Home Brew Car Stereo MP3 Player?

kevstev

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Jun 21, 2001
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Anyone here succeeded in making a car MP3 Player? I am trying to base one on a 486 66 laptop that I am going to control via a trackball mounted on my center console, and the laptop screen mounted either on my dashboard or also by the center console. This will be running off of linux or windows CE. My real problem is how to attach the laptop's sound card output (onboard sound) to the car stereo. Has anyone done this? can it be done?
-k

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FatBurger

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It shouldn't be too hard, actually. A lot of stereos (especilly higher-end) have RCA jacks going into them. You just need a converter.

By the way, a 486 might not work too well for MP3s, but who knows.

I'm interested in your setup. How are you planning on mounting all of this in your car? What kind of car do you have?

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CALV

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as stated, a 486 may struggle playing mp3's, I tried once on a 66sx with 8 meg and couldnt use winampp- was very stuttery. As far as the car stereo goes, if it doesnt have any line in's, you could maybe get one of those things for using a portable cd polayer in a car stereo, they look like a cassette and you put them in as you would a normal tape, they have a wire coming off themn that plugs into the cdwalkman (or laptop in this case).


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HighCv2

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I think if he runs linux on that 486 and one of the linux based mp3 players, he can successfully avoid skipping and/or stuttering providing nothing else is being done on the pc.

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FatBurger

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True, but it'd still be far cheaper and a lot less hassle to buy one of the MP3/CD car stereos.

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