I got myself a raspberry pi couple of weeks ago. First I tried to make a HTPC out of it using XBMC but the interface was too slow for my taste. So I decided to build a carputer. 🙂 I have very basic electronic knowledge, so this will be a learning process for me too.

So far what I need is this list below:

• a car (Check)
• a 12V to 5V converter: I have cheap lighter to USB adapter. I’ll start with that but I’m thinking about this in the future.
• a 5V power source activated when the car power is shut: For this one I’m going to start with a circuit I had in hand that I was using to charge my wifey’s phone using a small solar panel. It has a 2000mAh Li-Po battery on it. (That battery is most probably flat. I’ll need a new one)
  I will need this power source for only maybe 1 min. Read next bullet point.
• a relay circuit that will detect that the car power is shut off and will send a GPIO signal to Rpi to shut itself off. Otherwise there will be corruption at some point of time. 😛 I believe I should write a simple script to shutdown to tie it to that GPIO signal.
• a 7″ touchscreen screen (possibly with an HDMI input. I have couple of candidates.)
• a software to play music and video. Biggest candidate so far is XBMC.

Nice to have:These will require a USB hub since I only have 2 USB inputs. (I need to look at the power requirements for the USB hub)

• a wifi/bluetooth solution for phone interaction.
• a GPS interface.

More update weekly. (hopefully!)