Kelvrick

I can't answer for everyone, but I don't have any amps. I have a completely stock system and don't plan on upgrading any time soon, except maybe the oem sub.

Thanks for the additional input, jazzy. I've found the pac turbo 1's for about 25 shipped and will be looking into those. They sound like an easier solution since I'm a lazy guy. I guess I'll have to order a couple of 3.55mm stereo to rca wires. Monoprice has a decent price on em. Probably much better then radioshack. I'll have to shorten the wires though, 6 feet is just too much. Mitch: I was just going to add a dc power jack to a CMOY it so it'll run from the car instead of a regular battery. The PAC sounds like it'll save me the trouble so I can just use a line from my carputer's powersupply for clean 12v. If you don't want to do it yourself, I'm sure if you contact some of the sellers, they'd be willing to add one for you. Argh, the choices. more effort with the cmoy or more wires with the pac.

For those of you with low output electronics. I know jazzy mentioned the boostaroo already, but here's another option. http://tangentsoft.net/audio/cmoy-tutorial/ You can also find prebuilt ones on ebay for 10-50 depending on seller and options.

Yea, I phrased that wrong. No real loss, but my motherboard sound card just has a lower output that won't match the headunit. Some electronics just have low power outputs. Some of my mp3 players sound fine, but say when I plug in my blackberry, then i'll have to turn the volume +15 or so to match what it was from the radio or cd. I'll post this up in the jazzy thread too, since jazzy once posted a nice cheap inline amp from radioshack, but it no longer shows on their webpage. I just posted here since I immediately think of carpc applications.

I've been getting tired of the difference between the radio and carputer volume levels. Those of you who use the jazzypc aux input know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I'm going to be using a cmoy type pocket amplifier for headphones and see if it evens things out some more. Info found here: http://tangentsoft.net/audio/cmoy-tutorial/ Of course, I'll be wiring it directly into my Opus 150 to do away with battery power. I'll post videos of with and without once its finished. Just thought you guys might be interested.

Was driving 5 south in Sacramento in middle lane when passed by an NBP legacy (i think gt) sedan on the left. Saw mufflers, looked like 3" openings. I was in my white legacy wagon, merged over, followed you and wanted to get along side but traffic wouldn't let me. Got to my exit and that was the last I saw of you. This was saturday, I'd say around 10?

Nice setup, but if you're anything like me, you'll recreat eit eventually (like bmac). I'm going back after the holidays with a fresh bezel and pushing it in so the viewing angle isn't so bad for the passenger and backseaters.

I'm a 2.5, so without the hoodscoop, i'm not as special. I usually stick to the 5 between Elk Grove and Downtown and only head over on 50 and 80 during my forays towards tahoe or reno. Stock except for tinted windows. I have a 530 riders sticker on the right rear window and if I ever get around to it, a colin memorial, gotsig, bayarearidersforum.com and Ron Paul sticker. I've only seen one other white wagon for the last year, so I'll give a wave if I see ya.

Saw a black LGT sedan heading westbound on 50 around El Dorado Hills area. You were in the #1 lane passing me as I was heading back from Apple Hill in my white legacy wagon in #2 lane.

I was. I guess superj300 didn't quite get it. It just ended up saving paper since I kept a laptop next to me with the PDF open so I could see the pictures in color. Don't know if it'll help your decision, but I ran mine to a splitter, with one going into the glove compartment and my carputer and the other along the console/shifter to the center storage area. I don't have an extended arm rest yet, but if you get the one with the little storage area (japan and europe) I think that little spot is perfect for holding a little mp3 player.

Thought you guys might be interested. Just installed the bezel today and watched a little scrubs. Forget to get GPS in the video and am too lazy to make and upload another one. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX1B2lXLTd8]YouTube - subaru legacy carputer[/ame]

Jazzy, ordered from you months ago for my carputer project but finally installed it yesterday. Works great. Being a 1cd manual ac 2.5 legacy, I had some screw problems but ended up getting everything working the second try. I learned on the first try that splicing two headphone plugs together doesn't quite work so I had to head on out to radio shack. I'd say if I had to do it again, it'd take me no more then half an hour. FIrst times always suck. Wader: I know what you mean. Originally, these jobs would just take time, but after my motorcycle accident, my neck and lower back isn't what it used to be. So, holding things up away from the center of gravity gave way to some aches. Too bad you weren't closer or I'd help you out. EDIT: Oh yea, I forgot. Sorry Jazzy, I'm going to have to give you 2.5 stars out of 5 because of something missing in my package. A printout of the instructions. Sorry, missing items = bad score.

I mounted my hard drive with a velcro/cloth tape. I have a 60gb fujitsu 5400. Plenty of space for me anyway.

Very nice BMac. Are you still using the sandable primer or rubbarized bumper spray? I took the day off from work today to cut up my original bezel and epoxy it. Its been bondo'd up when I ran out of daylight. I'll do some sanding tomorrow after work and post up some pics.

Why don't you take a stab at it yourself? I remember back when I was thinking about waiting for BMac's bracket ready bezels, but didn't want to be waiting on someone else. I'll post pictures a little later of my bezel progress so far.

I'm not sure and its merely a guess, but it sounds like you deligned your laser? Its trying to read, but not picking up a valid surface/data stream and so spits it out like you put in a disc upside down?

I guess there really isn't a purpose. I might replace that with temperature readings or something, but they're just specs I'm always wondering about. Helps to see if theres something going on in the background if they're too high and all you're doing is playing music. Once everything is finished, I'll probably post the skin up on mp3car, but otherwise, feel free to give me a PM and I'll send you what I have now.

Just finished the audio_player.skin and created a night version. Done working on the skin for now. Eventually I'll get to the GPS and Video skins, but thats for another day.

Well, I've spent a good chunk of company time so far, but here it is. I couldn't find a skin I really liked on mp3car forums (aside from the Kuo) and so decided to make my own. I tried to keep with the red/white lights of our interior and the whole subby theme while keeping things pretty simple. The main menu is finished so far and I haven't even started on the rest of them yet. I think most of the buttons are self explanatory. Music goes to the music screen where you see the playlist and you can move around the lists a little more. Video loads up windows media player classic. GPS will load the iguidance skin. Backup cam will be done last as I don't see how I'll do it yet. It has time, date, total memory and cpu usage up top, then the mp3's total run time, time left and song title. Vol up/down, mute, minimize and day/night skin switch on the row of buttons under that. The last row of buttons is previous track, next track, play/pause, shuffle and shutdown. The subaru logo up top goes into utilities. The first screen with the light red/pink shading is mouse over color and the next screen shows how a button will look when pressed. The buttons on the bottom go through similar color/overlay changes. http://home.comcast.net/~kelvrick/buttonover.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~kelvrick/buttonpress.jpg

I'll be getting the same one (BU-353). I'll be running a wire up the side of the back of the wagon to mount it on the inside of the roof next to the rear window.

Interesting. I'm goign to have to research the ipod stuff some more. How does the speed compare? Are you guys using regular versions of XP, or XPlite?

I like overkill is probably the best answer. Otherwise, It looks like I'll be getting this little guy here The seller is including a 1.3 celeron M, and a 512 stick of memory for $240. I'll probably pick up an 4 or 8gb flash for the operating system and maybe some old laptop drive for storage.

I see plenty of mini-itx boards for cheaper, but this is how much the one I want costs. If you can find me a better price, I'd love to buy it there. Geforce 6150 is basically the best graphics chipset you can get on a mini-itx or even most micro-atx cases. It supports the 749 pin cpus so I can get a 25watt turion. Has vga and dvi, 2 ide slots, 4 sata slots and CF to sata.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813170012 I have a wagon, so the side storage is slightly different then a trunk of the sedan. Once I start designing, I'll be sure to post pictures/drawings for you guys.

Thanks for the input. I'm looking forward to the pictures. I have 3 more days of tax season and then I can start working on this baby. When I have some time, I need to figure out if the voompc (ampie) case is going to fit in that side storage spot. If it doesn't, theres no reason for me to save room because either way its going to prevent me from having a full-sized spare. In that case, I'll be using an m-atx board to save like 250 bucks on the motherboard and get a beefier PS like an OPUS 150 instead of the M2.

Tax season is almost over!! I've been looking at parts and am coming to two conclusions. Its currently between the following two solutions. Albatron KI51PV AMD Turion 64 MT37 2.0ghz M2-ATX power supply with VoomPC case slim Samsung 8xdvd+r dvd writer 80gb 5400rm 2.5" sata hard drive 1gb 184pin pc3200 ddr That would be a pretty small case, pricing out to be about 660. The other option is getting a used laptop with like a 1.6-1.8 pentium m with an ati or nvidia integrated graphics for like 450 and using a carnetix CNX-P1900 to power it. A docking station will also add like 50 bucks to the price. The laptop is about 50 bucks cheaper and has the option of pulling out of the car when needed and will probably consume less power. The advantage of the mini-itx is that it seems to almost fit into the side compartment in the back of the wagon whereas the laptop will probably be mounted underneath the floorboard above the spare tire. Hopefully it still leaves enough room for a full-sized spare. Choices... Choices... This is completely apart from cables, the jazzy aux-in board I already ordered and a xenarc 700tsv. EDIT: Yay! While I was typing this, the audit partner came by and said I can go home now.