Benjamin, a traffic-controller living in the South-East of France, decided to do something new with his radio setup in his Peugeot 207. His inner creativity forced him to build a new carputer (car computer) with a Raspberry Pi system, in place of investing huge amounts in a new one.
He started building the system with a Raspberry Pi 3 system, the framework would need wireless connectivity in order to connect the screen with Pi system. The in-built functionality of this new version of Raspberry Pi system eliminated need for any extra dongle.
Figure 1: Carputer
A small amount was invested by Benjamin in the X400 Expansion board that behaves more like a sound card. It was important that the board would be capable of handling a large range of voltage inputs, unless it had that quality it couldn’t be connected with the engine of the car. Once this was established he connected the system with his car’s engine. He further warns all the users to unplug the fuse boxbefore trying to wire up anything new in the car. You can’t miss on this or you might get frazzled completely.
For the display screen, there are a number of options that are available in market. You can choose any as per your personal preference. Like Benjamin here, chose to go for touchscreen of his Samsung tablet rather than buying a new one. It made a perfect fit for the display screen of the carputer. The inclusion of tablet also ensured that he could take the system with him whenever he moved out of car. A clever idea to keep your things off thieves hands.
In order to hook the Pi over to his car’s antenna, the man decided to use a RTI SDR overcoming connection along with an adaptor that gives the car’s Fakra socket an access to MCX through SMA. He established the Raspberry Pi in form of web server making it a wireless hotspot. This permits the tablet to connect with others in a wireless manner and show media and roadmaps over the carputer’s dashboard. You can always add your music library to it with USB flashdrive. Another specific benefit of using a tablet is that it utilizes GPS functionality that simplifies the things for the driver.
Filed Under: Reviews
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