Product Description
A car PC or carputer is a car tricked-out with electronics for playing radio, music and DVD movies, connecting to the Internet, navigating and tracking with satellite, taking photos, and any electronic gadget a person wants in a car. All these devices are managed and controlled through a single screen or interface. The only place car PC enthusiasts can go for advice, tips and tools is a handful of hard-to-find Web sites--until now. Car PC Hacks is your guide into the car PC revolution.
Packing MP3 players, handheld devices, computers and video-on-demand systems gives you a pile too heavy to carry. But add a car and put them together, you've got a powerful and mobile multimedia center requiring no lifting. The next time you give kids a lift, you won't hear, "Are we there yet?" Instead, expect "We're there already?" as they won't want to leave the car while playing video games from multiple consoles.
Car PC Hacks is the first book available to introduce and entrench you into this hot new market. You can count on the book because it hails from O'Reilly, a trusted resource for technical books. Expect innovation, useful tools, and fun experiments that you've come to expect from O'Reilly's Hacks Series.
Maybe you've hacked computers and gadgets, and now you're ready to take it to your car. If hacking is new and you would like to mix cars and computers, this book gets you started with its introduction to the basics of car electrical systems. Even when you're unclear on the difference between amps and watts, expect a clear explanation along with real-life examples to get on track. Whether you're venturing into car PC for the first time or an experienced hobbyist, hop in the book for a joy ride.
From the Publisher
About the Author
Damien Stolarz has been studying and working in the car PC market since the late '90s. Last year he started his own company, carbotpc.com, to cater to the entertainment and aftermarket car PC market.
Excerpted from Car PC Hacks: Tips and Tools for Geeking Your Ride by Damien Stolarz. Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Modern devices such as laptops, cell phones, and video cameras often have 12V power adapters so they can be used, or charged, from a car’s cigarette lighter outlet. If you have more devices than outlets, you can easily add more power connectors.
Some modern vehicles come with switched and unswitched 12V outlets throughout the car. If your vehicle is not so equipped, you can easily and cleanly install 12V power outlets wherever you have a plastic panel.
Let’s say you’re going on a trip. You and your friend/spouse both have cell phones, but they’re from different manufacturers, so you have different car chargers. You’ve also brought along your laptop, so the kids/passengers can watch DVDs on the way, and your iPod adapter, so you can recharge it while you’re playing tunes. You have a cold box that stays cool when it’s plugged into the cigarette lighter adapter, and to top it all off, you’ve got your video camera plugged into a power inverter [Hack #11] (you were scatterbrained and forgot to charge it, and you’re hoping to recharge it on the way so you can use it tonight).
How can you make it possible to use all of these devices simultaneously? Well, the first approach is to get one of those triple-decker one-outlet-to three splitters, which look strange and take up a good deal of dashboard space. But if your car only has the cigarette lighter power socket that really holds a cigarette lighter, and points awkwardly up from an open ashtray (as in older Mercedes), then what you really need to do is install more outlets.
Your friends/family surely won’t mind while you implement this hack in just a few hours. You’ll be on the road in no time, and all your devices will have the power they need, where they need it.
Planning Your Wiring
The first step is simply to draw a quick sketch of where you want the outlets. The cleanest installation will be where you can find a nice flat plastic, vinyl, or other panel with a few inches of depth behind it.
Depending on whether you want to separate the wires into different fuses or put them all together, you may be able to handle all your outlets with one long pair of wires running from front to back. Pick a continuous path for the wires to flow through the car, hopefully with a minimum of pulling up carpets or pulling down headliners.
The advice in "Gauge Your Wires" [Hack #3] applies here—you want to pick a wire thickness that can handle all your devices. If you figure that each gadget draws perhaps 2A, and you plan to add 5 outlets, then a 15A or 20A fuse should be enough to handle them (and their spiking current demands when you first plug them in or turn them on), and you should have wire that can handle all this (perhaps 12 gauge or 10 gauge).
You can purchase car adapter outlets from Radio Shack, Pep Boys, and even Wal-Mart. The auto stores are likely to be cheaper and have more accessories. You want to find outlets that are designed for tidy installation in a pre-drilled hole, and if you’re lucky you will find something in stock that you can use.
If not, your best bet is the dealer—any dealer. Most new cars have an option for these power outlets, and a little rubber cap that says "12V." These units are designed to flush mount in a hole in the plastic. You can just go to a dealer and say "I need a 12V power outlet insert," and mumble when they ask you what car it’s for. The part should probably cost around $10–15.
If you’re still trying to leave town on schedule, you may want to just grab an external adapter from Pep Boys and go. Later, when you have time, you can do the clean installation described in the next section.
Drilling Holes
The satisfying part of this installation is when you drill the holes. Remove each panel where you’ve decided you want an outlet, together with all its little screws and clips. Be careful not to lose them, as there’s nothing that screams "lousy install" like a panel that never quite fits again. Once you’ve taken off the panel and verified that there’s enough room behind the panel for the outlet, you can then draw a circle the size of your outlet on the panel and start drilling.
Plastic is very forgiving, so if you don’t have a lot of drill bits—especially the large (approximately 1" diameter) needed for this install—you can use any wide metal blade with the same inner diameter to bore out your hole. Of course, your best bet is an exactly sized drill bit for the outlet (or a reamer); you’ll find that the bits used to cut holes for doorknobs work well for this.
Switched or Unswitched Outlets?
Assuming you’ve remembered to purchase two reels (black and either yellow or red) of 10- or 12-gauge wire and an in-line fuse assembly at Pep Boys or the hardware store, you can now tap off the power. If you want unswitched outlets (which are always on, whether the car is on or not), you can simply run your two wires to the battery terminals, tapping off the power there. You should put a fuse right near the battery, at the beginning of the 12V wire.
