A Working Axim Carputer!

jeffersonkim · 05-12-06, 06:58 AM

For those of you who don't want to dig into your new car, you may want to check out my option for a Pocket PC carputer. I used a Dell Axim x51v and a WL-HDD with 100 GB of storage. It boots uber fast :)

You can go to my website to see my new carputer setup that has videos too. . . JeffersonKim.com :)

I just thought I'd spread the POSSIBILITIES TO THE WORLD!!!

05-12-06, 07:08 AM

Cool, thanks. I think there's another member who has his won carputer setup here as well.

Folsom · 05-14-06, 12:18 PM

I am thinking of doing the same thing you are. You should try using Mortplayer for playing your mp3s. There is a car mode skin that works OK, and you don't have to use the stylus. Also, map the drive as "favorites" in Mortplayer, and it works OK as a library. It's not a true library, but if you have your files sorted like genre-artist-album, the directory listing works.

Enragin_Angel · 05-14-06, 07:35 PM

Can you put all the maps into the 100GB Hard Drive? I was thinking of this same thing for my carputer setup. I didn't think about the Power Inverter though. I just wish that setup was more finger friendly. I'd hate to pull out the stylus while I was driving.

stevenator65 · 05-14-06, 08:18 PM

Jefferson, those 2 videos and the explanation were fascinating and I have a couple questions. You are accessing your gps antenna thru bluetooth, I see. I think I saw a wire from the Axim to your harddrive, correct? My question is, how do you access your harddrive, is there software that allows you to communicate b/t the Ax and the harddrive?

Nice job on the presentation! Great web site.

Enragin_Angel · 05-14-06, 08:24 PM

stevenator65: The hard drive is in an Asus WL-HDD2.5 802.11b/g WiFi Enclosure.

NoWire · 05-14-06, 08:46 PM

Very nice JeffersonKim. Great stuff.

+

jnev · 05-15-06, 06:00 PM

great job! maybe someday I'll have close to the same setup... *sigh*

jeffersonkim · 05-24-06, 09:25 AM

Hey all, sorry for not replyign to your posts! I thought I subscribed to this. . .but I did without email notification :P

In terms of the maps. I do have all my maps on my hard drive, but I keep them on my 1 GB SD card. Mapopolis searches through every map every time I load up, so for the sake of load time, I keep them on my SD card. If ever I need to get other maps. . . I can pull on the side of the road, and just transfer them over to my SD card.

The wire is such only for power. It's actually not connected to the hard drive. I need to do a more updated video now that I have more stuff . . .. but I"ll probably make one when I finalize EVERYTHING and get out most of the kinks.

But anyway, the hard drive has wifi built into it, and that's how I connect. The cable you probably see is from the headphone jack into the auxiliary input in my car.

Thanks everyone for your compliments :) But I have to say. . . I"m starting to not like playing videos while I drive. . . it can be quite dangerous. . . and I'd hate to feel like an idiot to actually get an accident because I was laughing at a funny part on Anchor man and wasn't paying attention. . . :P

tgpaul · 06-18-06, 06:04 PM

Jefferson, great job on this. I tried doing this last year using the same parts, but I could never keep the wireless connection stable as I drove through neighborhoods. Oftentimes the Axim would pick up and try to connect to another Wireless Access Point and screw up whatever file I was streaming at the time. I've since abandoned by my carputer project, but if you can tell me how/if you avoided this problem, I may just resurrect it.

TGP

Originally Posted by jeffersonkim

Hey all, sorry for not replyign to your posts! I thought I subscribed to this. . .but I did without email notification :P

In terms of the maps. I do have all my maps on my hard drive, but I keep them on my 1 GB SD card. Mapopolis searches through every map every time I load up, so for the sake of load time, I keep them on my SD card. If ever I need to get other maps. . . I can pull on the side of the road, and just transfer them over to my SD card.

The wire is such only for power. It's actually not connected to the hard drive. I need to do a more updated video now that I have more stuff . . .. but I"ll probably make one when I finalize EVERYTHING and get out most of the kinks.

But anyway, the hard drive has wifi built into it, and that's how I connect. The cable you probably see is from the headphone jack into the auxiliary input in my car.

Thanks everyone for your compliments :) But I have to say. . . I"m starting to not like playing videos while I drive. . . it can be quite dangerous. . . and I'd hate to feel like an idiot to actually get an accident because I was laughing at a funny part on Anchor man and wasn't paying attention. . . :P

jeffersonkim · 06-18-06, 09:16 PM

I haven't run into any problems running into other wireless connections. . . . . that's really weird. . . I don't know how you'd get around that.

mtgeorge · 06-18-06, 09:44 PM

Great setup! That shows the possibilities are pretty much endless with an Axim and your immagination. Thanks for sharing

jeffersonkim · 06-18-06, 09:53 PM

You are welcome :)

Kamel · 06-18-06, 10:56 PM

yea, very nice. i'd kinda like to make my own now heh.

as for the person with the problems losing connection to the hard drive, you could always use the odyssey client that comes with the x51(v)'s. in the client you can select either "Connect to <any>", or you can specify "Connect to <SSID>". if you specify to connect to only that specific SSID, it will not roam onto other networks unless you explicitly tell it to.

Pocketbrain · 10-10-06, 04:09 PM

Cool, I just bumped on over to jeffersonkim.com and looked at his setup. Very similar to mine, but he's got the X51V and I have an X50/520. He has Mapopolis and uses TCPMP like I do! Keeps his full pack of maps on the WLHDD, and loads the maps he will likely be needing, just like I do! We gotta swap pointers.

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