[junebughunter]

I am really wanting to do a car install but there are a few things that are potentially going to cause problems...

first being power, specifically on and off.

Is there any simple way to externally tell a mac mini to sleep or shut down?
Is there any simple way to externally tell a mac mini to wake up or turn on?

Lets say I have iTunes open and my car just shuts down and turns off the Mac Mini...repeat that 1000x...how is that going to hurt it?

Those are the two biggest hurtles I can imagine but there are still more, such as how is the vibration going to affect it over time?

Another time consuming issue I will imagine running into is actually properly interfacing it to the car without aftermarket poweramp, that will probably involve some cable splicing and soldering, but nothing I can't handle...it's the

What problems are there for this sort of install?

[junebughunter]

One other quick question I just thought of...how could I quickly adjust the volume? I am pretty good with soldering but I don't think I could make any sort of custom PCB boards unless I had somewhat explicit instruction on how to do what I was attempting.

[Luca]

Turning it on and off all the time is going to probably shorten the life of the hard drive more than anything else. When the hard drive has to spin up and down constantly, it puts a lot of wear on it. Furthermore, there will be even more stress on the hard drive with the vibrations. Those are bad for hard drives.

Volume adjustment can be done with a USB peripheral. Specifically, I'm thinking of the Griffin PowerMate. I don't know your exact plans but one of those might be useful for you. You could adjust the volume by turning the wheel, pause and play by pressing down, and skip from song to song by turning while the button is pressed in.

[kscherer]

Actually, Griffin makes a remote USB device (RF) called AirClick that is designed to work with the Mac and iTunes. Sell for about $40 and easy to get. Check out http://griffintechnology.com/product...lick/index.php

[cyrusmekon]

http://tunertricks.com/blog/index.php?p=40

Maybe help. This guy has done it already. If it doesnt help im sorry, i just looked at the first page without bothering to read. Im a pictures guy what can i say.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by cyrusmekon http://tunertricks.com/blog/index.php?p=40 Maybe help. This guy has done it already. If it doesnt help im sorry, i just looked at the first page without bothering to read. Im a pictures guy what can i say.

That is soooooo cool!!

I have been looking around for car tv kits for my truck recently... Ther are not cheap... I was thinking of also putting a PS2 or something like that into the back seat also...

Now I have totally changed my plans...

[Ebby]

I thought about doing something like this but not seriously. I would like features like a mobil hotspot (easy), integration with the car computer like on NASCAR (Brakes, RPM, maybe speed), a GPS locater, and some sort of private tracking system. This kind of project could easily get swamped by all the features. Security: call home features, remote shutdown, cameras just in case it gets stolen... I gotta stop rambling or I'll get interested again.

[scratt]

The cool thing is if you set up a mobile always on connection on your phone and hook that in with bluetooth as well, basically the skys the limit...... You can have a little keyboard stashed away, and can look up travelling directions as you go, even stream music!! You basically have the world at your fingertips in your own Bat mobile...

I like the integration to the car computer.. I have a chip in mine which offers a pc output which I am sure I coule put somthing together to interpret.. That includes info on the boost pressures, manifold pressures, speed, etc. etc.

This is a particularly scary subject for boys to talk about on a Saturday morning... The shops are open.. The whole weekend is free...

[Ebby]

Got any more dirt on that Chip.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by Ebby Got any more dirt on that Chip.

It's an engine tuning chip.. They actually herald from the US I think.
Well we get them over here from the US, but I guess they are probably made in China or something!!

The name is UniChip.
It improves engine power by about 25 - 40% on turbo cars.
My truck now pulls away like a Mercedes! Great fun at the lights!

It piggy backs on your cars exisiting computer.

Part of the tuning process, and further tuning if you do more mods on your vehicle, entails a full dyno tune.. There is a connector on the side of the unit which plugs into a loom and feeds data about everything your car is doing to a PC.

I've had a play with it at the shop in Bangkok I had it installled at and can easilly get a copy of the PC software.. I was going to try and mod it for the Mac, or run it through VPC on a Mac Mini in my truck!!

Great geek weekend project!

You can pull up everything about the cars sensors, turbo.. The works.
Anything that your car's ccomputer monitors it can see....

[Ebby]

I put a mod chip in my Porsche 944 that changes the max RPM among many other things but that was a LONG time ago. I don't think those features were around back then. Nice to know the art of tinkering with cars is alive and kicking. :smokey: