Custom media engine skin for touchscreen LCD:


Purpose: Integrate a Personal Computer into the Audi A4/S4. Functionalities of a MP3 player,
DVD player, GPS mapping/navigation, HD storage of video files/movies, wifi, ecu explorer.....

Goals: to keep as much of the car as stock looking and stock functioning as possible

Main areas of concern that we addressed:

Audio: The stock symphony headunit was kept. Audio input into the
symphony is jeff bipes cdc line level input adapter. Whenever you want
the audio of the pc through the stock radio, you push the cd changer
button.

Video: 7in LCD touchscreen with a native resolution of 800x600. This
Xenarc display has a resistive overlay for tracking. The screen also
has 2 other RCA inputs. One of them is the RCA plug in the center
console area next to the ebrake (ie connection for digicam/camcorder)

OS: Windows XP tablet edition. This has alot of built in user interface
enhancements for touchscreen applications.

Power: This was one area that was of the most concern. Little things
like how to handle power spikes/surges from a 11-14v+ system with
little regulation on the car's part, how to handle powering up and
shutdown procedures that was OS friendly. We addressed that issue with
a Opus powersupply that handles both the power regulation and
motherboard powering up and shutting down. Other modifications were
custom circuits that shutdown and power up the USB bus across the car
(DVD player, USB hubs) These all had to be isolated to prevent reverse
currents from coming back through the 5v power taps we used. Fuses were
use everywhere to prevent any electrical shorts or failures.

Applications: Open source media engine was used along with Per's custom
designed skin. this allows fingertip access to commonly used apps like:
winamp playlist control, Videos, DVD, GPS, APR ECU explorer... and
others

In all, this project was a success after overcoming some setbacks.

Some history: Original Post on 2/17/04

On with the pics: Enjoy!!

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Here is the ALL the images and even MORE descriptions (Modem users need not click; 4MB page load): S4Per_Custom_Carputer

S4per's Car-puter install | Custom Modded Red Turbo Timers | Custom V1 Remote Display

NorCal/SoCal Electronics/Audio/Alarm Installer. Feel free to email me any questions.