Comment

Comment on Need a second opinion on a project idea (Pi5 car headunit)

I love the idea and it’s something I thought about doing too, so I’m super interested in this thread.

For me, I thought it would be interesting to remove the existing stereo and mount everything it the double-DIN hole left behind. That would give you access to power, ignition, and speaker wires easily. You would need to do some rewiring between cars, but it would be the most practical spot.

From working on some fleet vehicles before, I’ve seen interesting systems where all of the accessories were on their own battery that only charged when the car was running or off an external charging cord that could be connected if it was going to sit for a while.

The benefit of a separate power system was that the equipment didn’t need to boot up every time you started the car. Maybe the display and anything else could be powered only when running, but if the main computer was always powered that would save time. It could also get a signal from a battery maintainer that the accessory battery is low and perform a graceful shutdown.

source

Sort:hotnew top

abeorch@friendica.ginestes.es ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
@Godnroc @Natal Something like this that you could flash a custom ROM on?
a.aliexpress.com/_EumxSoE
source
Natal@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I have zero experience tinkering with cars so my first draft for power was simply a huge powerbank or two. In my use case, the device is meant for use when I drive alone, and when that’s the case it’s mostly very short trips of maximum 1 hour with standstill traffic, but more often than not max 30 minutes. Down the line I might improve the system and wire things more permanently but I need to build confidence first.

I was also looking at using the cigar plug for power, potentially, but I like the idea of a self sufficient, removable portable device.

source