Is it possible to hook a laptop up to my reciever(see signature) and play mp3's on it? Maybe even watch a dvd?

 

You might wanna check radio shack for a "DV9 to IP-bus" conector, that would be your best bet for the pioneer's. i have the p930 premier, and it works great.

 

If you're wanting DVD's and MP3's than look for a deck that plays these and buy a monitor for your car...unless you want to tune your car's Noss while doing 140 down a city street like in "The Slow and Front Wheel Drive" ....I mean "Fast and Furious" of course .

All you would really need to do is hook up the audio to your reciever since the laptop already has a DVD and MP3 player in it and get power from the cig. lighter. So just get a HU with at least one stereo input and get a 1/8" microphone to stereo phono type adapter and hook it up. You'd still be able to control volume on the HU too and switch to CD or FM whenever. The only problem is that the computer puts out a very weak signal. I have my computer hooked up to my home theater reciever and have to turn the volume all the way up on the computer.

Hope this helps,
Matt

 

Your deck needs a line in, then you can hook your laptop from its line out mini stereo jack. Otherwise you will probably need to get an fm modulator or whatever its called and you could probably do a decent job with that. It wont be perfect, like the un-amplified line out would be.

 

You can also get the adapter that you would use for a personal CD player that what go into the cassette palyer. I have wondered if you can connect the laptop directly to the cig lighter or if you would have to buy an invertor to convert the 12 dc to 120 ac. I know may laptop likes 12 volts but my charging system puts out 13 - 15 volts.

 

If you buy a cig jack for you laptop you can cut off the end and hard wire it to the cars 12 volt system. Also, some Laptops have video and audio outs now a days, so why not just run the lines back to the in on your amp?

 

Like Four12s said, Pioneer makes an adapter, as long as your radio has CD changer controls. There are two different adapters....one just gives you a plain line-level input. The more expensive one also gives you an extra IP-Bus plug, so you can still hook up a Pioneer CD changer. I'm not so sure you can get it at Radio Shack; it might be a bit hard to find.

If you wire it straight to an amplifier like un4givin suggests, it will work. However, you'll have to control the volume level directly from your laptop, which I think might be dangerous.

If you have the basic skills to wire up an FM modulator, this will work nearly as well as the IP-Bus adapter. Most people wouldn't notice the difference. You should be able to buy a standalone modulator at a small shop that does lots of mobile video installations.

As far as the power connection, I'm not so sure. I just bought my first laptop, and it requires 19.something volts. Most of the car adapters I see are ripoff-priced at a hundred bucks or more; it might be cheaper and more versatile to simply buy a 110-volt power inverter and install it in your car.

 

im using a 40 dollar power inverter for the laptop in my car, its not for radio but tuning my engine. And also so my girlfriend can play solitaire when were going places .. lol

 

chris and deadtrend hit it....


i just completed this project, intresting hooking up an HU and lappie. because i have pioneer but need to prep it for next, but reason being, i dont have cash, so i went cheaper route...


ok, you have a headphone jack.
then a y cord, goes from "234" size headphone jack into two RCA's, from there you can splice them in using piggybacks from best buy, like chris said, your volume and EQ controls are now LAPPIEIZEd, so its all controled from there, i have a wheel to control volume so no complaints, on ebay the DC cords are 40 bucks,

im getting a inverter and hard wiring it to car.... location... unknown....


Throw any other questions out bud, this is easy for me!,

 

I'm planning on an actual computer installation utilizing the space where our rear seats are. I'm only going to use my car as a 2-seater, so this would work well for me. I want to use a 10 or 12 inch laptop display that could swivel between driver and passenger, and build a trackball into the center console behind the shifter.

kinda hard to visuallize without pictures or schematics, but all I have to go from right now is just an idea, and some examination of the photos from www.ashleypowers.com

Robert

 

will all the extra computer parts and shiz i got runnin round.. i could make me a decent comp or should i say "Over grown mp3 storage container"

whether or not i have the brain capacity is somtin ill jus have to find out hehe... mauaahahhaa..

tanks for the ideas guys

ill b back for this one