Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Questions about Car Audio
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Naukai
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Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Naukai »

G'day all

I'm new to the site and have a few questions.

I'm currently in the process of respraying my 77 TC Gemi and tossing up ideas for on board entertainment while the vehicle is stripped.

I've been heavily into the 4b scene and coming back into street cars and I am keen on running the centrafuse program. Its a pc based program and I was thinking about attacking a laptop to mount in the boot but my old man mentioned the new Raspberry Pie computer chip would be the way to go at only $40.

Has anyone had any experience with Centerfuse or the Raspberry Pie chip?

Are any members running pc or lyinx programs for their multimedia and engine diagnostics?

Cheers

Ash
Turbocoupe75
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Turbocoupe75 »

Spam bot?
#Turbocoupe75
Naukai
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Naukai »

Why do you say spam bot?

I think I have answered my own question though... I don't think it has enough grunt to work certrafuse.

Sorry its called Raspberry PI.

I'm not a spam bot just asking some questions to get to know the new forum and my old man suggested this as an option and was wondering if anyone was using it?

By the looks of it you guys are all using conventional stereos... Sorry for the ignorance but I would have thought that an on board computer would be helpful especially with engine logistics amongst other features

If you can spam another program to use I'd be more than happy to look into it.

I'm just going to attach an old laptop to mount and see how it goes.

Thanks for the warm welcome

Ash
ajs991
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by ajs991 »

Turbocoupe75 wrote:Spam bot?
I wondered the same thing but it was a bit too well worded and no link to China or something :lol: Plus he has made plenty of other posts now.
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Turbocoupe75
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Turbocoupe75 »

Lol appologies

the raspberry stuff threw me..
Naukai wrote:I would have thought that an on board computer would be helpful especially with engine logistics amongst other features

Is your car fuel injected? there is nothing for a computer to manage on a gemini apart from the dashboard clock.
#Turbocoupe75
Naukai
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Naukai »

Yes the car is injected
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Danman
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Danman »

I am looking at setting up a Raspberry Pi for my car! Hadn't spotted this post before...

Planning on running fastdosbox on it to get the halwin (old haltech tuning program) software to work. This will allow me to tune whenever I want and see the gauge page which monitors everything the Haltech can see, with no need to carry a laptop!

Also planning on running Openelec and Retropie too. Openelec lets you play whatever media you want and Retropie emulates old consoles.
The sound quality is apparently pretty bad so may need a USB soundcard. Like this one: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi

As I am in the UK I'll be setting it up over here just to test it out and get it working right. Then installing it in the car when I get home sometime late in the year.
I will need to choose a screen and figure out where to put it in the gem, thoughts?
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Jonno »

Without saying this is an excellent idea. What about a tablet?

Integrate it into the dash or someshit. My mates done it in his 86 works well.

Alternatively run a small laptop with a decent battery OR chuck an inverter in and run it like that.
Aux cable to cd capable player?

Then you can tune on the fly or what ever.

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Danman
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Danman »

Yeah, if you have a car with the OBD whatever plug you can get some cool things for that. Get some more details on his setup!
I also found a totally cool program if you have a subaru too, lets you monitor everything and has really fancy displays! http://www.romraider.com/ <--- CHECK IT OUT!! Lets all get Subarus!

The advantage of the Pi over a laptop is the size and power consumption, it's the size of a credit card! and uses 5volt and ~1amp. The down side to the Pi is its limited processing power, so it struggles to emulate windows, so windows programs (like new tuning software) probably won't work on it.

Like you said in your post, my updated plan is to get a dvd player head unit and plug the Pi into its aux input. So the head unit does all the multimedia stuff and the Pi just does emulation and the Halwin stuff.

This setup should be pretty straight forward, Retropie has a DOS emulator as well as all the console emulators. So I only need to put Retropie onto my Raspberry Pi and away I go! ...
BUT the Halwin software for DOS looks a bit crap (no gauges, just text) so I am looking for alternative software and might have a solution which will give me gauges, BUT I can't really test that till I am back with my gemini...

Also I would like to know if one of these would fit in a TE dash: DVD player with a downward facing screen
They kind of look like they would fit, might have to space it out a bit to clear the lower bit of the dash, also not sure about gearstick clearance. Someone should buy one and test it for me ;)
It would be better if it had Digital TV! ... and the screen doesn't slide back into the case...

The Raspberry Pi is on it's way to me and the most important part of the whole project is completed, I have made my splash screen:
splashdun7.png
splashdun7.png (14.5 KiB) Viewed 15107 times
:D
More updates soon!!!
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Danman
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Danman »

Update: The Raspberry Pi arrived! Same size as a drivers licence (the ports and SD card stick out a bit though). The SD card adapter pictured (with the fancy raspberry on it) doesn't work! Luckily I had my own one (no raspberry though).
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Then I made a box for it, from the box that it's power supply came in.
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Then after a LOT of stuffing around finally got it to work. Using the worlds crappiest tv, with built in VHS player! I don't think I'll fit one of these to the gem. It was really hard to take photos of the screen, different angles seemed to help a little...
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Need to adjust the screen settings so it is not just "ALTECH" lol... Hopefully this won't happen on an LCD screen...
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It seems that the SD cards occasional stuff up and have to be re-flashed. Re-flashing doesn't take long and is not too hard, but it definitely sucks! I had it all going just the way I wanted it, was just finishing adjusting screen settings so it would say "HALTECH" and then it died again! It gets to the "Danman's Gemini Retropie" splash screen (the best part) and then goes blank :( start again Dan...
This is a major downside for having it in the car because you need a laptop to re-flash it! Maybe once I stop fiddling with settings it won't die as much...

The other problem is the lack of setup information for these things. They seem to assume you will know all about how to install it and get it to work, so the instructions for everything are very minimal and/or out of date, or just plain don't exist! I feel like maybe I should write up my installation instructions and share them around because I had to make so many mistakes and had so much frustration before I figured out the correct way to do things!

Good part, once you've managed to decipher the way things are installed, it works quite well. Tuning software works nicely. Gotta figure out keyboard control configuration for the old console emulators next. I plan on getting some gamepads for it, I think they are supported straight away. As usual (with the Pi and Retropie) I am really struggling to find info on setting up keyboard controls...
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Danman
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Re: Raspberry Pie Computer Chip for on board entertainment

Post by Danman »

Found the keyboard info and was playing NES games all night! :D
Trying to totally fix the screen still makes it die though. I think this is because it goes off every side of the screen, so me telling it to bring in every side of the screen is too much for it (perhaps it doesn't leave enough space for the image). I can see the left side fine now. Hopefully this won't happen with an LCD anyway...
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