You may have heard of car computer. Do you know how to build up a car computer? In this post, MiniTool introduces car computer to you and gives you a brief guide on how to build your own car computer.
What Is Car Computer?
The car computer is a highly integrated vehicle multimedia entertainment information center with high temperature resistance, dust resistance and shock resistance developed specifically for the special operating environment of the car and the characteristics of electrical circuits. At present, only the top models are equipped with similar intelligent vehicle systems.
The car computer can mainly achieve functions including in-vehicle multi-media entertainment (Internet access, games, phones, etc.), GPS satellite navigation, professional diagnosis of car information and faults, mobile office and industry applications, etc.
However, the car computer is not so out of reach. Depending on how expensive the car is, there can be all sorts of other computers. For example:
- A computer controlling the automatic transmission.
- A computer reading the wheel speed and controlling the brakes, if the car has anti-lock brakes.
- A computer controlling air bag.
- A computer used for radio or CD player with a digital display.
- A computer used for cruise control systems.
Build Your Own Car Computer
Due to the virtues of the car computer, some people may want to build their own car computer. If you also plan to do that, this guide may help you.
Step 1: Purchase hardware including a display, a motherboard integrated with graphics card and CPU card, a RAM, a power board, an SSD, a chassis, a power amplifier, etc. When you buy these accessories, please note the following points:
- These accessories should be small enough to fit in the space you reserved for the car computer.
- The display should have a driver kit, touch kit, etc.
- Do not use a mechanical hard drive because it is easily broken.
Step 2: After purchasing these accessories, assemble them. Then, install an OS into it. You can use Windows, Android, Linux, etc.
Step 3: Debug the car computer to see whether it can run smoothly.
Step 4: Disassemble the original central control playback device to make room for the car computer. Please note that the parameters of the display and the original playback device must be the same in terms of length, width and height, and even the position of the screws must be the same, otherwise it cannot be fixed in the original position.
Step 5: Choose the installation location of the host computer. You can install it under the front seat or in the trunk.
Step 6: Lay cables and connect wirings. Then, if possible, you can also install a visual reversing camera.
Step 7: Debug the car computer again. If all is OK, you can restore the panel. After that, you can enjoy your own car computer.
When you build the car computer, there are some tips for you:
- Some merchants provide some dedicated car computer accessories for DIY. You can purchase them directly, and don’t need to assemble them yourself. This will make the steps simpler.
- When installing devices and laying out lines, pay attention to moisture and heat dissipation.
- The line arrangement should be reasonable to prevent lines from being kicked off.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.