad a mini playstation 2 keyboard in the ashtray like one of the members here did, look pretty sharp.... great setup by the way

Im actually looking into doin that aswell when i get down to the fit and finish stages and decide on what the lil things will be.I might add a 8..maybe 10" screen on the passenger side for multiscreen.Just tossing ideas out there.But for what it is now Im very pleased.Now its a matter of making some brackets..mold it nicely and reassemble this mess lol

Lookin good, cant wait to see it finished

thats tight, keep us updated.

well i havent had a chance to get much dont on mounting the carputer.i needed to workout some bugs with trying to use centrafuse to integrate all the programs im running in a simple setup screen.but so far i have a idea where i want the brain mounted but will require quite a bit of cutting into the dash itself and re-routing the heater piping.here are a few pics.thanks for the support guys,this thing is well worth the cost of what a alpine 505 with nav so far.

more screen shots

Any progress? I have a similar project going on, though not in a thirdgen, but a carpc none the less. What type of sound card are you using to feed the amps? I was gonna just keep my single DIN HU and run it into the aux input. Since the Pioneer HU has great x-overs in it.

Although I haven't completed the install of my carputer, I intend installing it in the boot area, in the compartment on the left. I'll need to make a bracket up but it should be quite feasible.