The Dakota Project
By Brian Shoemake

His latest in a series of MP3 car players, veteran car PC creator Patrick Basten, uses clever workmanship to create a TFT LCD monitor system in a 94 Jeep Cherokee that lets him play MP3s, surf the Internet, navigate using GPS, and more. Patrick uses space efficiently, placing all the VIA EPIA M, hard drive, and power supply in a small container, and puts the LCD monitor in the center of the dashboard, allowing all passengers to easily view the screen.

Starting off as a database for storing MP3 files for his travels, Brian Shoemake added CD/DVD/MP3 playing functions, a navigation system, and is planning to integrate a security system along the way. His grand project brought an interesting opportunity along the way…

"The Dakota Project Car PC was originally conceived as a Grad Project for my Heald College Portland, Oregon IT degree. After several months in the making, it has not only surpassed all of my expectations I had for the project, but it took first place honors at Heald College, and became the foundation for a business providing hard to find parts to other Mini-Itx enthusiasts."

MR2 CarPC project
By Steve Goodman

"This project began as a convenient way to play my 10GB+ MP3 collection (and maybe DVDs) in my car. I could have purchased an off the shelf system such as the Kenwood Music Keg, but the Keg and a compatible DVD deck/screen/cd player were out of my price range. A Windows based PC is less expensive, has more storage, more upgrade options, and makes for one very cool project that fuses my long standing love of car audio, and my skills as a computer technician!"

Steve had some pretty clear demands when he started his InCar PC project. Discrete installation (no visible wires), removable components (beat the thieves) and voice control whenever possible were key elements of his perfect system. Using a VIA EPIA 800 Mini-ITX mainboard he was able to achieve all of his goals while allowing his passengers the luxury of playing games, watching movies, and listening to music in his sporty Toyota MR2!

Click here to visit the website of the MR2 CarPC Project.

Mobile Media Project
By Remberto Magbanua

Originally starting off as a cheaper way to get sat nav in to my car the project has expanded to include a host of other features. Running off a Digitalww touch screen, a Opus intelligent ITX DC to DC PSU and at the hart of the system a Via EPIA 800. Using the open source system Media Engine I have created a custom interface giving me access to my MP3's, DVD & Other movies, external applications and even a FM Radio. Destinator will be the main Sat Nav software been designed to used on such a system. In the future I am looking at taping in to TMC data (Traffic info ), on the fly car engine management as well as all solid state drives.

Click here for a complete round up of this project.

InCar PCs are finding there way into trucks too! This 2001 Chevy Silverado is fine example of a mapping, navigating, movie and music playing, 4-wheel drive Mini-ITX with computing power to spare. Remberto's website pictorial walks you through the features and fun you can have with your own Truckputer. Checking the news, shopping and visiting Slashdot has never been so easy!

Click here to visit the pictorial website of the Mobile Media Project.

The CarPuter Project
By tony@staf.org.uk

The VW Golf IV Multimediacar
By Karel Martens

On November 12, 2002, Tony started out with a list of objectives for his in-car PC. MP3, DVD, DivX, VCD and SVCD player, Sat Nav, games, a wireless network -
AND to have Windows boot in under 10 seconds. What has resulted is another totally professional looking car PC project based on the VIA EPIA Mini-ITX. You can follow the excellent pictorial processes of this journey for perfection and really get a lot of insight into the software issues of getting a great car PC up and running. If you're looking to turn your vehicle into the ultimate mobile entertainment center, be sure to check it out.

For more, please go to www.staf.org.uk/car-puter/

"As a first in Belgium history, this project has been a real challenge and time consuming, but with the help of the internet and great products like the VIA Epia 800 it made the effort worthwhile. The main reason why I build this carputer is to have my whole cd collection in the car, being able to watch divx movies and have a gps system. Powered from a 12V 300W Pure sinus converter the Epia 800 delivers impressive sounds through my Blaupunkt Allicante and video to a 7" lcd widescreen monitor. The possibilities are unlimited and make this project a dream come true. To everybody who supported me, thank you very much. Keep up the good work!"

For more info and pictures please click here

Running on Linux the using Chris's own DashPC Modular Interface the Dashboard PC includes multimedia playback and GPS navigation capabilities. This In Car PC is the crème de la crème and built upon a VIA EPIA M9000 Mini-ITX mainboard it extends beyond a dashboard interface and includes a LCD monitor embedded in the driver seat headrest for accessibility to rear passengers. The Dashboard PC project is extremely well documented with a fully interactive website with instruction, pictures, code everything! If you're going to build your own Car PC visit the Dashboard PC website to see it done properly.

For the complete details be sure to visit the Dashboard PC website.

Jan-Henrik Koch is based in Germany and has built a unique black box car PC with his VIA EPIA800 mainboard. This is what he has to say about his project:

"The purpose of the mobile-blackbox is to listen to MP3 music and watch divx movies while you are "on the road". The mobile-blackbox is very robust and if you want to, it can be removed from the car in a matter of seconds.

My thanks to all the people assisting me with the project and to VIA for the great mainboard!"

Have fun browsing through these pages, and who knows, maybe I inspired you to build a car computer yourself!

For more pictures and a full parts list, go to mobile-blackbox.com

The VW Golf IV Multimediacar
By Karel Martens

The name says it all. Gene is an experienced car PC builder and the winner of the VIA Eden Imagination competition. Here is his story:

"Digital Thunder is a computer system based on the VIA EPIA Mainboard. The system takes full advantage of the awesome low power consumption and small foot print of the VIA EPIA 800 Mini-ITX motherboard combination and uses the many well thought out and integrated components that come with this platform. In addition, it compliments the VSF (Very Small Footprint) and no-fan features as well.

What we set out to do is build a system for use in vehicles. This meant the system had to be small, have great heat dissipation properties and low power consumption while still being powerful enough to get the job done. A tall order, which VIA has fulfilled flawlessly with the VIA EPIA Mini-ITX Mainboard. The first question I usually get is "what do you need a computer in your car for?" Well that's what we are going to show you right now. Buckle up…here we go."

For more, please go to VIAArena.com.

"As a first in Belgium history, this project has been a real challenge and time consuming, but with the help of the internet and great products like the VIA Epia 800 it made the effort worthwhile. The main reason why I build this carputer is to have my whole cd collection in the car, being able to watch divx movies and have a gps system. Powered from a 12V 300W Pure sinus converter the Epia 800 delivers impressive sounds through my Blaupunkt Allicante and video to a 7" lcd widescreen monitor. The possibilities are unlimited and make this project a dream come true. To everybody who supported me, thank you very much. Keep up the good work!"

For more info and pictures please click here

Jan-Henrik Koch is based in Germany and has built a unique black box car PC with his VIA EPIA800 mainboard. This is what he has to say about his project:

"The purpose of the mobile-blackbox is to listen to MP3 music and watch divx movies while you are "on the road". The mobile-blackbox is very robust and if you want to, it can be removed from the car in a matter of seconds.

My thanks to all the people assisting me with the project and to VIA for the great mainboard!"

Have fun browsing through these pages, and who knows, maybe I inspired you to build a car computer yourself!

For more pictures and a full parts list, go to mobile-blackbox.com

This is our first Truck PC project and it looks so easy to do when you use an EPIA barebones like this one from CaseOutlet.Com. Check out his easy-to-do guide on how he created this rig for his rig:

" I've been looking into building an MP3 player for my truck for awhile but didn't care much for what I was finding on the net, power inverters, full size motherboards and cases, and 2 or 4 row LCD displays. There have been some noteable exceptions and I started getting serious about building a box when I noticed a few people posting their schematics for ATX power supplies that ran off a cars 13.8 VDC.

Then as luck would have it, I was Googling info on small foot print PCs and came across caseoutlet.com who happened to sell a small case with a VIA Mini-ITX motherboard and a built in power supply that ran off a 12 VDC supply. I immediately ordered a case with the C3 800MHZ CPU and a slim CD drive. With the addition of a 512MB stick of PC2100 memory and an 80GB 7200RPM drive I had my box."

For more, please go to OggBox.

Matthew Lee's Auto PC Project
By Matt Lee

Cyber-Car
By CyBeRhOrNeT

Matt's project is a work-in-progress car PC based around the VIA EPIA Mini-ITX Mainboard running Windows XP Professional. The project includes a custom-built aluminum housing, native 12VDC power supply, and custom mapping software built around Microsoft MapPoint 2002.

For more, please go to Matt's site.

Romain is based in France and has successfully completed 4 car PC projects to date. His latest project was the most challenging yet because he could not use the trunk of his car to house the system. Here is what Romain has to say about his Cyber-Car:

"I don't know when I first had the idea to put a computer in my car, but I clearly remember that a few years ago, I laughed when one of my friends told me that he wanted to build such an installation. Three years went by and I am now 21 years old, passionate about cars and about PCs, of course. With hobbies such as these, you can easily imagine that the idea has been turning in my mind for a long time…: why not be able to watch DVDs in my car? Why should I wait to arrive at home to switch on my PC?!!"

For more, please go to DivX-Car.com.

Peter's article on how to power your car PC from a standard 12V car cigarette lighter port is just a small taste of what this project has to offer. Here is what Peter has to say about his car PC:

"What is this 'car project'? Basically I plan to fit my car with a low power computer system.

Controlled via 4"/5" LCD touchscreen, with a custom frontend. The computer will feed directly into the car stereo, allowing for MP3s and other audio to be played easily. Route planner software will be installed to assist with journeys, maybe even a webcam pointing out the back for rear view vision."
For more, please go to ThisStrife.com