The Mp3Car Blog

Forum member coucouillu Has something rather outrageous in the works. He has modified his existing Symphony II radio from his 2006 Audi A3 to incorporate a motorized touchscreen. But this project goes way beyond that:

Coucouillu began his mission with some simple Cad drawings to determine if this project was even feasible. Understanding his space limitations he began to modify his hardware to suit his needs. He turned the atx connector on an M3 sideways and desoldered some motherboard components and extended them for additional space. Following this he began to shape the face panel of the radio enclosure. The CD player and Cassette deck were unnecessary for this design so they were removed, patched, and modified to fit a lilliput motorized monitor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now how the heck do you manage to merge a stock Audi radio and a motorized Screen? By converging the mechanism from a LM Digital 6501 and the screen from a motorized Lilliput with a custom pcb all cut and hacked to fit into double-din Symphony's footprint. Oo Yeah, a computer fits in there too. Maybe these pictures explain a little better…

 

 

 

 

 

Just when you thought this job was complicated enough, coucouillu decided that the Lilliput microcontroller just wasn’t going to make the cut. After some testing and help from fellow forum members, coucouillu was able to devise his own PICBASIC microcontroller for the functions of the monitor. Here is a little video for proof.

 

 

 

 

 

Final customizations include a custom faceplate pcb, altered leds to match the Symphony II’s appeal, and a front USB port. -- Coucouillu recently scrapped his existing Jetway mobo for a smaller more powerful Commell LS-372. He has added a custom heatpipe, and completely hacked a uSDC to plug directly into the motherboard.  I am expecting to see a finished product in the near future! To completely appreciate this project, I advise taking a few minutes to browse the thread. As alway, if you have a project you are working on or know of a community innovation, send a PM or post here .

Designed with the supprot and feedback of our community, the fusion brain guys have done it again – At midnight EST today they released version 4 of their fusion brain control center.  

Improvements over Brain v3:

• 16 Digital Outputs
• 13 Analog Inputs
• Selectable Power Source (USB or 12vDC Jack)
• 30% smaller form factor (70mm X 45mm)
• Better power filtering and protection
• Ability to update firmware via USB
• Ability to update firmware via ICSP header in event of bootloader corruption
• Improved signal routing for analog inputs
• Pulse Width Modulation, 256 steps with 42uS minimum pulse width (may need firmware update, provided free and uploadable over USB)

Previous versions of the fusion brain have been used for:

• Christmas Car
• GPS Steered Tractor
• Steering wheel controls
• HVAC control

Buy Fusion Brain Version 4
Fusion Brain  Version 4 Manual
Discussions about Fusion Brain version 4 on our forums



The Fusion Brain guys give us a video demo of their version 4 product.

We think not. Our users have been doing internet radio in their cars for years (at least 2005) . We will most likely stop by their booth to “hear” how this compares to competing solutions like Panodora.

 

It is hard to beat 160kb radio streams from stations like Radioparadise . In my opinion current miRoamer streams sound HORRIBLE!

 

See the full release and Talk about this here:

Now what would really be cool is to have an accelerometer or some other sensor built into the steering wheel so the image always rotated and was rendered based on the steering wheel position.   I bet there is a patent there.  :)   That woudl sell some dual core CPUS.   Talk about it here.

 

 

 

Goce and Rob talk about the highs & lows of mobile computing technology at SEMA 2008.  Talk about this on our forums here

 

 

Magden has a current business model of selling an x86 PC with their linux gauge software. I can see how this would be great for people who don't want to integrate their own apps and want the power of a computer in their car with less setup hassle. We strongly encouraged the magden team to consider the sale of their software and hardware to the community, even if they release it with little or no support.  Talk about this on our forums.

 

Palmer Performance - Dash Command - A video demo of their car computing software and demo car. Talk about this on our forums.

 

A picture (or video) is worth a thousand words...and it's only 60 seconds. What is SEMA like? Talk about this video on our forums.

 

Some people call OLED the next best thing in display technology. Manufacturers report very high levels of contrast and lots of sunlight readability.  What do you think? Is OLED the next home run in mobile car computing and telematics display technology?   Talk about this on our forums here.

 

We go for a drive as the Cruisecast team shows us the guts of their prototype device and an example of their buffering technology.   Talk about this on our forums: