mini computer in my WK

5000 Views 31 Replies 8 Participants Last post by OregonCarGuy, Dec 27, 2012

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · Dec 25, 2012

So I bought myself a few Christmas presents: two of which include the Mygig Lockpick for my WK and a raspberry pi mini computer. This thing is pretty sweet, it's a tiny little computer powered over a micro USB port. I've been thinking and doing a little research and I think I've got a pretty cool idea. Some of this is probably just my ramblings, but I need to get these ideas down (bear with me here).

So I take the video composite out (RCA) and audio out (3.5mm headphone jack to RCA adapter ) and plug these into one of the Lockpicks inputs (I think the newest version has 3 inputs, each of them a video, right audio, and left audio). Now I've got the raspberry pi using my Mygig screen for video. Then I'm thinking I buy one of these. A rechargeable wireless keyboard/trackpad combo (it's even backlit!). Now I can control the raspberry pi wirelessly very easily.

Next I load up my 32gb SD card with movies and watch them with VLC media player! I can even get a 3/4G cell card for the raspberry pi and passengers can browse the web, all from inside my WK. This would enable the use of web services like Pandora and Grooveshark as well. Another possibility is to get a Wifi dongle for the raspberry pi and tether it to a cell phone's data connection.

The raspberry pi also has GPIO pins that you can control switches, servos, and relays with. I was thinking I could hook up a couple relays to it and control lights (or anything really). I'm a Software Engineer for a living, so I'm confident that I could program the board to control lights, and even do cool things like make them flash in a pattern or make them flash with the music (totally useless, but cool).

I see one little problem with this setup that I'm hoping you guys can help me out with. I'd hate to have a USB cord running from a 12V charger into the glove box where the raspberry pi would be. Does anyone know of a way that I could wire something up behind my dash (or even in the glove box) to take 12V from the cigarette lighter and convert it to micro USB (I believe that's 5V)?

I'm interested in anybodys thoughts, criticisms, or ideas!

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Quantum

· #2 · Dec 25, 2012

Watch movies while driving? Why didn't I think of that.

You could solder in a cig socket into the power outlet, and plug a USB adapter into that. I bought one on eBay that also plugs into the wall which is nice on trips. But if you don't want to boot each time you'd need to tap into a power outlet rather than a cig lighter. Could run down the battery after a day or so not driving the car.

But it sounds like what you are trying to make would be done cleaner with a tablet, maybe the XYBoard. Wouldn't run down the battery. Put in a USB hub and a couple of USB cameras.

PS - a "Mini Computer" is actually a very large machine, think the DEC VAX 785. What you use at home is a "Micro Computer". What you want is a "Nano Computer".

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · #3 · Dec 25, 2012

Obviously I won't be using this thing unsafely while I'm driving. It boots up pretty quickly actually, I'd probably just run it off the 12v that's only on when the key is on. Otherwise I have the 12v right next to it that is on all the time, but yeah that would drain the battery so I don't want that.

I'm sure I could do this alot cleaner in many aspects, but this was just a fun project I thought of using materials I have on hand (except for the wireless keyboard).

PS - I don't really care to get in the logistics of what to call it.

Quantum

· #4 · Dec 25, 2012

You must be under 30. That would be the 'semantics of what to call it', and some in your age group don't seem to care about looking uneducated calling it the wrong thing, so fair enough.

I was just trying to help, but we have a communications barrier.

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · #5 · Dec 25, 2012

Quantum said:
You must be under 30. That would be the 'semantics of what to call it', and some in your age group don't seem to care about looking uneducated calling it the wrong thing, so fair enough.

I was just trying to help, but we have a communications barrier.

I don't see how picking apart my English is trying to help. I didn't come here for a ****ing English lesson. You offered me one piece of advice. I know I asked for criticisms, but I was talking about criticisms of the idea, not criticisms of my knowledge of the English language. Did you really have to go out of your way to tell me that I'm calling it the wrong thing? And did you really have to go out of your way to point out my misuse of the word "logistics"? Misusing one word does not make me uneducated. Did I go out of my way to show you that I am, in fact, not talking about a nanocomputer? A nanocomputer uses components that are no bigger than a few nanometers. Do you think my raspberry pi is that small? Does that make you uneducated because you misused the word? Go be a dick somewhere else.

Quantum

· #6 · Dec 25, 2012

Yes. It does mean you are uneducated. And ungrateful. And that's the end of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanocomputer

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · #7 · Dec 25, 2012

Haha okay, keep thinking that, buddy. You must live a pretty miserable life if it makes you feel good to come on here and pick apart people's English to call them uneducated.

ryancurry1979

· #8 · Dec 25, 2012

Where can I order one of these in the US my kid would love it.

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · #9 · Dec 25, 2012

Careful ryancurry1979, you don't want Quantum to start berating you because you didn't type your response in a full sentence. Improper English on the Internet really gets to him...

I'm assuming you're talking about the Raspberry pi? If you go to their website, on the right side there's links to a few vendors you can buy from. I think it's around $30 and they are very cool. A lot of people are buying them to get their kids started out in programming! But you can also use it for many other things.

SSF556

· #10 · Dec 25, 2012

bhawks28 said:
So I bought myself a few Christmas presents: two of which include the Mygig Lockpick for my WK and a raspberry pi mini computer. This thing is pretty sweet, it's a tiny little computer powered over a micro USB port. I've been thinking and doing a little research and I think I've got a pretty cool idea. Some of this is probably just my ramblings, but I need to get these ideas down (bear with me here).

So I take the video composite out (RCA) and audio out (3.5mm headphone jack to RCA adapter ) and plug these into one of the Lockpicks inputs (I think the newest version has 3 inputs, each of them a video, right audio, and left audio). Now I've got the raspberry pi using my Mygig screen for video. Then I'm thinking I buy one of these. A rechargeable wireless keyboard/trackpad combo (it's even backlit!). Now I can control the raspberry pi wirelessly very easily.

Next I load up my 32gb SD card with movies and watch them with VLC media player! I can even get a 3/4G cell card for the raspberry pi and passengers can browse the web, all from inside my WK. This would enable the use of web services like Pandora and Grooveshark as well. Another possibility is to get a Wifi dongle for the raspberry pi and tether it to a cell phone's data connection.

The raspberry pi also has GPIO pins that you can control switches, servos, and relays with. I was thinking I could hook up a couple relays to it and control lights (or anything really). I'm a Software Engineer for a living, so I'm confident that I could program the board to control lights, and even do cool things like make them flash in a pattern or make them flash with the music (totally useless, but cool).

I see one little problem with this setup that I'm hoping you guys can help me out with. I'd hate to have a USB cord running from a 12V charger into the glove box where the raspberry pi would be. Does anyone know of a way that I could wire something up behind my dash (or even in the glove box) to take 12V from the cigarette lighter and convert it to micro USB (I believe that's 5V)?

I'm interested in anybodys thoughts, criticisms, or ideas!

Seems to me you are not interested in anybody's thoughts, criticisms or ideas...if so please do not indicate in your thread that you are.

Quantum provide you some thoughts. You then proceeded to call him a d**k. Lighten up and remember this is a public forum and when you finish your post looking for "thoughts, criticisms, or ideas" be prepared for ones that you do not agree with or ones that may educate you.

Scott

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · #11 · Dec 25, 2012

scootr29 said:
Seems to me you are not interested in anybody's thoughts, criticisms or ideas...if so please do not indicate in your thread that you are.

Quantum provide you some thoughts. You then proceeded to call him a d**k. Lighten up and remember this is a public forum and when you finish your post looking for "thoughts, criticisms, or ideas" be prepared for ones that you do not agree with or ones that may educate you.

Scott

He provided me with one useful piece of information, then nitpicks my choice of words (mini vs nano... really? you really want to get into that?). Then he insults me and calls me uneducated. I don't really see where I was in the wrong here...Maybe I shouldn't have called him a dick, but what right does he have to call me uneducated?

Like I said, I'm open to criticism of my idea, but I am absolutely not open to criticism of my intelligence, education, and least of all, my choice of words. If I wanted an English lesson, I'd be googling mini vs nano, logistics vs schematics, etc.

ryancurry1979

· #12 · Dec 25, 2012

It looks mini so it clearly must be mini.

Quantum

· #13 · Dec 25, 2012

I was just trying to help you not look stupid bhawks28, but obviously I failed. You have that chip on your shoulder and seem like an angry person in general.

Exhibit A: You can't let this go.

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · #14 · Dec 25, 2012

Quantum said:
I was just trying to help you not look stupid bhawks28, but you have that chip on your shoulder and seem like an angry person in general.

Exhibit A: You can't let this go.

Do you really think other members were going to read my thread and say "Haha look at stupid bhawks28, he said mini instead of nano! What a moron!"?

Dropping this goes both ways, pal. If you want to let this go, then stop reading this thread because you obviously have no more good input.

w1pf

· #15 · Dec 25, 2012

So anyway, back to the original topic..

I do embedded linux for a living (and have off and on since about 1999) .. so I have a couple R.pi boards here, but never thought about what I might do with one in a vehicle. It is a great platform to hack around on.

Something that might be fun would be to stick a micro (mini? nano? femto?) Bluetooth dongle into an R.pi usb port, and stick one of the Bluetooth ELM OBD thingies into your OBD-2 port, and pop up some gauges on the screen

Rock on.

bhawks28

Discussion Starter · #16 · Dec 25, 2012

w1pf said:
So anyway, back to the original topic..

I do embedded linux for a living (and have off and on since about 1999) .. so I have a couple R.pi boards here, but never thought about what I might do with one in a vehicle. It is a great platform to hack around on.

Something that might be fun would be to stick a micro (mini? nano? femto?) Bluetooth dongle into an R.pi usb port, and stick one of the Bluetooth ELM OBD thingies into your OBD-2 port, and pop up some gauges on the screen

Rock on.

Ah nice idea dude thanks. That would be really cool!

w1pf

· #17 · Dec 25, 2012

Oh, and, too: 'mini' is relative. My first "minicomputer" was a DEC lab8/e

Last night, my wife opened up one of her gifts: an iPad mini. You know what that looks like.

So no need to get hung up on the words :tea:

Quantum

· #18 · Dec 25, 2012

Well you must be almost as old as me. And looks like you're up near Maynard. Yep the PDP-8 and 11/34 were minis, even as small as they were. I used to work on all of them, right up to the VaxClusters. Back then we were respected like doctors.

Accuracy and terminology are important if you're working in a technical field. If you're not accurate in what you say, you instantly lose the technical audience. I've just read this; how do you think it would go over to say, "We can put a 'landing zone' into ROM, by filling all of the top 500 bytes with "nop" instructions ...", when the correct number would be 512. I've really dumbed down this example, but someone trying to use this description would be in trouble. No, it is not the same thing.

To say it briefly: Be inaccurate, and lose the most able third of your audience, instantly. Attack someone trying to help, and lose another third. This was the wisdom I was trying to impart to Buford above. I should have just let him hang himself with half-assed results. There's alot more I could have done to help, but no sir.

PS - I've run Debian exclusively on my personal machines for 14 years.

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970001zj

· #19 · Dec 26, 2012

omg this is so dumb

just get one of those 12 to 5 v cig to usb things from autowhateverstore take it apart find a 12 source and solder that **** together with a switch in the middle mabey throw a cap in there too for safty

gosh you friggin trolls are hurgry

w1pf

· #20 · Dec 26, 2012

970001zj said:
gosh you friggin trolls are hurgry

mmm hugury

:thumbsup:

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