Installing a Power Supply

[joesan]

Folks - A little help would be appreciated - I want to install a Carnetix 1900 Power Supply to power a Mac Mini computer in my Boxster.

However I've never attempted anything heavily electrical in the car before. I was hoping to be able to utilise the spare phone connector and power supply that is behind the main console (I've seen others mention it here on the Renntech forums.

Attached is the suggested wiring for the install.

Can I just connect the postive and negative of the Carnetix to the positive and ground of the phone connector? Or is it more complicated than that? And if I want to add the ignition switching what do I need to do?

Any advice or better still photos highly welcome.

[jhall299]

I've never looked at the cell phone wiring to which you refer but I doubt it could carry the load of a PC. I would guess the max draw on a cell phone would be around 500 milliamperes. The diagram you show is fused at 15 amps. I would run a separate circuit as the diagram shows.

Jon

[joesan]

Thanks Jon - you're right that makes sense as it's quite a large load.

Two things I am really not sure about, maybe you can help.

First can my connection to Ground on Carnetix side just be direct to the negative post of the battery or should it be some other ground in the car?

And Second the diagram shows only one wire to the ignition switch does that make sense and if so where would the connection be?

[jhall299]

While I'm sure there may be those that disagree...ground is ground. Whether you connect to the (-) post of your battery or to another location on the frame really doesn't matter. Basicaly the ampacity of the ground connection needs to be as good as the fuse on the + side. Any connection to the firewall or any other "connected" metal part of the car should be fine.

The diagram only shows one connection to the battery as mandatory. The second power connection seems to be used to control power based on the position of the ignition. It may be used to disable your power supply when the ignition is off to prevent draining the battery. I would need to see more of your documentation to be sure.

Jon

[ralegen]

Joesan, Please keep us posted. I too am thinking of setting up a carpc. I think theres a person who is very active with posts on mp3car.com. He setup his boxster S a while ago. Just search for boxster, and you'll find him. He should be able to answer some questions.

[joesan]

Ralegen - no problem - I certainly will. I am pretty proficient in the Computer side of things but I've only just started working on the car myself. I'll try to post some photos of the install. I am doing the mac mini install because I have hundreds of CDs that I keep leaving in the car and they then get scratched! With the computer install for the price of a good audio system you get a digital jukebox with access to hundreds or even thousands of CDs, plus video thrown in for free, plus the possibility of internet access, and throw in a receiver and you get cheap GPS. All in one sleek touchscreen.

The mini appeals - because it's a Mac (obviously) and the size is just perfect to fit in the dash. A drawback is that the in car software is not as developed as in the PC world and the GPS is truly awful at the moment in the Mac world. I'd love to be able to take a video out from something like the TomTom and just display it on the Mac's screen. I don't think that this is possible at the moment though.

Thanks for the heads up on the MP3 forum guy. Rainy Day Garage has a few nice articles on a Mac Mini in a Boxster but they don't have any good detail on the actual installation process.

[ralegen]

I am pretty proficient in the Computer side of things ...

I'm too!.. I did a good amount of reading on mp3 faq's page, and they have a lot of good information. I wanted to go the Mac route also, but I'm not used to using Macs, not to mention your point about limited GPS software. As far as displaying the TOM TOM on the touchscreen, that is a good idea. However, I did some research, and I didn't see anything about TOMTOM for PC. I only saw it for the pockePCs. And I didn't see any relevant information on video outputs.

Here are some links from the mp3 sites. These guys did some work on their boxsters.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread...ghlight=boxster

http://www.rainydaymagazine.com/RDM2006/Ra...bellInstall.htm

I'm sure you already visited these sites, but I posted them anyways.

[joesan]

Thanks Ralegen - actually I hadn't seen that first thread, so I have subscribed to it. The Rainy Day site is cool but they never seem to give quite enough technical detail for me.

Yeah I've never seen anything on anyone getting video out from a TomTom - part of the problem is I suppose that the screen is also an input (i.e. touchsceen) but I am sure it is technically possible.

I'm sure one of these days someone is going to develop a really good in-car GPS solution based on Google Earth. That will be awesome. I've already seen the prototype that the japanese car companies have come up with. Looks good.