Spring break has arrived for our humble little school district, perhaps its time to pick up an ongoing project.

I needed to get the ball rolling once again on my truckputer. After almost no time at all and with very little contemplation I devised a plan to carefully finesse the 3rd front seat out of its objectifying position.

 

Eureka! Underneath this padded casualty, to my unanticipated surprise was a strange and mysterious box that apparently played a significant roll in the air bag deployment system. I knew this because after halfway dismantling it I came across a word of warning that foretold of bodily injury due to unexpected deployment. Nevertheless this provided me with an opening in the carpet to run a USB cable from the truckputer to a four port USB hub connecting the keyboard, external HDD, or any other USB driven peripheral I may lust after.

Attempt 1: I find that the key to learning something quickly is to make as many mistakes as possible, hence the name "Attempt 1". I disassembled a legal size file MacGyver style for its metal hangers, I created a slim-jim like poll to guide a cable underneath the carpet. Everything started off fluently until I realized my mistake... these things are sharp, real sharp after enduring a dozen cuts on my thumbs and drawing a frightfully small amount of blood I decided to rethink this approach.

 

Attempt 2: Metal coat hanger for the win! I straightened out a metal coat hanger and tied a piece of forty pound monofilament thread to the end, pushed the wire through, tied it to one end of the USB cable and elegantly located it under the carpet.

My data backbone installation achieved victory. On to the power supply.

 

Power Supply

Now that I have the main data cable ran it's time to install a main source of power, my power inverter of choice is a DC to AC 300 watt dual outlet inverter by Sima. I placed the unit under my currently disassembled 3rd seat in a strategic place with the on/off switch positioned in a convenient location.

 

This power supply provides my truckputer and 1TB external hard drive with an abundance of alternating electrons.

Updates will follow...

The GPS is in place and the hard drive is spinning but how will I ever make everything fit in just 2 USB ports? Easy, unpowered USB hubs! Two to be exact, one in the arm rest and one behind the truckputer.

 

The first USB hub is strapped securely beneath the truckputer, this hub provides GPS access as well as 3 available ports for additional add-ons, The second hub provides external HDD access and keyboard functionality.

At this point the truckputer has a working music/movie database and incorporated GPS system. I decided to take everything for a test drive. To my anticipated shock, I quickly recognized a grounding issue caused by the power inverter; while the power supply was turned on it generated static which transferred via the USB network to my audio card and straight into the stereo. Swiftly I borrowed a gator clip and wire and grounded it to a spare power outlet in my arm rest, highlighted in the following image.

Connecting the USB to the trucks grounded frame removed all static from the audio instantly.

Using my Microsoft Streets and Trips USB GPS adapter I setup an embedded version of IGuidance UMPC edition, this simple GPS program works smoothly with my frontend software.

I began searching for a hidden yet open location to position the GPS antenna. I found a cosmetic vent on the front dash that was un-utilized, there was just the right amount of room for me to reach from the bottom of the dash board up to this empty vent and position the adapter in line of sight to the GPS satellites, yet invisible to the typical criminal.

 

I recently came across a spare 1 terabyte external hard drive from Maxtor that I bought a while back for a steal of a deal... I loaded ~80 movies and a few hundred hours of music on the terrorbyte with about 700GB of available storage bliss.

 

After pretending to do research regarding the effects of horizontal and vertical vibrations and shock to a hard drive in a vehicle, I concluded that bungee cording the drive at a 45 degree angel firmly to a fixed portion of the frame would provide adequate fault resistance.

I haz truck! I picked my truck up today from the dealer after 30 long days following a $500 deductible. Geico picked up the remaining $14,000 tab, thanks. Since replacing the hood was to be expected I mandated the upgrade to an SRT-10 hood with scoop. The truck runs straight and great, the paint job is flawless, and with the new hood scoop hitting small animals in the road presents its self as something slightly more enjoyable.

Before



After

It’s been 3 weeks since I preformed the”Safety Collision Test” on my Dodge Ram, and still I haz no truck : ( I visited my truck in the hospital this past weekend and regretfully forgot to take pictures. My truck is currently in the ICU of Arrigo dodges body shop, and awaiting a new frame. That’s right; the frame was bent during the safety test, this is because of soft spot in the frame designed to absorb the impact in the event of an actual accident...

They have removed all damaged parts, prepped and painted the replacements, and are working on moving the flesh, guts and blood of my truck to the new frame. I’m looking forward to driving my Dodge Ram off the lot once again before the end of this month.
*fingers crossed*

A few weeks ago Truckputer.com experienced an epic downage, due to a “coke on server” error at the data centers end. This will be the second time I have rebuilt this site from the ground up, but it continues to become even more awesome each time around. Thanks to the fastidious people at Requeny Solutions we are able to return to the internet on an even more powerful server at an indomitable rate of $0 a year!

I made a Kodak moment the other day (Tuesday, September 30th 2008), it was Roshashana and I had the day off. I decided I would park my truck sideways in the middle of I-95 near the Hillsboro exit and take a picture. It worked perfectly! I was able to block two lanes. People where so impressed they where honking there horn in support.

In the process of create my Kodak moment I had a chance to execute an emergence safety collision test. The test was successful; you can read more about it by visiting the “Safety Collision Test” page.

*currently installed*
It’s about time to get this computer mounted. During a not so short trip to Home Depot I came across a plastic spring-loaded hinge with a large amount of potential. After about 45 minutes of haggling the price on open box items, my dad and I where able to save $10 which was perfect because that’s what it cost for a double bacon cheese burger and fries at Steak and Shake afterward.

 

This is a picture of the hinge unscathed and marked for cutting; on the right, a picture of the cheese burger, also unscathed.


 

Let the cutting commence! After a few cuts and a moderately painful trip to the emergence room (not really) the spring-loaded door hinge was finally taking shape.


 

After a diminutive amount of trial and error we managed to screw the mount beneath the cup holders, and the truckputer swung into action, but because mount concept #2 differs from concept #1 I ran into a few unforeseen complications. The truckputer (when in the down position) would not fit under the console. I proceeded to remove the plastic molded shroud that was blocking the swingilishusniss of the truckputer, it looks a little dire but from a seated position it’s hardly noticeable.

I’ve had a few inquiries as to how I will operate a computer while driving; my most common answer is cruise control, but the real secret is front end software. So what is front end software? Well basically it’s a program that runs on top of windows or any other operating systems that creates a finger friendly GUI (graphical user interface) for controlling various system operations such as playing music, manageing GPS, movies, internet or just about anything else you would ever want to do with a truckputer.

This is what you will see immediately after the truckputer turns on. You can be sure your fingers will be happy when they meet face to face with this GUI’s big buttons. This particular front end program is called Roadrunner. Roadrunner is a free program that works great and has loads of available options for customizing your truckputer. My current installation of Roadrunner is still minimally configured and awaiting updates, but now that its installed I can focus on mounting it.