Midinstall computer install in Subaru - ampie, m1-atx

Two of us newbies were frightened out of posting because we didn't want to be the newbs who got 'searched!!'. I feel incredibly guilt because we just found out we're going through exactly the same install with the same exact problems. I was going to wait until it was all twight - but that's the antithesis of the forum.

 

Post your subaru car computer details here, more info the better (even redundant information .

 

first step: fm modulator

http://www.slowburn.net/Subaru/Subaputer/thumbnails/img_0065.jpg

 

AMPIE case you can find most of this stuff at mp3car.com. They have everything in one place so it's esay to feel comfy ordering. It seems like they get some of their stuff from http://www.mini-box.com

http://www.slowburn.net/Subaru/Subaputer/thumbnails/img_0041.jpg

 

7" USB touch screen MTSVO-SC

 

Then there's peripherals like bluetooth gps antenna, bt usb dongle, flex keyboard, wifi usb, usb 7 port powered hub from brestbuy wireless mini mouse, 60gb 2.5" laptop disk, 1 gig memory stick, EPIA VIA M10000 motherboard. But no need for detail on those.

 

 

Problems I've run into:

1. Monitor Power: I read places that I should power my screen from the m1-atx dc - dc powersupply, so I made myself a handy little cable that would plug into a molex connector (the thing you plug into hard disks for power).

http://www.slowburn.net/Subaru/Subaputer/thumbnails/img_0012.jpg

 

But alas, in order for the monitor to remember it's last "state" it needs constant 12v (makes sense now), so I changed this to run off the radio 12v+ memory power.

 

2. Monitor Fit: The mtsvo-sc didn't fit width-wise into the AVO cubby so that sucked, but a little filing and sanding and it fit perfect. Also I had measured depth wise (how far back into the dash) before I bought the screen, but I forgot about the extra space for the monitor plugin!!! so the screen is not flush with the AVO kit because the monitor cable is wedged against a crossbar. I have since built a VGA cable from shielded twisted pair to solve that, but have not installed. The twisted pair will be a lot easier to run through the carpet.

 

3. AMPIE size: I tried for the life of me to find any where that had the height dimension for the factory subwoofer... no luck. I even tried asking on here under the "factory install" thread, but it was probably too old. Anywho, the AMPIE case DOES NOT fit under the driver seat. It's just a schoch too big. It actually would be fine if my wife didn't drive the car too... but she's the one that let me buy the legacy so I have to think of her needs too

 

4. Wiring: I was real worried about wiring because I've never wired much of anything. After much deliberation I decided to just remove the cigarette lighter and put a switch there and use that for the 12v- ground and the 12v+ switched/Accesory line. And I just tapped off the 12v+ Memory line from behind the radio. This was after doing reading and figuring on how much juice was going to be used. And I was only going to use like 3 Amps tops and for normal use, I wasn't going to use much at all.

EPIA power simulator

 

I was scared of the term "firewall" and I although I understand the concept of "ground" it's so simple that I never read a good explaination of where to put it. End result: cool little switch that controls the ACC line hidden in the ash tray, nice power to the computer with revertable setup.... and alternator whine!!!!!!!

 

I have a ground loop or whatever that's called. So the computer sound whines with the alternator... it's pretty bad. My solution is that when I move the computer to the trunk I will ground it to somewhere under the spare tire... maybe drilling a hole, sanding off any paint and bolting it. There's lots of electrons there so I think that's what I'm supposed to do.

 

5. Operating system: I have installed XPlite that I trimmed down with nlite... the documentation on all that sucks. And I'm running "Stardock Natural Desktop" (it's a mac'd taskbar) for launching programs with the touchscreen. And I tried using a "front end" like RoadRunner or one of the others. The long and short of it is that front-ends out there are all user born and bred, and it totally shows [rhyms with blows]. No one flame me, I know they are free and "off time" projects, but I don't ridicule software I pay for any more then that stuff that's free. I program for a living so there is an absolute scale in my mind - stuff that suck and stuff that doesn't.

 

6. GPS SUCKS: the reason I started this was because I had gps on a Dell AXIM x5 and it rocked. TomTom 5 or whatever and it was beautiful. So nice inface that I didn't want to steal my wife's pda any more. Well after much emule'ing and bit torrent'ing later - there's no good GPS software for personal computers!!!!! This astounds me. They all have a 360 degree suck radius compared to TomTom. In terms of user interface, map display, speed... The only thing tom lacks is "street name" prompting. But I've tried Iguidance, Destinator, Alturion (tested europe maps), streets and trips, Co-polit... they all bite. The best solution until something better comes out is Destinator 3 SDK and MapMonkey which allows you to run their program for the pocketpc on a pc - but you have to beg, borrow and steal (literarly) to get a working SDK dll.

 

7. USB hub power: I got a 7 port usb hub from bestbuy for $39 and it has a place for 5v power. When it's not powered you drain off the one usb port's power which is like 300mA or something. So I cabled another wire out of the ampie case that was connected to the 5v+ rail and bought a mini-power dc connector from ratshack and used that to power my hub - works great. http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/images/products/6620/6620463_rc.jpg

 

I would have been better off getting this one with the ports split up.

 

That's about all I can think of now. Hope this helps anyone out there, and share the carputer install love and maybe we can start a new topic for just that.

Looks good; nice work!

 

There are plenty of places to ground up front, I would experiment with some before moving everythinig to the trunk.

Some "front-ends" use winamp running in the background for music - some use the media player library thingee... I just ended up using

the http://www.quinnware.com/ Quintessential Player with the Phazme skin - which almost fills the screen.

 

I had plans of making my own skin with big buttons and large text... but who has the time when you hear the alternator whining??

 

It's also got options to assign keyboard keys to functions I used that with my Playstation 2 usb minikey keyboard thing to control music. It worked out nice for a long trip to maine. Plenty of music... no commercials.

 

I forgot to remove my kid's music from the library and on came Ernie singing rubber duckie and I felt shame.

6. GPS SUCKS: the reason I started this was because I had gps on a Dell AXIM x5 and it rocked. TomTom 5 or whatever and it was beautiful. So nice inface that I didn't want to steal my wife's pda any more. Well after much emule'ing and bit torrent'ing later - there's no good GPS software for personal computers!!!!! This astounds me. They all have a 360 degree suck radius compared to TomTom. In terms of user interface, map display, speed... The only thing tom lacks is "street name" prompting. But I've tried Iguidance, Destinator, Alturion (tested europe maps), streets and trips, Co-polit... they all bite. The best solution until something better comes out is Destinator 3 SDK and MapMonkey which allows you to run their program for the pocketpc on a pc - but you have to beg, borrow and steal (literarly) to get a working SDK dll.

I'd suggest looking at iGuidance aka Routis. I used it on my old car computer. My only complaint was that the onscreen buttons were too small, but that is being addressed by some recent hacks that are now available.

Thanks for the recommendation. I tried Iguidance but didn't try any skinning stuff. There has to be some big secret out there about pc based navigation software because iguidance was pretty good... but the map rendering was so slow (and not taht pretty). That and the user interface was arduous. Maybe I just ruined it by using tt first... you would think programs written for wince would be easy to port back. Unless they are doing really low-level arm instructions to streamline it - what I don't know. So far the best solution is mapmonkey and Destinator 3 & SDK. It has 3d maps and big buttoned interface.

 

There must be something right around the corner though, I can feel it.

Odd. iGuidance map rendering was extremely quick for me. I was using a Via EPIA CL, which isn't the fastest computer around.

 

I haven't looked at mapmonkey. I'll have to take a look at it when I get closer to having my computer up and running.

Yep. Once you descend into the depths of carputers there's no going back. I may finally get mine installed in a day or two so it'll be ready for a roadtrip this weekend. Of course it's still a heat index of 100-110 here so that makes it really enjoyable to work outside

Yep. Once you descend into the depths of carputers there's no going back. I may finally get mine installed in a day or two so it'll be ready for a roadtrip this weekend. Of course it's still a heat index of 100-110 here so that makes it really enjoyable to work outside

I'd love to see pictures of your LCD install. Your description in another thread sounds like what I'm planning to do.

This is the thread for my lcd install

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17577&highlight=cubby

Foobark,

 

Here is the hack I was refering to for iGuidance/Routis:

 

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=57411&page=1&pp=15&highlight=s3

hey, this is the thread I was looking for earlier, project does look good, I wish the ampie was black or silver so it'd look more factory tho.

 

Just to fill everyone in, as Foobark asked me to go ahead and post the information on the project, enough heads beaten together on a project can eventually break a hole in a brick wall.. I'm doing a similar project, I'm using the ampie case as seen in the pictures above with the m1 ATX and an via epia 13000 mobo, 512 ram 100gb laptop hd. I'm still in the early stages of the project, I've managed to get the computer installed and working on the bench, got xp installed and working.

 

I chose to run roadrunner after testing media engine and media car on my workstation and finding little things in both of them (mainly the difficulty of making a skin for the other 2, especially media engine) that I didn't like. I have made my own skin based on the famous "alpine" skin by a guy on the mp3car.com forums. I've "subaru'd it" hehe so that it would look better.

 

The roadrunner software comes highly recommended from me, internet support inside the gui as well as winamp, GPS software like mappoint and mapmonkey (uses navteq which some guys on the forum says sucks?) I'm personally using ms streets & trips 2005 right now as I got a good deal on it and its been "good enough" for a while now. No GUI integration but it works good enough. I also modified the case of the ampie to support 2 additional usb ports, its a very ghetto mod but it does the job and while the usb devices are plugged in you cannot see them.

 

For signal and interface for the screen I'm using a 10' usb Extension cable to run the length of the car, so that I can use a short patch cable at the front to hook up the screen or a hub or whatever I choose when I get this far, as well as a 15' VGA extension cable with a male to male VGA adapter to keep the main pull out of the way. That way, you connect the extension cable to the main drop, and dont have to worry about pushing pins back into the D-shell and things like that. (I get this from experience with our doctors offices, we often run 15-25' VGA cables and when a pin gets pushed in its back under the house again!)

 

Software that I've been using for the project includes divx, windvd5 (cos thats the only version I own), winamp, firefox, ms streets & trips 05 with the microsoft GPS antenna for the time being, as well as a linksys wireless B usb nic so that hopefully I can just pull up to a hotspot and use their internet through the wall, if the signals strong enough, I know a few palces are cos I've done it with my laptop. I'm also planning to use a program called powerstrip to force the epia to 840x400 resolution, it is my understanding that the onboard VGA on this mobo does not support that resolution by default, so this powerstrip program is supposed to make it, among other things is flashing the bios to support the resolution, either way, that will be detail work after I get the screen to actually take a look at this.

 

I looked at doing the exact same thing as Foobark with the fold out screen, but had planned to offset it deep enough in the dash so as to use double sided tape to put the factory cubby door over the closed screen, so thatwhen the carputer is off it looks stock, and when its ok.. the screen has a goofy looking hat. However after talking to Foobark about this, and looking at the pics of the rather large dash support everyone is removing to fit decks in ths location, I dont think its the best investment for me right now, so I'm back to plan A which is to do something more along the lines of sebberry (sorry if I spelled that nick wrong) did and fiberglass the middle cubby to have an 06 nav style screen in place of the clock and cubby with a clock relocation kit from AVO.

 

For power switches I was planning on putting a valet switch as well as a master emergency cutoff switch in the ashtray since its useless for anything else and I dont smoke. My only concern with this is the emergency switch, I dont know if I will need a relay on this switch to pull in/out on the main power line or if I can run the power directly to the switch.

 

Any questions comments please feel free to let me know, especially if you see any concerns or flaws in this plan, as far as budget, as I know some people might ask.. WAY too much lol

 

Heres my modified alpine skin pic:

Here is a link to GPS roundup page for anyone that's interested.

 

http://www.gpspassion.com/en/software/NavOverview.htm

 

[ gps software comparison chart routis destinator iguidance ]

However after talking to Foobark about this, and looking at the pics of the rather large dash support everyone is removing to fit decks in ths location,

 

I cut through that plastic really easy with a hack saw... it's really not that big deal at all. And after you screw in the mounting plate it is rigid. Flush mount is a completely different look. I kind of like the idea of not having the screen always there... you know, in case I was pulled over or something.

 

Another thing, instead of double sided tape I'm going to try and use magnets to just slap the cubby door over the screen when it's not in use (I imagine the majority of the time).

isn't putting a magnet close to a screen a very bad idea? or is that just for tubes?

 

btw yall, I have my carputer running on a molex conector through the m1 through a 250w AC-DC PSU and theres lines that flicker through my screen, just a bad ground? or should I be concerned here?

 

I dont think its illegal to have a screen visible to the driver, I mean it is if its playing a movie, but if its only displaying a front end control panel that should be no different than having a factory nav. screen on there right?

isn't putting a magnet close to a screen a very bad idea? or is that just for tubes?

 

btw yall, I have my carputer running on a molex conector through the m1 through a 250w AC-DC PSU and theres lines that flicker through my screen, just a bad ground? or should I be concerned here?

Do you have your power wires running across (or close to) the VGA cable?

 

I dont think its illegal to have a screen visible to the driver, I mean it is if its playing a movie, but if its only displaying a front end control panel that should be no different than having a factory nav. screen on there right?

I'm not a LEO but my personal opinion is that if it looks like a factory NAV, you aren't going to have an issue. If it looks like an aftermarket install there is slightly more risk, but I wouldn't sweat it as long as you don't actually get caught driving like a distracted driver.

yea I'm havin all kinds of problem jumping this AC PSU to start the carputer up, I had problems the whole time with my screen turning purple hue also like a loose connection, but it seems to be related to my kvm switch, so I'm bypassing it, but now I can't get the carputer to power jumping the pinouts on the ATX connectr

did I kill the thread?

murder....

 

That doesn't sound like good powersupply behavior. How are you connecting the acc or switched/signal 12v line? It's the white one for the m1-atx.

foobark,

 

How do you like the Ampie case? It looks like I can get a BIOS for the Via SP13000 which supports 800x480, so I won't need a PCI card on my carputer and the Ampie looks like a nice one.

you have to flash the bios to 800x480 on the sp13000 unless I'm mistaken no via epia comes stock with tis support, mp3car.com has some beta version of it, but for now I'm not tampering with it.. mainly cos I have no floppy drive for it

 

I am running an AC PSU through a computer thats just so that the power switch will work becaue for some reason jumping the pinouts on the ATX connector of the AC PSU wont trip the power on to the DC psu in the ampie case. I am running red and white on the m1 harness to yellow on a molex connector on the AC PSU and then running the black on a black one on the same molex.

 

I am having a problem as I type this however, the carputer when pinging 0 on the remote (white) it does not shut off in the time the jumpers have allocated it to do. Can a system be told to power up through the atx connector on the board but not shut down? I am suspecting that I have the power switch from the m1 to the mobo in the wrong place, thats why I'm asking.

 

BTW ampie case is very well made, thick metals nothing flimsy or cheap, comes with a rather high cfm small fan (40mm? 60? dont know) and has 2 additional openings on that side of the case for additional fans. The case is tight inside but as long as you dont add anything lol, you wont have a problem. My only real complain is that there is no room for an optical drive.

Right. The BIOS it comes with doesn't support 800x480, but I'm ok with flashing to a beta/hacked BIOS.

 

You certainly have a complicated configuration to get the DC PSU tested. I just went to Radio Shack and bought a 12V bench supply.

 

An ATX power switch just shorts the two wires, so it is hard to see it working for on but not off. Are you sure it actually works for turning on as opposed to the mobo automatically turning on when power is applied?

 

The easiest way to verify if the DC PSU is correctly "hitting the switch" would be to use a multi-meter to see if it actually does short the two wires.

well, yea I'm not sure what happened there, I powered it off, then powered it back on and immediatley yanked the remote wire from the molex connector, 30 minutes on the dot.. shuts off, exactly how I wanted it.. that way if I'm in a place for more than 30 minutes it wont kill my battery, I dont want it shutting off on me for short trips, I maintain networks all over the city so I'm in and out of the car all day long. sometimes I'm in and out in 5 minutes. heh

 

yea, my problem with going to radio shack and BUYING anything is that this carputer project is already way over budget lol and I dont want to spend any more unnessecary money unless its needed to do this correctly, I donmt see where this psu would hurt anything, at least.. once I got it hooked up right hehe.

 

yea I dont have a problem flashing it either, I just dfont have a floppy drive on the system and am way too lazy to take the carputer back out of the ampie to do it. another problem with it is the screws for the faceplate go right into the aluminum housing and they're hard to keep straight on the system, it takes fisherman's patience.. and I've never been one to fish hehe

 

for right now since I'm most likley going to use a xenarc 700ts for this, I've reformatted road runner to display my 840x400 skin in 640x480.. then hopefully the auto-stretch feature of the xenarc will stretch it back out and make it look normal.. we'll see tho, nothings set in stone here.

 

I need a usb notebook cdrom case/interface, anyone know of one? I found one on some website called geekstogo for like $20 but it sounds so cheap..especially considering it contains a CDR drive, I figured worst case buy it, toss the CDR out and put my nice toshiba from newegg in the housing. I had already ordered my toshiba notebook CDR/DVD combo drive from newegg before I realized the ampie has no spot for it.

If I were you I would just go get a USB floppy drive. You can always return it when you're done if you want. Having done this before, I'd really like to run at the native resolution. It looks so much better.

 

I had a CD/DVD in my last carputer, but I never really used it in the car. Watching movies was never a big desire for me. The drive was nice for system installs, but I'm ok with hooking up a USB CD drive for that.

I'm mounting a slot-load DVD drive in the glove box. Install starts tomorrow -- some form of it will be ready by Friday!

 

I'm using Media Engine. I'll give my Legacy skin to anyone interested in it. Shots of it too when it's finished.

I'm mounting a slot-load DVD drive in the glove box. Install starts tomorrow -- some form of it will be ready by Friday!

USB?