club.liberty.asn.au

Looking to install a CarPC set up in my Liberty at the moment.

I'm going to do this very slowly over the next few months, slowly expanding the system. Usually people start with the computer and do the screen last. I want a GPS now so the screen will be first, then my iPhone will play the part of the computer as it has GPS and I can mirror the screen onto the in dash one.

I want a nice factory looking system which will look like (or better than) the Subaru satnav system.

So my first question is to those of you with the factory satnav system. The way the screen is mounted it sits level with the fascia. I can either do something similar to this or recess the bottom in more than the top so the screen the screen is angled down more. The way the factory system sits, is glare a problem? I was thinking changing the angle might reduce glare and reflections, especially from the sunroof but if it's not a problem I'll leave it how it is.

Cheers
Dan

Looking forward to the build Daniel, Then you can help me once you are done

How did you go with Subawreck?

That's my old Legacy satnav and how it used to sit (recessed and seem to have very little glare from the sun)

hamish_023 wrote:Looking forward to the build Daniel, Then you can help me once you are done

How did you go with Subawreck?

Yeah absolutely!
Haven't been down yet, spending a lot of time my second car, want to get that finished ASAP. I have decided on a screen though, so I'll buy that next week and it'll take another week to get here so no rush.


Didn't know you had another Liberty Did it have a sunroof?
Yeah I'll either mount it like that or like this for the different viewing angle, what do you think would be better?

Yeh it had a huge moon roof, The screen angle didn't seem to be a problem (might have something to do with the screen itself as well though) and it was good because It faced the driver

Subscribed. Good luck.

hamish_023 wrote:Yeh it had a huge moon roof, The screen angle didn't seem to be a problem (might have something to do with the screen itself as well though) and it was good because It faced the driver

Okay awesome, I'll mount it like the OEM one then. The screen I'm getting isn't transreflective ($600) which I suspect the OEM one is... Just a high brightness backlit one but it seems to be popular and has lots of features so hopefully it'll do the job.

Why not put an overlay on it before installing? Like those ones you get for tablets...

Lots of good stuff in this thread.... viewtopic.php?f=22&t=5625&start=0

Good luck! Had one in my 2.5i using Centrafuse - was great! (Details in thread). New car has OEM

The Sean wrote:Why not put an overlay on it before installing? Like those ones you get for tablets...

The screens do already come with anti glare coatings, it's more the screen backlight being able to be bright enough to come through the reflected light. Those overlays make it worse as the screen becomes slightly dimmer

Hobber wrote:Lots of good stuff in this thread.... viewtopic.php?f=22&t=5625&start=0

Good luck! Had one in my 2.5i using Centrafuse - was great! (Details in thread). New car has OEM

Cheers, did see the thread, a very nicely done setup Yeah I'm planning to use Centrafuse too when I get the computer set up. Provided I can get it to start fast. My aim is to have the computer turn on and playing music/radio within 20 seconds of turning the key

mynameisdaniel wrote:My aim is to have the computer turn on and playing music/radio within 20 seconds of turning the key

That's easy - just suspend the PC. It will stay alive off the car battery (or PC battery in the case of a laptop setup) and by triggering an ATX power event (same as pressing the power button), it'll suspend or come out of suspend on demand (just configure the power management accordingly).

Setup an SSD instead of a HDD and a low quantity of RAM (no more than 2GB) and even in an extended situation where you shutdown or hibernate, the system should still boot up pretty quickly (especially Linux).

HyRax wrote:

mynameisdaniel wrote:My aim is to have the computer turn on and playing music/radio within 20 seconds of turning the key

That's easy - just suspend the PC. It will stay alive off the car battery (or PC battery in the case of a laptop setup) and by triggering an ATX power event (same as pressing the power button), it'll suspend or come out of suspend on demand (just configure the power management accordingly).

Setup an SSD instead of a HDD and a low quantity of RAM (no more than 2GB) and even in an extended situation where you shutdown or hibernate, the system should still boot up pretty quickly (especially Linux).

Yeah I can't suspend the computer though, the car doesn't get used a lot so my battery would die pretty quickly. So I'm aiming for a 20 second resume from hibernation... SSD will definitely be used, as well as a quick motherboard/CPU. I'll probably run Windows 7, but it'll be stripped right down to the essentials.

mynameisdaniel wrote:

HyRax wrote:

mynameisdaniel wrote:My aim is to have the computer turn on and playing music/radio within 20 seconds of turning the key

That's easy - just suspend the PC. It will stay alive off the car battery (or PC battery in the case of a laptop setup) and by triggering an ATX power event (same as pressing the power button), it'll suspend or come out of suspend on demand (just configure the power management accordingly).

Setup an SSD instead of a HDD and a low quantity of RAM (no more than 2GB) and even in an extended situation where you shutdown or hibernate, the system should still boot up pretty quickly (especially Linux).

Yeah I can't suspend the computer though, the car doesn't get used a lot so my battery would die pretty quickly. So I'm aiming for a 20 second resume from hibernation... SSD will definitely be used, as well as a quick motherboard/CPU. I'll probably run Windows 7, but it'll be stripped right down to the essentials.

20 sec resume from hibernation shouldn't be too difficult, I'm pretty sure mine takes about that long and I don't use an SSD. Apart from hdd speed, the big factor with hibernate speed is the amount of RAM you have, and honestly, a carpc shouldn't need too much RAM, so just use the smallest amount you can get away with. Also, I tried running Win7 for my carpc for a bit, but ended up going back to WinXP. One of the issues that actually bugged me with Win7 was that when hibernating, the screen just goes blank. You only know hibernation has been completed when the power light goes out. With WinXP, you are given a visual prompt for the progression of hibernation.

I've now got my carpc wired into the car battery so I can switch off the car prior to hibernation being completed, but it's still nice to know that the monitor shows me that hibernation is occuring as I switch the car off. Just something about the screen going blank with no visual feedback that always makes me question if it's successfully entered hibernation.

Also, don't be too worried about the power draw if the car sits unused for a while. A picoPSU on standby should draw only a very small amount of power (<0.5mA). I have mine sitting in the car running off battery, with a USB OBDII cable and also an Arduino UNO board drawing power and it will comfortably start after a day or two of inactivity. If you were really worried, you could always install an aux power battery with dual isolator. Not to mention, if you buy the right type of PSU for the carpc, they can have low voltage auto shutdown detection which if for whatever reason your carpc is left on or starts on it's own when you're not in the vehicle, it will auto shut down the carpc when the low voltage threshold is met (11.2v I think).

Wudan wrote:20 sec resume from hibernation shouldn't be too difficult, I'm pretty sure mine takes about that long and I don't use an SSD. Apart from hdd speed, the big factor with hibernate speed is the amount of RAM you have, and honestly, a carpc shouldn't need too much RAM, so just use the smallest amount you can get away with. Also, I tried running Win7 for my carpc for a bit, but ended up going back to WinXP. One of the issues that actually bugged me with Win7 was that when hibernating, the screen just goes blank. You only know hibernation has been completed when the power light goes out. With WinXP, you are given a visual prompt for the progression of hibernation.

I've now got my carpc wired into the car battery so I can switch off the car prior to hibernation being completed, but it's still nice to know that the monitor shows me that hibernation is occuring as I switch the car off. Just something about the screen going blank with no visual feedback that always makes me question if it's successfully entered hibernation.

Also, don't be too worried about the power draw if the car sits unused for a while. A picoPSU on standby should draw only a very small amount of power (<0.5mA). I have mine sitting in the car running off battery, with a USB OBDII cable and also an Arduino UNO board drawing power and it will comfortably start after a day or two of inactivity. If you were really worried, you could always install an aux power battery with dual isolator. Not to mention, if you buy the right type of PSU for the carpc, they can have low voltage auto shutdown detection which if for whatever reason your carpc is left on or starts on it's own when you're not in the vehicle, it will auto shut down the carpc when the low voltage threshold is met (11.2v I think).

Cheers, I'll go for 4GB I think, if I find I can get away with just 2 I'll pull a stick and see how much difference it makes. That's a good point, I'll have to look into putting the power LED somewhere easy to see so I can make sure the computer actually does turn off.

Yeah I'll do the same, but make it a little more complicated. Power will come from the battery directly and turn on with accessories but the screen will have a delay as I know if it flashed different screens while booting it will annoy the hell out of me!

Okay thanks, I'll look at how much power is actually drawn. The car can go a week without being used, then only be used for short trips so my battery gets a lot of abuse as is. The auto shut down would be a very good feature to have!


The screen I'm getting has auto switching for a reversing camera so I can set that up without the computer so that'll probably be next. Did the libertys ever come out with reversing cameras? If so where were they mounted?

mynameisdaniel wrote:

Wudan wrote:20 sec resume from hibernation shouldn't be too difficult, I'm pretty sure mine takes about that long and I don't use an SSD. Apart from hdd speed, the big factor with hibernate speed is the amount of RAM you have, and honestly, a carpc shouldn't need too much RAM, so just use the smallest amount you can get away with. Also, I tried running Win7 for my carpc for a bit, but ended up going back to WinXP. One of the issues that actually bugged me with Win7 was that when hibernating, the screen just goes blank. You only know hibernation has been completed when the power light goes out. With WinXP, you are given a visual prompt for the progression of hibernation.

I've now got my carpc wired into the car battery so I can switch off the car prior to hibernation being completed, but it's still nice to know that the monitor shows me that hibernation is occuring as I switch the car off. Just something about the screen going blank with no visual feedback that always makes me question if it's successfully entered hibernation.

Also, don't be too worried about the power draw if the car sits unused for a while. A picoPSU on standby should draw only a very small amount of power (<0.5mA). I have mine sitting in the car running off battery, with a USB OBDII cable and also an Arduino UNO board drawing power and it will comfortably start after a day or two of inactivity. If you were really worried, you could always install an aux power battery with dual isolator. Not to mention, if you buy the right type of PSU for the carpc, they can have low voltage auto shutdown detection which if for whatever reason your carpc is left on or starts on it's own when you're not in the vehicle, it will auto shut down the carpc when the low voltage threshold is met (11.2v I think).

Cheers, I'll go for 4GB I think, if I find I can get away with just 2 I'll pull a stick and see how much difference it makes. That's a good point, I'll have to look into putting the power LED somewhere easy to see so I can make sure the computer actually does turn off.

Yeah I'll do the same, but make it a little more complicated. Power will come from the battery directly and turn on with accessories but the screen will have a delay as I know if it flashed different screens while booting it will annoy the hell out of me!

Okay thanks, I'll look at how much power is actually drawn. The car can go a week without being used, then only be used for short trips so my battery gets a lot of abuse as is. The auto shut down would be a very good feature to have!


The screen I'm getting has auto switching for a reversing camera so I can set that up without the computer so that'll probably be next. Did the libertys ever come out with reversing cameras? If so where were they mounted?

4GB is heaps, well, maybe enough for Win7, I think my WinXP system is on 512mb.

I just took a video of my system going from hibernate to playing music and back to hibernate. Just trying to rotate the video and upload it now.

As for reversing cam, not sure if any had it standard, but I added mine to sit on top of my tow bar mount. It's attached via two rare earth magnets on each of it's 'feet'. Originally had it under the tow bar, but coming down a steep driveway put the camera into the asphalt so hence the relocation to above. Doesn't give as much angle in terms of seeing exactly how much room between the bumper and rear obstacles, but it's currently enough for my purposes without drilling any holes in the boot lid. May investigate it further but I'm happy having it where it is. I rarely look at the screen while reversing anyway.

EDIT:
Finally got the video rotated and uploaded

About 2 - 3 seconds in is when I turn the carpc on.