On board Computer

[LenB]

I just upgraded my truck today... I am now operating at computing power equal to that of manned space flight in 2001. I have a HAL 9000 interface in my dash console and use the toggle switches to set 1's and 0's to compute the tough stuff when my slide rule max's out.

[cgalpin]

ROFL. What exactly can that do?

You can get one of these off ebay for $132 shipped if you want [a little] more computing power

[JimC]

Open the liftgate door HAL.

I'm sorry Len, I cannot do that.

[ini88]

I was debating putting Max from Flight of the Navigator in my truck. Then I realized it was Paul Reubens voice and thats just creepy to drive with.

Nice PS skills there Len! :)

[LenB]

ROFL. What exactly can that do?

You can get one of these off ebay for $132 shipped if you want [a little] more computing powermy HAL 9000 can't do crap.... other than lock me out of my truck ....and boost my thread count! but I like that unit you have..... can i load my own map SW on it... I use magellen Map Send for my gps stuff.

Len

[cgalpin]

Hi Len

Yes it's just a (relatively low powered) PC so you can run the same software you have with a USB GPS receiver which can be pretty cheap without software.

[themaxx]

This might end up being a quick winter project... Gumstix (http://gumstix.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=202).

[cgalpin]

Yeah those are especially cool due to their low power draw and compact size. Ignoring the touch screen they draw so little power you could leave it on 24x7. You could get way out of hand with this stuff though. I have thought of leaving something like a gumstix on all the time, and having a second one with a touch screen pxe boot off it to be a thin client that can just shut on/off with the vehicle. It would distribute the processing power needed and give quick boot times with no worries about power management.

[themaxx]

Very interesting idea! If you decide to pick up one sooner than later, let me know.

[Gren_T]

Hi Chaps, just finished my own hal and will install it on the bulkhead behind the passenger on my new build 90 with a touch screen head unit, have to find a way of interfacing a red light for the dash ..;-)

[diesel_jim]

Hi Chaps, just finished my own hal and will install it on the bulkhead behind the passenger on my new build 90 with a touch screen head unit, have to find a way of interfacing a red light for the dash ..;-)

Hey Gren, you've got the Voom PC2 box there? that's exactly what i've bought for my 110.

I managed to acquire a mini-itx motherboard from work along with a 140gb laptop drive, so i installed XPpro onto it, along with memory map/microcat/autodata/bearmach browser/classic LR parts, and all my tech software.

oh... and some films,email,www browser and a wifi card, so should be good when it's going! LOL!

just need to get a decent 10~12" screen for the dash. got any good ideas where to get one here in the UK?

(PS... i'm in Swindon, not too far from you)


cheers

Jamie

[LenB]

ROFL. What exactly can that do?

You can get one of these off ebay for $132 shipped if you want [a little] more computing powerThanks for the tip.... I snaged one off ebay today. The guy selling was local... so I dropped by his shop and checked it out... I gave him a Ben Franklin. I got the unit with a dock, power supply, mouse, laptop case, and an ethernet card. The screen is very clear and sharp. I just have to borrow a usb - cd to install the Map Send SW. It is running windows 98. Any recommendations on loading the SW other than using an external CD drive? Are you running a power inverter to power the ac adapter? OR is there somthing else I can do to bump the 12v from my car battery to the 16 V the system needs?


Are you running yours with the doc?

Thanks

[cgalpin]

That's a good deal with the dock included.

You can use a usb thumb drive for most things (2G thumb drives are dirt cheap if you don't have one), or just use the wireless card and copy it over the network.

If you want to change the OS there is an access panel on the back to pull the hard drive (just 2 screws) and you can put the drive into a laptop or get an adapter to a standard IDE size connector and put it into a desktop PC. You can also upgrade the RAM to 256M (PC100) easily as well with another access panel on the back.

I bought an DC adapter that runs straight off 12V which I plan to hard wire into the truck and use the dock. I am not using the dock in the truck yet, but thats the plan. I plan to make a mount using most of the dock, allowing me to just drop the fuji in to have power, usb and ethernet. The only bummer is that audio in/out are independent jacks on the side so they would need to be plugged in separately. I haven't looked into it, but I think I could buy USB speakers, and rig that as input to my stereo or even direct to my truck speakers and avoid needing that connector. Or even a USB sound card, but you get the idea. the goal is to be able to drop it in the dock and not need any other connectors and no loose wiring. You can just yank and drop in the cubby to avoid weather or concerns of theft when needed.

I also plan to hook up a few usb cameras to have a suspension cam, or just footage on the trail etc, but I'll need a usb hub at that point and then its one more thing to power (usually 5v) as the usb ports on the device itself can't power more than 2 devices.

PM me your address and I'll send you a cute little wireless (IR) keyboard for it. It can be handy at times (although the on screen keyboard is fully functional)

hth
charles

[LenB]

Well, I built my integrated platform to hold and secure the fujitsu yesterday. I use a velcro strap to hold the base to the platform. I found a good little computer car charger / power supply, but I also just ordered a second one that is a "used" fujitsu OEM charger. When it arrives I will cut the Accessory plug off and tap directly into car power rather than use the cigar lighter. This thing works pretty cool. I took it out for an hour road test today... this will be a great tool out on the trail... I won't have to zoom in and out to see where I am at - I have full color topo coverage for the entire US. All I have to do is transfer my waypoints for a particular trip to the HD with a (USB thumb drive) and I am ready to go. - I will miss my HAL 9000, but that bastard locked me out of truck one too many times.

[cgalpin]

Nice, but doesn't that make shifting to low range tricky?

Good to see you putting yours to good use. One thing I love about it is that I can use it on both trucks instead of needing two carputers. Just took mine down to Uhwarrie in the 110. I am still using a makeshift mount I made but will make a better permanent one soon.

I still have an extra IR keyboard if you want it.

charles

[JimC]

Len - Looks like you swapped out the checkerplate?

[LenB]

Nice, but doesn't that make shifting to low range tricky?

Good to see you putting yours to good use. One thing I love about it is that I can use it on both trucks instead of needing two carputers. Just took mine down to Uhwarrie in the 110. I am still using a makeshift mount I made but will make a better permanent one soon.

I still have an extra IR keyboard if you want it.

charlesHi Charles,

Thank you for the offer... but that was one other thing the seller through in the deal... sorry I forgot to mention that.

Yes low range is a mild achrobatic feat, but I tried it out... I give it the "reach around" and it works. The platform is not permenently mounted. I installed 3 rivet nuts in the front of my center console... so it is pretty easy to take out the platform when I am not using the gps system. Thanks for posting your original info.... for just a hundred bucks or so I have a great upgrade and I am really happy with the results. This fujitsu really is kick ass- I couldn't buy a monitor this size for a $100! and if I get hard up I can even check my email with it.

Follow-up Post:

Len - Looks like you swapped out the checkerplate?Hi Jim,

How is school going? I haven't removed any checker plate... I have it on my wingtops, rear corners and sills. When I removed my plastic center console a few years back I replaced it with my brushed stainless steel unit.....

Those are some great pics of your truck in Moscow!

Len

[JimC]

Thanks Len - School is kicking my ass. Apparently this place has a reputation to uphold.

I though the checker plate on your fenders was painted red - maybe thats just on the sills. Either way, I was confused.

[LenB]

Thanks Len - School is kicking my ass. Apparently this place has a reputation to uphold.

I though the checker plate on your fenders was painted red - maybe thats just on the sills. Either way, I was confused.Hi Jim,

It sounds like school is keeping you out of trouble! The wingtop protectors are OEM factory - and were annodized silver. The factory OEM sill protectors and rear corner plates weren't annodized so rather than letting them oxidize I painted them Monza red to match my truck. Those are the three places on the truck that take a lot of "regular/daily use" abuse so I felt it would be a good idea to cover them.

Good luck on selling your truck - that looks like a pretty fair price.

Len

[steinhnj]

Len, what gps software are you using? Does it have a routing feature?

[LenB]

Len, what gps software are you using? Does it have a routing feature?Hi,
Neil,

I use an old version of Magellan's MapSend Topo . It came with my first gps unit ( Sport Track Map). It lets you build routes with waypoints and customize map regions that can be saved as files to be uploaded to a gps. The maps are fairly accurate. I still find discrepancies between what is actually on the ground, National forest maps and MapSend Topo. It is not a perfect world. The nice feature about the mapsend is that you can load the entire data base of maps on your PC and not need the CD to operate the SW. I upgraded my GPS a couple of years ago.. magellan 210 explorist and mapsend topo 3d. I don't use the SW... it requires that you have the CD in the PC which sucks... They did that to reduce piracy. The new GPS is usb based and the Magellan folks did not write good backward or forward compatable (vista) interfaces between the explorist and the SW. They eventually wrote some new software to eliminate the need for machine interface with the map SW. So that is what I use to upload routes and waypoints to the explorist. The explorist is used as a back up system now.... I will only turn it on if my old system craps out on the trail. The old clunker Sport Track Map is what I use to drive the realtime track logging on the Fujitsu. Sport Track Map gps has a serial interface to the Mapsend Topo which is designed well and works well. I am sorry to say there have to be better gps units than Magellan- but I only spent $100 for Sport track map w/ mapsend topo from Costco. When I bought the Magellan explorist 210 w/ mapsend topo 3D I spent $150 at REI... I don't know if higher priced $500 handhelds work any better.... I will not spend that kind of dough...I grew up using maps and a compass to navigate the sierras on foot and felt that was adequate skills untill I began 4 wheeling and found that roads and road signs tend to be transiate and suject to change.

Most of my route planning is done with google earth open and running to verify routes on the USFS maps and mapsend. google earth give you great "fly through" capabilities to get a feel for the terrain and map.

I hope I didn't give you too much information!

len

[LenB]

Today I had a chat with my local IT guys to discuss putting a SSD solid state hard drive in the fujitsu. I believe I have found one for around $90. If I get and install it, the PC will have no moving parts.....it will be extremely durable and more likely to survive off road use. (although the current HD is designed to take a great deal of abuse) primarily due to requirements to operate in a rugged hand toted computer. I will keep you posted if I make the swap. Installing this disk will double the amount of money I intended to put into this project.....but it will likely last a long time even under the abuse of 4 wheeling use.

[cgalpin]

I'm honestly not sure I'd go that far with this device. I upgraded my hard drive to get more disk space, and it came with the nice side effect of it being faster too. Its cheaper than a solid state drive and I am sure it wil be plenty reliable.

Like anything else, make backups of anything you care about either way :)

[Rugbier]

Charles, I like that set up, could you help me and elaborate exactly what is is, brand, etc ( I think the 109 would love it ) *LOL*



ROFL. What exactly can that do?

You can get one of these off ebay for $132 shipped if you want [a little] more computing power

[cgalpin]

It's a tablet PC with an 8" touchscreen. Fujitsu Stylistic LT C-500. 500 mhz celeron, 128Mb of ram (upgradeable to 256mb only with any single stick 256Mb PC100 laptop ram), comes with a 6G hard drive, but any laptop hard drive should work (I have a 60G in mine). Will come with some form of windows (mine came with windows 2000) but you can install anything you want on it.

You can use it for pretty much anything as long as it doesn't require gobs of memory or cpu (disk you can solve). I use mine mainly as a big GPS (with a USB GPS receiver), but plan to use it for media as well. You can rip DVDs and music onto it and play them on it (my daughter watched a DVD off it on the way to MAR. It has wireless so so you can check email, surf the web, whatever if you have a data connection. I have used my little tracking phone as a (slow) modem to do the same as well. Since it has usb ports you can use it for anything else you can think of that you can do on a computer. If your vehicle has OBDII or sensors (I know your 109 doesn't) you could take the inputs and monitor/display them etc. I'm thinking about trying some USB cameras for a suspension cam or just record some trail rides from the truck's perspective.

They are readily available used on ebay. Here is one for $116 shipped

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fujitsu-Stylistic-LT-500-Tablet-PC-Laptop-Computer-GPS_W0QQitemZ390006643338QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_Def aultDomain_0?hash=item390006643338&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A13 18

I think this is the crowd I got mine from. The way you add accessories is a bit hokey, but they have car adapters etc cheap.

Follow-up Post:

This one is $100 shipped

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fujitsu-Stylistic-LT-500-Tablet-PC-Laptop-Computer_W0QQitemZ130266753819QQcmdZViewItemQQptZL H_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item130266753819&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A13 18

[Rugbier]

Charles,

Do you attache a USB drive to load all the soft?

Thank you so much

[LenB]

Charles,

Do you attache a USB drive to load all the soft?

Thank you so muchYou can do it without a USB CD drive. My system (Windows 98) did not have any modern usb drivers, so to load my map SW I first found the driver for my 2GB usb thumb drive on the internet and put this driver on a CF card using a different PC. (There is a CF card slot built into the fujitsu ). After inserting the CF card into the fujitsu I installed the usb thumb driver onto the fujitsu. I copied the CD for my map SW to the USB thumb drive on a different PC. I then inserted the thumb drive into the fujitsu and installed my map sw. It may be slow but it works.

[cgalpin]

Gustavo, as Len says you just need to get one mechanism working and then you have lots of ways.

Mine came with a wireless ethernet card that worked fine under windows (w2k).

USB thumb drives are cheap and usually "just work"

PCMCIA ethernet cards (wired or wireless) should just work. If you get the dock, it has an ethernet port and that should just work (the fuji has the ehternet adapter built in, just no port exposing it other than the dock).

If you have another laptop, it's trivial to swap the hard drive to it, and copy files direct.

If you get one and have trouble getting going, I'd be happy to help.

charles

[Rugbier]

Len,

That makes a lot of sense. I have couple of USB external / portable drive with autoplay drivers. Thank you.

Charles, I might take you up on that if I come to a wall I can't climb. Thank you.

One final bothering, any recommendations on the GPS software/Receiver? Also do you guys use Topo as well?

Thanks a mill for the info

[cgalpin]

Assuming you use windows, the only gps software I have used on windows is garmin's nRoute software, which worked fine on the fuji. Gives turn by turn directions and all that. The receiver seems to lose it's signal too easily in the woods, so I'm betting there are better receivers out there.

I use a mapping program under linux called tangogps that can use a variety of map sources, including google's topo maps, but I haven't used the topo maps much yet.

[Rugbier]

Thanks again

[cgalpin]

If you have the need for bluetooth, this looks like a good deal

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11866

[Rugbier]

thanks Charles.
I have a link one, little bigger but works like a charm