Awesome MR2 Carputer!

[amb9800]

Check out this German guy's setup- he has his Toyota MR2 controlled by an awesome carputer, from A/V and nav to HVAC, speedo display, etc. (running a Star Trek TNG-resembling VB front-end on WinXP on a dual-core Nano-ITX board). http://translate.google.com/translat...-8&sl=de&tl=en Some of the pics (see thread for rest):

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[C24owner]

That is very impressive.

[Glasgow Gold]

All that effort and no coffee maker?!

[stormkenny3]

lol very good, the best i have seen by far.

[451/443=EW]

Very cool ideas but I dont really think it looks good.

[hellcat]

Pretty sweet but all that must've cost 3 times what the MR2 cost.

[amb9800]

Originally Posted by 451/443=EW

Very cool ideas but I dont really think it looks good.

Well the interface is designed to look somewhat like the LCARS interface of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so that explains the look.

The amount of work required to interface all of the car's functions into this thing must have been massive. I do lots of robotics stuff that involves these kinds of systems, and it'd take me years to do anything this complicated.

That said, it's frickin awesome. Just imagine, now that it's all computer-controlled, he could do so much stuff with it. All he needs to do is hook up a large servo to the steering and interface the throttle, brake, and gearshift, and you have a completely computerized car. Maybe it takes a little bit of working with this stuff to appreciate what he's done, but it's just absolutely amazing. I'd be really curious to dig inside and see how he did it all.

[amb9800]

Originally Posted by hellcat

Pretty sweet but all that must've cost 3 times what the MR2 cost.

Well he did it all himself-- the costs are basically just fabbing the new dash, the on-board PC parts, displays, etc. The other mods (engine, starter system, etc.) that he did probably cost more than the carputer side of things.

What must've been monstrous, though, is the time and effort involved. I can't even imagine having to go through hundreds of different interfaces, figuring out how the stock Toyota systems' signaling works, setting up A2Ds to interface the car's systems with microcontrollers and then the PC, installing servos to have automated HVAC control, etc.

He seems to be selling the car for 10,000 euros. If it were in the US, I'd definitely go at least check out his setup .