There are many reasons one would want to make a car computer. Although one of the reasons might be the savings on the expenses of buying a branded one, the most plausible reason would be the thrill of making your own. What could be more exhilarating than to use the most inexpensive, credit card sized, single board computer, the Raspberry Pi or RBPi and turning it into a sophisticated car computer, ready to compete with the most expensive ones in the market.
That is exactly what Derek Knaggs did. He wanted a car computer and searched for one on the Internet – only to be put off by the large costs involved. As an RBPi enthusiast, he reasoned that his tiny RBPi had all the ingredients required to build one – flexible video and audio outputs HDMI and Composite RCA for video, HDMI and 3.5 mm audio jack for audio). Additionally, it has the complete flexibility of switching to any operating system simply by changing the SD card.
Derek made a list of the items he would need for his car computer – RBPi model B, a car DVD player, TFT monitors (7-inch models used, one for the front and one/two for the back seats), composite video cables, audio cables suitable for 3.5mm jacks), Wireless N USB dongle, Wireless mini keyboard and a micro-USB car charger.
Derek’s car already had a radio installed and he connected the audio output of the RBPi to the auxiliary port of the radio. That allowed the audio to be played via the car speakers, so he had stereo audio playing loud and clear. He placed the RBPi in the center console, so that he could route all the cables under the console, giving the whole arrangement a neat and clean look, without any cables hanging around.
For playing video on the RBPi, Derek used XBMC, which comes with the Raspbmc operating system. Inputs to the RBPi were controlled by the wireless keyboard, which also has a built-in mouse touchpad. The keyboard has an on-off switch, useful for saving its batteries. The Wi-Fi dongle gave Derek the freedom to connect to any wireless network. Of course, another option is to connect it to the mobile phone, provided it has the option to set up a portable Wi-Fi hotspot.
One of the TFT monitors connects to the RBPi, and although Derek chose to position it on the central console, you might want it behind on the headrest of one of the front seats. Since Derek already had a car DVD player fitted in, there was another TFT monitor available. If the TFT monitors have HDMI inputs, you may want to connect them via HDMI cables. TFT monitors typically come with RCA composite video inputs, so that should not be a problem, as RBPi has composite video outputs along with HDMI. However, as soon as you use one of the video outputs on the RBPi, the other switches off, so it is not possible to use two monitors at a time from the two types of video outputs on the RBPi.
