Help me out guys. I'm a little stuck on how i can make this function. I have ONE idea, but i'll post it at the end.

I'd like to use my stock key fob for my car to turn on the CarPC before i get in the car, most likely by some form of unlocking the car or initiating a door unlock trigger. The BIOS on this laptop is brutally slow, about 13 seconds or so. The total PC bootup time is about ~32 seconds right now. Imagine if i had a 5 second BIOS boot?

I had an idea to tap it into the trunk lock. My car's standard Fob unlock function is to unlock only driver door at first unlock press, unlock ALL doors and trunk at second press, hold second or third press and you roll down all the windows until you let go or they finish rolling down. So I had a plan that when i hit the unlock twice, it unlocks the trunk door and sets off a relay to momentarily pass voltage across the switch wires to turn on the PC. Obvious downside is if i accidentally press the lock/unlock again, it will turn the PC on.... when i'm not even going to the car. Sometimes i even just press it to reconfirm the car is locked. I guess i can leave it in the power management daemon to just power off if on battery for more than 10 minutes...?
And the carpc is actually a laptop (free, yay) so it can survive cranking and has a standard battery attached that provides ~2 1/2 hours of battery life. Just in case you're wondering.



Actually, that's the most viable option i can think of right now. I'd love to hear your ideas!

 

with the amount of times I double lock and unlock my doors I would go a different route.. just IMO. Idk what other route to go but just my $.02 and if I think of anything I will chime in.

 

I know! That's what has me stumped too.

For right now while it's still in its "test" phase -- i just have a manual push-button switch that sits in my cupholder. But it looks really ghetto having a couple of cat-5 wires coming from under a seat carpet and then looping up and sitting in a cupholder.


Actually, the double-lock isn't an issue (pressing the button twice in rapid succession to get the car to beep-back at me to confirm it's locked) since the BIOS seems to ignore any presses about a second and a half apart.

 

this thing is almost becoming more trouble than it's worth..... but damn if i can't stay away from a good challenge/project.

 

What you need is a pulse timer relay. This will allow you to set a higher number of pulses to trigger the car PC so that it's not something common. For example, you could make 4 presses of lock or unlock turn on the PC instead of 2. That would guard against accidentally triggering it.

 

This is what I was thinking. I haven't looked at any catalogs in a while, but I thought Peripheral / AAMP had something just like this. If I thought about it long enough, I could probably come up with some sort of series latching relay arrangement that would do it, but it would be big and clunky, to say the least.

The other simple idea would be a second key fob. You can get stand alone RF transmitter / receiver packages all over the place.

 

Awesome. Yeah, that may be something that I can do. Any ideas where i can get that/how much?


Hey Toby! Long time no see/post/whatever...

I wouldn't mind getting a second fob if it was tiny as heck. my keychain is already overloaded with all my work keys and fobs. I've tried looking for something like that in the past with zero success. I need something very inexpensive. ( i know, i know)

The whole purpose of the project is to make a carPC with the lowest amount of money possible. so far, the project is still amazingly under 250 bucks total for everything. I don't want to get to this point, then get stuck with buying a 150 dollar wireless fob and receiver and cross the 300 or 400 dollar line.


Also, i don't mind big and clunky as long as it's inexpensive and works (or can be worked on a lot TO work...) I can tuck stuff away in places very easily in this car. Especially anything near the trunk seeing as the space between the rear seats and the trunk has a V-shaped structural rigidity beam going across it and a ton of dead space.

 

A PAC TR7 is what you need, any stereo shop either has it or can get it in a day or so.

 

You guys are the shit...


I'm going to go ahead and place the order tomorrow... i've also got a damned router i need to buy and amazon will bundle it for super saver free shipping.

Unless someone can beat a $17.59 price (tax included)........ *cough*

 

I'll give you the deal of the week and sell you one for 20.00$ plus tax and you can call the difference a consulting fee, since your problem is now solved. And I won't even charge you shipping.