CarPC - WheelPC Case v0.8 microATX pics included!

[Drutort]

First things first: this is over 1 year old, I started this project last year about this time and had it to 70% at jan, then school started and work full time so it just hauled as I would work on it after work few hours, all the engineering and manufacturing on the spot I do not take credit for the idea of a carPC in the wheel as its has been done in the past, but I do take all the credit in creating this design

Since then I have thought of a lot of modifications, and also technology has jumped greatly, esp in the ITX area.

Modification required to trunk area:
*Wheel cover will have to be chopped in the center for clearance and for ventilation purposes.
*Optional: the foam wheel support will need to be shaved about .50 -1” it is quite thick and you will save some space, your tire will drop lower in the trunk yet you will still retain the cushioning for the tire.
*Replace the wheel plastic retainer, get a hex bolt and use the metal part from the retainer, this will give even more clearance
*for good motherboard fitting, the corners of the motherboard hit the sides of the plastic wheel section, thus requiring of using something to deform little lips, or simply cut out the area, note some motherboard are less than 9.6 and might fit on one or other side

Specs WheelPC Case
Fits standard microATX 9.6 x 9.6 sized motherboard
Specific room for 2x 2.5 laptop HD’s
Specific area for DSATX DC PSU (220W)
Enough room to fit all the slots, note that height is limited to bracket size
Current design has 2x 120mm fans under the unit, to suck the air under and from the sides of motherboard
Construction material is all Aluminum

This is still in prototype stage

I had personally came up with a fuse/relay section that is in my trunk for carPC and other future components, I also routed power from the PSU to the front of the car 5v and 12v rails fused of course
I was in the works for creating a plug and play for other misc wire connection such as power, reset and so on, everything should be able to disconnect and take the whole WheelPC out in under 1min depends how the power is connected, I used a regular Molex 12v connection for the power coming into the PSU, so everything that I have can be disconnect fast
The unit its self is strong enough for you to stand on it, the support rails on the carpet area could be removed, as right now it causes a little hump

Future plans and upgrades
I am thinking of designing a slim form factor, as they have a number of devices including video cards, tv tuners, sound cards that all could fit in slim form factor reducing the overall height 1 or 2 inches, which would require less modding in the trunk
I am thinking of designing some kind of locking mechanism that would lock the WheelPC to the wheel were you would have to unlock and get access to the WheelPC and the Wheel its self
Different layouts for more peripherals, such as more room for HD’s or SSD or even CFM ide/sata cards
Thinking of using smaller but more fans either on top and bottom combo, instead of 120mm as they are pretty thick and require clearance at the bottom, 4x 60mm or other sizes could work
replacing all cooling solutions with a custom water cooling kit, mounted together


Tests, I had the WheelPC in my trunk for a little less than a year, while driving around with it, the mobo and all the components worked just fine
I could create more prototypes, but it would require me to design this in CAD system, and since I have no access to CNC’s yet it would be all manual and slow processes, with CNC I could take the solid and add other features maybe even material strengthening and weight reductions as well as better clearance and fitting

I would probably need 20-100+ people interested in order to go the CAD and CNC route, and the costs are still unknown at the moment, but should cost some place around a high end computer case

[Drutort]

if you have questions or any suggestions or ideas please do reply

What i was running, was an AMD cpu 45W, with a nvidia mobo, with the 7050 GPU, i could add sound card and tv tunner or even a video card

but as far as video im not sure its needed, as i was able to play old 3D games at the 800x600 res just fine the boot up time with the single HD was pretty quick due to the fast memory, HD and dual core CPU

right now i have sold the PC components as im waiting on building an intel microATX, with a more powerful IGP i thought about a geforce 9500 too

add one or 2 controllers and you can game just about anything you want, add tv tunner BT cell phone data connection and you can surf the net or whatever you want

microATX vs ITX is the price point, you get more for your buck, a lot more, the freedom to use older full computer parts, or reuse your old computer parts

Undervolting is key or underclocking, as you can buy a high end cpu and undervolt it and get to mobile power consumptions same goes with video cards (though voltage mod is hard on them) you can still underclock and it will consume less power and less heat

PICS

[TheFupaTroopa]

Just get an iPhone haha..Or a wireless card for a laptop..I dont see a reason for anybody to have that in an is....But anyways still a cool toy to show offLooks like alot of hard work went into that bad boy so i show respect for that..+rep

[Drutort]

Originally Posted by TheFupaTroopa

Just get an iPhone haha..Or a wireless card for a laptop..I dont see a reason for anybody to have that in an is....But anyways still a cool toy to show offLooks like alot of hard work went into that bad boy so i show respect for that..

i have a tilt i know its pretty much a pc in your pocket but ya, having a custom comp in your car... well thats diff and putting one of those touchscreen's in it works nice, i stopped at the fab of the touchscreen, otherwise everything else was working now im going to wait for things to be cheaper

im thinking of going with intel core duo e8400 or something like that with one of those IGP a 9300 geforce that thing is nice, plus i can throw in usb tunner card, and a geforce 9500 for hybrid sli LOL and have some fun can even put blue ray LOL or just reg dvd's

its also possible to go the cheaper AMD route and this will all be far more powerful and cheaper then your reg laptop

im finish my degree in Manu Eng. so ya

[Johnnysks]

Operating temperature tolerances? How are you getting cold air in there or are you just recirculating hot air (which looks like to be the case = eventually failed). Keep in mind PC parts are designed for indoor usage. Trunk gets hot during the summer, not to mention vibration and other sort of crap automotive grade stuff has to deal with.

[Drutort]

Originally Posted by Johnnysks

Operating temperature tolerances? How are you getting cold air in there or are you just recirculating hot air (which looks like to be the case = eventually failed). Keep in mind PC parts are designed for indoor usage. Trunk gets hot during the summer, not to mention vibration and other sort of crap automotive grade stuff has to deal with.

im fully aware of that, the only components that i can think of that would be temp spec is capacitors all other components have a high temp tolerance, vibration is not that big of a deal, as far as temps for the whole unit that is understandable, this is why undervolting or underclocking produces a lot less heat, and 90% of the time the carPC will be under little operating load

believe it or not there are 2 vent areas in the trunk on each side, i had plans to put small rubber props or cut outs for specific air flow, i live in AZ and it cant really get any hotter in were else, so ya I know how hot it can get

also this all depends on the computer components selected, there are cpu’s and video cards that can run on passive cooling, adding a cooling fan or something else will work just fine

btw all of this talk is all nice and all, but im not reinventing the wheel everyone else has been running carPC’s this thread is about specific custom made carPC case

CarPC's have been around for a long long time, im sure your familiar with mp3car.com

they sell a lot of parts for your carPC and good forums

[Numonik]

kind of an extreme design for putting a carpc in.

[Drutort]

Originally Posted by Numonik

kind of an extreme design for putting a carpc in.

why? its a custom fit, and utilizing the space in the car which is quite little in the trunk area

it could be made to work with any wheel though... with some redesigns

[twestman]

Wow that's pretty extensive! Looks great though man

[Drutort]

Originally Posted by twestman

Wow that's pretty extensive! Looks great though man

thx, wish i had it all together, i would show it but since the project is on hold, until new tech comes out and i do some more R&D and eng, for some other ideas i got

ya its only prototype and its like handmade, with manual machining only so ya, its not that pretty but i could make it look a lot better if it were to go into production

also i jus thought of way to save power from the psu, the fans that i have each draw like 5w+ i believe or something like that i would have to calc, and thats just no point, as fans can live of off unregulated voltage just fine, i should just use cheap voltage regulators with a simple relay to turn them on when power goes from mobo or PSU

thats one way to save some power usage from PSU for other devices

[twestman]

That's a good idea. 5w of power per fan isn't going to amount to a lot of power that's saved though......

[Drutort]

Originally Posted by twestman

That's a good idea. 5w of power per fan isn't going to amount to a lot of power that's saved though......

ya true but that is like one or 2 usb devices or something like that

[bigpimpn79]

Hey, glad to see another carputer enthusiast. Nice design and well thought out to conceal it. I had the experience of going through 2 Tucson summers with the CPU in a hot trunk with it mounted to the top of the inner truck space with plenty of air from the truck to help cool it down and it still didn't work.

I temporarily put it in the passenger foot well to just keep it from dying all the time and it worked. The whole project in general finally did me in and I tore it out. I would highly recommend on working on the cooling system since its going to be tucked away and that Phx is 10 degrees hotter. Let me know if you need any other random parts since they are laying around now.

[Drutort]

Originally Posted by bigpimpn79

Hey, glad to see another carputer enthusiast. Nice design and well thought out to conceal it. I had the experience of going through 2 Tucson summers with the CPU in a hot trunk with it mounted to the top of the inner truck space with plenty of air from the truck to help cool it down and it still didn't work.

I temporarily put it in the passenger foot well to just keep it from dying all the time and it worked. The whole project in general finally did me in and I tore it out. I would highly recommend on working on the cooling system since its going to be tucked away and that Phx is 10 degrees hotter. Let me know if you need any other random parts since they are laying around now.

well as far as parts i dont really need anything atm, but maybe in future what i need is to know your stats of the carPC, all of them and like what temps you were getting on idle and what the outside/inside temp was about, and also what kind of heatsink you used etc... so i can get a clue how much i have to shoot for, i am thinking of going water cooling, in fact im thinking of going 1 step farther, adding a small peltier about 30-45W one or so to a water block and the hot side mount it to the top of this case or so, to dissipate that heat, this would only be controlled by a relaty and a temp setting when it gets to some extreme temp, probably above 100F-110F as the water cooling cannot cool any more then the ambient temp, so i would have to use a peltier to drop the temps say if it goes over 130F in the trunk to something under 100F for the water

Do you know some facts how hot it can get in the car in AZ? it would be nice to know, i know the interior will differ from the trunk, at times i found the trunk to be cooler then interior in parking lot, but of course not when you turn the AC on

also it would be nice to know how the temp in the trunk reacts with the AC on in the car, how long or how much does the temp drop in the trunk if at all?

[ItalynStylion]

Ok....this is pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen. I say pretty much because boobs exist.