fishbone

I agree. I'm not posting but following this thread and this would be immensely helpful.

f1anatic, your set-up is awesome. When you first told me on the other forum [masini.ro] about the laptop I didn't entirely understand what you were doing, that's why I started recommending front-seat laptop stands and so forth, rotfl. 1k USD does sound kinda steep. I'm going to start looking around now for cases and mini/nano-ITX boards. Check this guy's set-up. A Mac Mini Carputer [ame=http://www.flickr.com/photos/zapwizard/sets/72057594054134962]Mac Mini Carputer - a set on Flickr[/ame] Here's another one, a Mac Mini in a Subie http://gthing.net/carputer-5-final

Further reading pretty much got me to your conclusion, I forgot about the DVD/navi part of the story. It'd still be nice to find an alternative to setting up a mini-PC. Something along seberry's idea. That's a damn nice set-up! seberry, where'd you find that board? How much was it? Are there any like it approximately in size that you know of? Later edit: nvm, it's mini ITX we're looking at, isn't it?

I've briefly looked over this entire topic. I work in IT, I'm a tech. Been building and hacking systems for close to 12 years. I am very impressed with what I see here, it's clear to me that you guys are very informed, you know what you're doing and love doing this kind of stuff. Me? I've barely had my LGT for less than a week, you could say that although the geek in me wants to start on such a project yesterday, the car simply smells too fresh still So I think this'll have to wait. Not to mention the fact that some hardware components cost quite a lot, such as the smart PSU controller. 80 bucks? Ouch! Don't know where all of you live, but for those that live in states which see hot summers and cold winters, I do have to question the level of stress the hardware undergoes, especially so the hard drive. A hard drive's death is varying temperatures, repeated spin-up/spin-down cycles and so forth. A hard drive will last longer, for example, if ran nonstop than one which is constantly turned on/off, especially so in cold/hot temps. I can't even get myself to leave my iPod in my car, let alone a custom-built mini-tower. But if you guys have had luck with these set-ups, then I'm in no place to express my skepticism Having said all this, I'll chime in with advice from now on here and there Has any of you looked into the possibility of running much smaller devices for this very same purpose? For example I do know that some folks managed to slap various Linux distros on iPods which essentially turned them into mini-PCs. I'll have to dig for info, if I do start on such a project I'll keep everyone posted. One interesting "problem" would be to manage to hook up an external video output. Check it out http://www.ipodlinux.org/Main_Page A ton of apps are available and more are continually added http://www.ipodlinux.org/Applications I've learned now to take apart iPods with a hand tied behind my back and blindfolded. I've got a Mini laying around here somewhere unused. The challenge would be to figure out how to convert the little display ribbon to another jack/plug-in/whatever to be connected to a bigger screen. So I dunno. Looking at such a possibility, it makes everything else seem an overkill.