route66

vacuum fluorescent display with buttons installed

vfd and buttons

vfd

glovebox removed

hard drive bolted to glovebox door

mobo mount

in development

image of the voltage regulator used in this project

voltage regulator and power sequencer

sony xm222w amplifier

warnings

make sure you hook up the vfd's power supply correctly, reverse polarity will fry it (so they say)
my first itps did not work properly. i had to send it back for a replacement. make sure you test it with the car running for an extended period because my first one worked normally until it heated up a bit (after 10 minutes or so) and would not send a shutdown signal to the motherboard. it did work normally if i only ran it for less than 10 minutes but not after. logicsupply.com has great customer service. they took care of it without question.
if you run into an error mentioning /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.0/Term/Cap.pm comment out `use strict;` near the beginning of the file. this happened to me using redhat 9 but not using fedora core.
pushing the power button on a running linux system will give you a hard shut down (bad mojo) unless you have acpid installed and running and you change your kernel line in /etc/grub.conf to include `acpi=on` at the end (mine says: kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ acpi=on). now tripping the power button or a signal from the itps will send a `shutdown -h now` signal instead. much more graceful, eh? (this step may be unnecessary using other distros)
be prepared for all the advice on how you could have done it so much easier by just buying an iPod or a head unit that can read mp3 cds. cultivate a hearty laugh for use in these situations.

plans

these are some of the upgrades i hope to accomplish

running linux on a compact flash for quick boot and mysql queries (mp3s will remain on the hard drive)
update the database to contain all the settings ($master_vol, $random_play, $time_mode, etc) so that your last settings will be retained upon reboot
use the random and preferencing during building the playlist so that you can go back to the songs you just heard if necessary and going back doesn't scroll through skipped songs
add preferencing scheme that adds to the songs preference rating if you directly select it and subtracts from it if you skip it setting your preferences automatically
add ogg vorbis (i got it to play ogg files but it freezes the display and stops as the song ends...lock up! i'm lost here...anyone have any ideas?)
paint the back of the plexiglas black to match the rest of the dash. hey, i had purple paint. :^p

my mods

the beauty of the route66 project is that you can modify and update it any way you see fit. it will work the way you want it to work. who needs to shop for features when you can build in any features you want. no worries about obsolete equipment as you can update both the hardware and the software.

added james kershner's `play all` but need to fix the fact that if you go back to `play` (play selected genre, album and artists) it doesn't sync the display to the current song
added james kershner's preferencing but it skipped songs by pressing either `Next` or `Prev` (kinda confusing as it does not usually go back to the previous song) and it also runs the preferencing when you directly select a song from the `Select Song` menu skipping it more often than not so i fixed it so that it doesn't skip selected songs and also does not skip songs by pressing previous but that causes its own problem in that it plays even the skipped songs. i also added an option to the option menu allowing you to choose to disable the preferencing
here is my version of the route66 script: route66
when i finish the database updates i will include the changes here
i had thousands of mp3s on my other computer (mac) with caps, spaces and special characters in the names and i had them all organized in folders separated by artist name and album. the scripts included with route66 didn't do what i needed so i combined them and added some extras to the results and this is what i came up with: dir_rename. warning: this script will dig into your folders until there is no more digging to do and rename everything, folders and files alike. it will also chmod to 644. you have been warned. ;^)

why

there are many reasons i chose to do the route66 project instead of just installing a head unit that plays mp3 cds or to plug in my iPod. the main reason is that someone told me `you can't put a computer in your car`. :^) some others are below:

can your head unit do any of these:
- memorize volume settings for each song
- allow you to play any song from your entire cd collection with no lag between
- have all your mp3s at your fingertips (have fun swapping cds trying to find which mp3 is on which cd)
- remember the songs you like more than the rest and play them more often
- remember the songs you skip the most and play them less often
- allow you to delete a song altogether
- be upgraded to play different formats
- can be upgraded at all
- play video on a separate screen
- works how you design them to work
- works as a fully functional computer
- i'll think of more later :^)
can your iPod
- memorize volume settings for each song (it will normalize with sound check but this is not the same)
- smart playlists can kinda sorta work like the preferencing but not exactly
- allow you to delete songs or change playlists without hooking it up to your computer
- be upgraded at all
- ok, this is getting boring...i'm done for now :^D

sure you can carry your iPod with you outside of your car but don't bump it too much (like putting it in your pocket). I cracked the lcd by putting it in my pocket and walking 10 feet. iPods are not sturdy and apple considers them disposable. another point is the cost. route66 project is around $280 total (which includes an amp upgrade). an iPod and a head unit that you can plug it into is $499 for the iPod and about $200 for the head unit. not even close.

route66 project

click pics to zoom