Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CAR PC INSTALLATION
Soon after buying my car, I knew I would be putting a computer into it. Several weeks of research and
hours of install time later, with my friend Justin helping me, behold the fruit of our labour:
HOW WE DID IT
I originally chose the Xenarc MDT-X7000 deck for my car, but it turned out to be a pretty crummy deck. You
can still see it in some older photos and videos, but I've since replaced it with a Lilliput EBY-701
transflective daylight-readable LCD screen that's built into my dash.
I also chose to go with a laptop computer, rather than the more common choice for Car PCs of using a
Mini-ITX system. The reason for this is because I could get a powerful system with features like a battery,
wifi, etc. already built in.
In my trunk, there's a carpet panel that lifts up. Underneath is a styrofoam inset that covers up the spare
tire. This inset makes the perfect place for a PC and all of its parts, so Justin & I tested out the layout:
Here, Justin is busy making holes in the styrofoam and placing parts:
Getting ready to move into the garage to start working on the car, Justin is crimping the ground wire:
We moved into the garage. Pulling up trim panels left and right, Justin left me to figure out how to get the
massive bunch of wires (VGA, 3 audio, USB, signal, and XM antenna) from the trunk to the front of the car.
After many hours of cursing and yelling later, we had the front dash apart and installed the deck (no longer
there):
Work was progressing quickly but it was still a huge job. Here's the passenger side of the car with trim
panels askew, tools littering the space:
The first power test in the car. The fan needlessly glows blue, but hey it was 10 bucks at the gorilla store
and it's huge!
Here you see the laptop before we had the deck ready:
After a few more hours of cursing and some creative use of a Dremel tool (turns out the bezel panels
around the radio are just slightly too small) and we are finished! Here's what the deck looks like when it's
closed:
There is zero trunk space used up: