Fusion Of Zaurus And '00 Accord

[Xumbi]

wow, you did an amazing job.

sucks about the hissing and such. i wonder if I could get this kind of thing set up with my axim....with wireless


whats really stopped me is the fact that i have no way to input to my stereo. its a goddamn blaupunkt and you need a special hardness for input which i dont have no can I find anymore (long been discontinued model). FM transmitters suck for me. I might just hook up a modulator since the antenna is right next to my trunk

you dont say how the computer is secured, is it?
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There's no reason why it shouldn't work over a wireless connection.  I've heard of kits that are supposed to add rca inputs to any stereo, but I forget where that was.  I'll look around...

Right now the computer is not secured, which is a bad thing.  Honestly, it's heavy enough that it doesn't move around very much, and I made sure that the wires were long enough so they won't break if it does move.  You're right though, I need to find a way to secure it soon.

Hmmm... I think default behaviour for sound is to leave it on the PC you connect to - but it should be documented in the help for rdesktop.

But as manu have suggested its probally problems with badly shielded USB cables... Try disconnectin the entire thing so the pc and stuff is on the frontseat right next to the car radio ;-)
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I tried these options with a system running XP:

rdesktop -r audio:remote
rdesktop -r sound:remote

When I try to play any sound it gives me an error saying it can't determine the sound driver or something.

I'll have to come up with another way of connecting besides usb.  I have a spare router at home, maybe I'll try connecting the computer and Zaurus to that and do a regular TCP/IP connection.  If that works I'll know the usb connection is the cause of the problem, and I'll see if I can configure an ad-hoc wireless connection, which would be much cleaner.

And what about connecting the zaurus to the PC via wifi or bluetooth, thus getting rid of the usb completelly ?
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It should work, I'd think an ad-hoc wifi connection would be the easiest method.

My suggestion, as an electronics engineer is that it's something to do with a grounding issue........  Question. Does it happen when you use vnc but disconnect the charging cable from the sharp i/o connector.

Using a switch mode power supply on an invertor is not the best of ideas... (the zaurus charger). IF my suggestion solves your problem, make a plug from your computers 5v line to the zaurus...
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Yes, it does happen if I disconnect the charger.  I am not using the inverter to power the computer, I am using a 150W DC-DC power supply.  Right now I only use the inverter on long trips to charge the Zaurus, or my cell phone, and other gadgets.

[kahm]

Wow! It's been a long time since I looked into car MP3 players!  Back in '00 I put a linux box in my car, using a 6in NTSC LCD I bought bare from a surplus shop for $99. (I had to build a powersupply and case, and add an inverter  ) I wrote the software in C, displayed using SVGALIB through a Trident card with TV-Out. It displayed a moving map (courtesy of a Garmin GPS12 and a script to suck maps out of then non-Microsoft owned Mapquest), and played MP3s.  I've also used the LCD and inverter to play Dreamcast in the car - we were stuck waiting in front of a computer store in -25 celcius all night for a special. Everyone else was freezing on the sidewalk while my friend and I played games in my car  

How times have changed. I envy that DC-DC powersupply you've got! Your setup looks very clean - I especially like the mount for the Z! I'd be tempted to try bluetooth to network the two of them together. Might be a bit slow for playing movies, though.

[Xumbi]

Wow!  You win!  

I'm still ashamed that the computer is running windoze, but as soon as someone develops a good front end for linux in the car I'll go for it.  What about a linux distribution just for cars??

[kahm]

Wow!  You win! 

I'm still ashamed that the computer is running windoze, but as soon as someone develops a good front end for linux in the car I'll go for it.  What about a linux distribution just for cars??
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It was too much work for too little gain. I live in Canada and with the winters we have I couldn't leave the unit in the car. The software never made it past proof of concept, either. I was rather proud of it at the time, and it remains the only reasonably complex bit of programming I've done for myself.

I gave up and started running text based MP3 software on an old laptop, which made it easier to move in and out of the vehicle. Now I just use the Zaurus

There are, or at least used to be, linux distributions especially for cars. When I was last actively looking at it in 2002 or so, at least a third of all installations I'd seen were linux based.

[doc]

I was wondering what you do for cooling on that PC in the trunk?
It has to get extremely hot in there...unless you live in Northern Alaska?

[Xumbi]

I was wondering what you do for cooling on that PC in the trunk?
It has to get extremely hot in there...unless you live in Northern Alaska?
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Hey, you're assuming that I'm thinking that far ahead!  I live in New Hampshire, and it just recently got up over 50 degrees!  You're right though, it might be a problem in the summer.  I've seen lots of other projects where people put their computers in the trunk and it works for them, so hopefully it won't be a problem.

[speculatrix]

A colleague built an mp3 jukebox for his car. It runs SuSE, uses LCD4Linux plus a cheapio LCD panel and a simple button panel. He spent as much on the car inverter, display and button panel as the PC (made with spares)!

I myself would probably try this: http://www.giantdisc.org/
as a project - old Palms are very easy to get hold of, and cheaper than buying an LCD kit and buttons.

For the moment, I rely on my Z-860 with a 1GB SD card storing about 8 albums (I rip at 192kb/s, depending on quality of the original material), and an FM adaptor which I bought from Brando; it's this one:
http://shop.brando.com.hk/wirelessfmtransmitter.php
- a little bit more expensive than most, but comes complete with car lighter adaptor, and has a better range of FM frequencies than most. Has quite a good sound too!
I'm waiting for 4GB cf cards to come down in price, or for the next generation Z (4000?) with bigger hard drive which can then store many more mp3s.

Paul

[Xumbi]

Giantdisc looks very cool.  If I had known about that before I started I might have tried that first.  

The only drawbacks compared to what I did would be that it can't play video, and you can't get online.  But in the interest of safety I won't be doing either of those while driving!  

[seinfield]

Well, this thread is probably as close to a howto as I am capable of producing. The best resource I've found is mp3car.com, although they're not very nice to "newbies".

So do you have a Zaurus that you want to use to connect to your laptop, or do you just have the laptop?

I have a zaurus c700, and i use my laptop as a mp3 player in my car, but i do not like having the laptop open all the time in order to see what i want to play.

I will ask to friend in order to help m doing these.

Great Work.

[Xumbi]

Well, this thread is probably as close to a howto as I am capable of producing. The best resource I've found is mp3car.com, although they're not very nice to "newbies".

So do you have a Zaurus that you want to use to connect to your laptop, or do you just have the laptop?

I have a zaurus c700, and i use my laptop as a mp3 player in my car, but i do not like having the laptop open all the time in order to see what i want to play.

I will ask to friend in order to help m doing these.

Great Work.
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Ok I see, then you can definitely do this.  You'll only have 3 problems that I can think of:

1. Getting power to the zaurus and laptop, unless you alreay have adapters.  However, if you're not going on long trips you probably won't need them.
2. Mounting your Zaurus.  If you want to mount it like I did you'll need the EA-BL08 battery and 2 battery covers (one for the mount and one for regular use).  You can also use a mount like [a href=\"http://shirtpocket.co.uk/cat/product_info.php?cPath=22_25_181&products_id=188]this[/url] but it's designed for the Cx60 models, so you'd need the EA-BL08 battery and cover anyway.
3. Getting sound from the laptop.  It sounds like you're already using the laptop in your car, so you probably already figured this out.

I'd be interested to know if you get the same noise that I get when you connect over VNC.

[slapout]

Very cool.   Just don't try to watch videos while you're driving.

[omega]

That noise is very strange! The only thing i can think of is that your on-board sound isn't shielded very well... have seen that with other motherboards... Also are you SURE that nothing requires -5volts?  Try adding -5 volts (easy to do) or a plug-in sound card...