Project: Dellude

Well, here goes... my first worklog for a case mod. For starters I am modding the case, more like throwing away most of it, of a Dell Dimension 4550. I know its old. Guts are as follows.
Pentium4 2.4Ghz (sorry folks, northwood core)
512MB Ram
Radeon 9700
Digifire 7.1 surround sound card
the power supply, monitor, motherboard, even the DVD drive are all dell supplied equipment.




Now you may be asking so whats he gonna do with a deadbeat dell. well, I am making it into a media center for my 94 Honda Prelude. I am also a big car stereo nut and the wife approved some $ for the stereo to be done. Stereo equipment will be as follows:
Infinity REF6012SI--6.5 inch shallow mount drivers, 4 for front doors and rear dash
Infinity KAPPA PERFECT12.1--12 inch subwoofer
Profile AP1200--1200 watt amp for subwoofer
Profile AP740--4 way amp for mids
INSANE amount of cableing for the amps and inverter for the puter.

I plan to run a 4.1 surround sound system all running off of the computer. I have already made som headway on the case by clipping what I dont need. I will make a fiberglass covering for it as it will be mounted under the dash on the passenger's side. The 15-inch(not a typo) monitor is mounted in the compartment for the passenger airbag. The DVD drive will be mounted where the old radio was and the plastig moulding of the old case will be incorporated into it to make it look like the whole puter is in the dash. Since I consider the stereo as part of the project I will be including progress of other parts such as subwoofer construction as well as fiberglass work that will be done on the rear dash.

For those of you wondering what OS I will run it will be XPPro. I dont listen to the radio much so I really did not care that I would no longer have radio reception.
Pics of progress thus far


Dash mounted 15-inch LCD monitor


Partially finished dash work


Roughly installed with OS working. AS you can see I really did not save much of the case. Mostly just what would fit under the dash. The inverter is the red thing. I wired up a relay to have it turn on when the ignition is on. Most of this has been done just to see if it would actually work. Since it did I've wanted to finish the project.

Please give comments and suggestions.

Nice project but can that LCD be tucked down or move?

Nope sorry... it just stays there. It actually does not interfere with my driving vision hardly at all.

Theft, though?

obsidian_mh said:

Theft, though?

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QFT. That's what I was wondering about.
Well, that and the passenger and cops.

Looks like a fun project. That monitor will be stolen before you know it though. I thjink you should invest some money in a new car first

Look into a 12v-12v power supply. With that, you will replace the inverter and psu with one unit. You should be able to find one that will more than suit your needs.

TheTMan said:

Look into a 12v-12v power supply. With that, you will replace the inverter and psu with one unit. You should be able to find one that will more than suit your needs.

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or just mod the PSU and take out the AC side.

wow, very interested to see where this goes...

Yeah, theft is an issue... Of course for the past 5 or so months it has remained in the car... # one I do have an anti-theft system. #2 the mirror tint windows along with the sun shade during the day you cannot even see inside to know its there. #3 I live in a nice neighborhood....it helps. Not to mention I keep crazy hours. I work at UPS and leave at 3:10 in the morning.

I looked into a 12v-12v converter but everything that I found did not support Pentium4. I checked mp3car.com and a couple other places I found. There were some really fancy ones that were over 100$ but This is a simple mod that I am trying to keep cheap. The inverter was only $30 at target and the relay was $5 at radioshack. It works and is reliable.

Forgot about the last question. Cops and passengers w/ reguard to the monitor. Thankfully (so far) Cops really do not seem to mind. because it is not in "direct" view of the driver. I have been stopped for speeding and not a word was said about the monitor. I usually put the visualization on when I listen to music and catch glimpses of movies I watch.

it would be tight if there was some way to mod it so that the screen would come out of your glove comparment, that way you could stow it away when you leave the car...

Willsonman said:

Yeah, theft is an issue... Of course for the past 5 or so months it has remained in the car... # one I do have an anti-theft system. #2 the mirror tint windows along with the sun shade during the day you cannot even see inside to know its there. #3 I live in a nice neighborhood....it helps. Not to mention I keep crazy hours. I work at UPS and leave at 3:10 in the morning.

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The crazy hour is a negative I think. My car got robbed in the UPS parking lot shortly after I made it to work during peak season. It actually happens quite often, it's a big parking lot, and it's full of 'rotating cars' so it's easy pickings for smash and grab, or even GTA. I personally don't leave anything I feel I can't afford to lose in my car anymore.

pics of ur car would be nice
mabey u could repaint the on/off button

Exactly right unknown. The puter is my old one. The monitor was free. The only way to get what is permanently attached to the car is to steal the car itself. I have a security feature that kills the starter. Enough with the security issues please. It is a risk we all play everytime we leave the car unattended.

Muffin: funny... my cat's name is muffin.... I'll try to post some pics of the car later today. You have been warned... its not pretty. It needs to be painted. Just waiting for warmer weather so a buddy can do it for me at cost. Silver with blue pearl. I really dont want to change the button but I have thought about putting a blue LED behind it. It was green before. Not sure weather to add the HDD ativity light but I may if I get things done ahead of schedule.

Well here goes some more pics of the car. I'll be showing some of the interior as well and explain what will happen.


Allrighty, here she is. Bad contrast but you get the idea of how bad it looks.


And again.


Here I took a picture so you could see how well you can see things inside during the day. It shows where the buttons and logo are for the monitor and where the mouse is. Not very clear. Which is a good thing.


Here is the rear dash. It will be fiberglassed sanded smooth and painted silver. Then the bare part below in the middle there is supposed to be a plastic area... the idiot owner before me tried putting a 3 inch speaker there and so there is a gaping hole that I need to fiberglass over and smooth over. It also will be painted silver.


Here is the trunk. It will be filled with audio equipment. There will be amplifiers in a false floor in the rearmost part of the vehicle. A woofer box will be against the seat. I will Probably carpet the box and am considering putting vinyl on the false floor.

Hope that helps visualize what I'm up against here.

ups worker with usps box in his trunk
looks like a very cool mod. how did your paint get so bad?

Well, The previous owner was going to paint it black and was doing the body work himself. Needless tosay he never finished.... part of the reason why I got such a good deal on the car. So there it is. It has primer and bondo work all over it. Hopefully if its warm enough the paint will be done next month.

Interesting, think we can get a straight on side shot of your car? been thinking about getting a project car.

lol nice work.... and no shame about northwood cores... its intels last good core in the netburst architecture.

Good thing I have some free time today, I am usually swamped in school work. I have 3 writing intensive courses this semester.

I dont know which looks worst the car or your work on the car puter.Man paint that car

oh god, please dont rice it out....

other than that, looks like a fun project.

why didnt you want to use one of those Mini-ITX Via barebones?

doesnt a cars 12v power fluctuate way too much to be safe to use with a PC, or is their some sort of convertor your going to use.

i had a set of 6.5" Infinity Reference series components up front. They sounded great, but man oh man im really enjoying my Diamond S600a Hex's. of course you need a damn 175w x2 amp to drive them

hows those Infinity Kappa Perfect 12" sub working out for you? i never had a chance to test out the Kappa subs. Im not too happy with my JL Audio 12" W6V2 (powered by JL 500.1). im looking into the Adire Brahma's.

ummm.. I hope you aren't running the computer through the tape deck. that's just ghetto and prolly sound like ass. If anything, just run the line out directly to the amps.

No ricification thank you. Its my commuter for school and work. Mostly I like it for the gas mileage. Anyways. Like what I said previously. What has been done thus far is just a rough job just to see if it would actually work. So with that said:


This is a picture outlining the box options that I am looking at. Mostly I need comparison to see how the speaker works in terms of efficency. I will explain each curve for those of you who may not be familiar with subwoofer design.

The green curve is the most efficent since it gets the loudest however I am confined to 1.4255 cubic feet. So, I kinda cannot fit a 1.72 cubic foot enclosure into a 1.4255 cubic foot space. The idea is to decide whether or not a 1 or 2 sub design should be used.

The orange curve represents a vented box with the volume I have and includes the volume of the port as well. This is as efficent as I can get with what airspace I am willing to use for the project.

THe yellow curve represents a sealed enclosure with the airspace I have total for the box. This is a very constant curve but I mostly just wanted the comparison in terms of efficency again.

The red curve is the vented enclosure that is recommended by the manufacturer. Less than impressive and too much volume. Again just for comparison.

If I turn up anything else interesting for response curves I will post and discuss.

I will decide on a final box design after I temporarily install the amplifier and calculate the transfer function of my car. for more small talk on transfer funtion...
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=917398&highlight=transfer+function

SpangeMonkee said:

ummm.. I hope you aren't running the computer through the tape deck. that's just ghetto and prolly sound like ass. If anything, just run the line out directly to the amps.

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Uhm did you read the first page? Removing the radio and placing the dvd drive there sort of implies an answer but to answer your question directly... yest direct connection to an amplifier will the method.

I did some more curve comparison for the subwoofer enclosure. I feel that the ideal curve for now will be one mentioned above. That means that I will have just one subwoofer installed at the time and later add another. When the other woofer is added I will gain about 12 dB out of car response and in car still has yet to be measured. Theoretically my guess is that I will be hitting around 145 dB. Pretty good fr only 2 12s and 2400watts. The software I will be using is the equalizer provided by hercules for the sound card and may add on another. I use WinISDpro by linearteam for sub design. It is a free program and very powerful. Main construction will begin as parts arrive this week and the bulk will be done next week when I am on spring break.

Thought that I would post some of the work I have done for others in the past.


This is 4 12s in the back of a broncoII. The rear window broke out. I ran 1/0 awg wire from the battery all the way back for the amp on this thing. It also took some really creative wiring as each woofer had 2 voice coils and all 4 woofers running off a 2 channel amp. It hit at 156 dB


This is two infinity reference series woofers in a honda civic. They were run off of a 1600 watt amplifier. It it at 148db It was a great system. Very clean and one of the best build boxes I have ever done. Very sturdy and well sealed.


this is the trunk lid cover I made for my pontiac grand prix. The logo stand for Evolution of Sound. This is actually one of my cheaper things. The plastic is a recovered broken clipboard I found in a garbage can. The carpeted part is actually posterboad foam. I used a $10 light rope kit to surround the plastic to illuminate it and I used industrial strength velcro to keep everything up. Altogether it was about $20 for the whole project.

Hope this helps visualize some of the techniques I will be using in box design and attention to some details.

Grazehell said:

I dont know which looks worst the car or your work on the car puter.Man paint that car

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Ok, while this is rudely harsh, perhaps its the honest truth. Dude, you have a great idea, but so far all I see is you ghetto-rigging stuff together. God, don't do that! Its a car for goodness sakes! But that aside, I am intrigued by that enclosure calculating software you got there. What is it and where can I get it?

atom said:

Ok, while this is rudely harsh, perhaps its the honest truth. Dude, you have a great idea, but so far all I see is you ghetto-rigging stuff together. God, don't do that! Its a car for goodness sakes! But that aside, I am intrigued by that enclosure calculating software you got there. What is it and where can I get it?

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I appreciate your opinion but I hope to not let you down. I use WinISD Pro. A group called lineartem makes it and its free. Heres a linky to their site for winisd
http://www.linearteam.dk/default.aspx?pageid=winisdpro
Its great and has never let me down.

Again, I know things look a little rough right now but honest, things will get better as the project progresses next week. I just want to get suggestions and comments. I belive this forum has some great feedback and that is what I am looking for.

Willsonman said:

Yeah, theft is an issue... Of course for the past 5 or so months it has remained in the car... # one I do have an anti-theft system. #2 the mirror tint windows along with the sun shade during the day you cannot even see inside to know its there. #3 I live in a nice neighborhood....it helps.

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I live in a nice neighborhood also, that didn't stop the bastards from stealing my Honda.

Edit: After seeing your car, I think you'll be okay!

After a week of work I have some updates.


Here are the goods. Plenty to do here.


Here is the door speaker mounted. It was a little creative and cramped to get it in there but it fits well and plays just as well. I rewired teh entire car with high quality wiring so that took a little work.


I really did not like the cloth that was on the grilles so I took it off with intent to recover them and I actually like the bare plastic. so I sanded .... alot and primerd and painted.


Here is most of the work that I had done on the DVD/HDD mounting. Epoxy and bondo... sand sand sand then some primer and paint with a little clear coat. I think I will touch it up later but I was losing time on this and another prosses I will show you.


Here is what I was able to complete on the rear dashboard. It was soooo much miserable work that I lost an entire day because it was a cooler day and the fiberglass would just not harden as fast as I needed it to. baah. this just took up so much time that I decided to scrap the idea to make it all smooth and just cover it with vinyl. As you can see the reflection in the window... Its very distracting and makes things difficult to see when driving so I opted to just go black vinyl. It will be shiny but not as shiny and black rather than silver because of teh contrast issue and not being able to see people when turning.


Here is some actual computer work. The IDE cable I had(the longest available) would not reach so I had to move it over to the left for it to reach. Since I moved the PSU I also had to cut the power lines and extend them for the DVD and HDD. That was unexpected and took more time than planned. Setbacks setbacks.


Power terminal at the battery. the 2AWG power wire was VERY difficult to cut.


Fuse for all power for amps and the inverter for the puter.


The sub box took me 3 hours to build and another hour to carpet. This is the mounted 12-inch woofer. Infinity Kappa Perfect 12.1 powered by...


a Profile California Series 1200 watt amp. The other 4-way 700 watt amp is for the 6.5 inch speakers in the doos and rear dash. I know the wiring looks messy now.... I was really tired yesterday at the end of this all and I had to clean up as the sun was going down. I also did not get in a final vacuum so there are some remnants of saw dust still.


here is the fresh farmer's tan I got from building the box and amp rack yesterday. It was hot and sunny and man I got some of it. Got Cancer?

I hope that pervious bashing of my work really does not contimue... I will state again that this is NOT finished. there is still much to be done. I work go to school and am a father and husband and also am very active in my church. I have other commitments that restrain my time. Come summer when school is not as a pressing issue I WILL... repeat... WILL finish this project. I am not as experienced as some but I have only gotten better as I try new things and learn new techniques. NOt ranting or making excuses just stating that my priority is not my car or computer. It is wife kid church school and whatever next. In that order. I am living my dream by having a family. This hobby just helps me to be constructive with my hands... an itch I have never been able to shake.

you could always spray the back dash with some matte clear coat. That'd dull the back dash a bit and might get you some more visibilty out of the back window.

Yes I thought of that but the color more than the lustre is teh problem. The amount of work needed to do all the bondo is just not worth it to me.

haha its a prelude, before i even scrolled down. I can recognize my 3g lude' anyday. The title of the project is quite nice.however scrolling down made me sad seeing the condition of it. heres mine with stock everything,cept the radio and speakers. never been repainted even with stock color.Not bad for a 13 yr old car parked outside eh? If you wanna give me a dell pc and monitor for free let me know

Summer is here and my time has opened up. School was great and exams are done. So I'm off to finish this project. Problem though. When I left off I had not finished the console with the dvd drive and the HDD. SOOOOO I started to dig everything out and take apart my dash and DOH!! I cant find a piece of plastic I need. I was hoping for some suggestions.


Here you can see at the top the curved piece I need is missing. I was going to epoxy it on and bondo over it a little. You can also see teh cracks that have formed on the sides where I bondoed before... Did not secure the bottom half well enough so I will have to reinforce that and do it over as well.


You can see more the problem I face with that missing square part in what plastic IS there. My thoughts are just glob a LOT of bondo on and sand carefully hoping that I do not make it look asymmetrical or fiberglass. Fiberglass would solve the reinforcement problem very easily.


Here is a piece of scrap plastic I had from the case dissection. I was going to use it as well to make it nicer around the bottom but I am still at a loss as to what to do now.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Other progress... I have layed out a layer of fiberglass over the rear center console to fix those nasty holes. Bondo to come and that will be out of the way. I also removed the carped that was ont he arm rests to expose bare metal. I sanded it down so that it looks like brushed stainless steel. Looks nice and clean. I'm kinda busy as well with the PCI-E overclock right now in the OC forum..so this is going not as fast as it could. And the weather is not exactly cooperating

bondo would prolly work, you just need to make sure all the pieces are glued together really well. Fiberglass would be totally awesome. Just think about what you are getting in to. It's a big mess and more expensive.

hmmm that kinda sux... although i have an old dimension 2400 that im gunna scrap for its parts in another cheap build im doing. i will not reuse the case... if you want the front face plate from it i wouldnt mind mailing it to ya. although mine has space for 2 optical drives but that could be easily modded. PM me if your interested

that will look quite interesting in the dash of a car once successfully done

good luck

Geo

Geo Fry said:

hmmm that kinda sux... although i have an old dimension 2400 that im gunna scrap for its parts in another cheap build im doing. i will not reuse the case... if you want the front face plate from it i wouldnt mind mailing it to ya. although mine has space for 2 optical drives but that could be easily modded. PM me if your interested

that will look quite interesting in the dash of a car once successfully done

good luck

Geo

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Well, thanks for the offer but.... I did the bondo thing and it turned out better than I thought I'll try to post pictures later. and would'nt you know it... I found the piece AFTER I did all that work. SUCK!!! ahh well.

When I first read the topic, I thought it said "Project: Dell Dude"