At last, the project is just about finished. Here are a few pics: Please give me your opinions and check out this article for all the information. Loads more pictures there as well. Gotta go but more info later (if wanted ) Cheers Charlie The Hardwire
d00d u REALLY need to sort out those cables in the box!! and perhaps paint the CD tray black too Other then that - nice work
very very nice indeed. is that a ethernet port on the back or usb or what? any chance we could get some pics of inside? i wanna see youre setup.
oh yeah duh. usb would be useful though, you could hook up mp3 players or get a dongle and hook it up to and ethernet lan and transfer files like that.
I'm gonna done something like that when i get a car... could be very good, download tracks off the net, transfer them via network to the system in the car.. alot more to it than that, but nice setup Looks not half bad either
Thanks for the comments. On the back is the power connection and gold phono plugs for the audio output.It has USB on the mobo but i have no use for it yet - it is on my lan using a network card that is internal. Pixs of the insides will come - when i have tidied it up I was going to paint the cd tray but it was kinda hard and i don't use it much cos it all on the 60gb harddrive Any questions you guys want answered in the articles? Cheers Charlie
did you use winamp to play it? what OS did you use? the PC specs? how can you play MP3's of other PC's, just via the network link through the HD of other PC's, or do you have to have special soft for it? but hey dude, really looks cool as hell! I want to do something similar to a 486 or 386 I have laying around here, but I don't think it's fast enough for winamp or MP3 decoding... well... it doesn't have a decent soundcard
Where did you get the Infa-red romote module from? as i am hopefull going to make a remote-controlled project like yours. l8rs
Thanks for all your opinions guys - all your questions will be answered soon in the articles at The Hardwire but heres a little bit more info 4 ya: Winamp is the MP3 decoder, but with other plugins and programs around it to control dispaly, infra red etc. The pc itself is only low spec, based on a P133. It has a normal 10m/b network connection, and can play music of any of the computers on the network- equally they can access any of the music on this box Relix: Good luck with your project - 386 wouldn't work but if it was a reasnoble 486 (say DX 80+) then you might have a chance. Cheers Charlie
Bad luck relix - but you could get a cheap Pentium system if you wanted? As for the cost of this project - not much in money but a helluva lot in time Most expensive bit is the hard drive, (£90 for 60gb), and all the rest is based on an old system that I bought at a computer fair (you may have an old system you could use). There was also some electronics- LCD needed wiring, Infra red needed wiring and I did some other minor mods like mini extenson leads an changing leds (yes there is a bl00 one ) The case was custom built but the price in hardware (actual wood etc) was under £20 (i think) excluding the tools. Cheers Charlie
It is a custom elecronics jobbie - built from a circuit I found on the web. It is really cheap and simple EXCEPT you need to be able to program a PIC, which most peeps can't But there is another circuit to build a PIC Programmer easily, so you could probably do it if you have some electronics knowledge. If you want I could dig out the URL's? Or wait for the article I will be writing at this site which should give you all the details. Cheers Charlie
lol, im thinking about putting a old p200 of mine under a car seat and having the monitor sit on the seat and use a trackball to control it. cheap, effective. everything i need. just hafta wait for spring to come so i can get my car dry from all this snow so the mainboard isnt sitting in a puddle of slush. any advice on how to mount my HD so it doesnt get all fooked up? im thinking under the seat hanging from rubber bands. i can afford to experiment though, lotsa 2gb hds sitting around from old cad machines at school. a quick swap and no one is the wiser monitor is still gonna be a trick in a for a ford tempo 2 door. i need all the seats and theres the transmission on the floor between both fron seats. and i dont think that the integrated video card from mt p200 would like a lil 4 or 5 inch lcd, otherwise id spring for it. decisions decisions.
Mojo: I nearly used an old VCR case but i decided to make my own to get the dimensions right. And you would have to hack the front up a lot to make it fit, which could make it look ugly. brianpodskalny: Good luck with your project- isn't a screen on a bit dodgy? (security?) just use an lcd like me, unless you need full screen. Also a trackball would be kinda difficult to control it IMHO. As for mounting the hd - use a laptop if you can, because they have a higher shock rating. Or mount a desktop one vertically so if you bump the heads don't hit the platters and screw the disk(it might crash tho....) Cheers Charlie
