The Well-Linuxed Car

[Roger Oberholtzer]

We use standard computers in vehicles that operate in as cold as Chicago
and as hot as Riyadh. Of course, the equipment is only operated after the
vehicle warms up or cools down. But this equipment only needs to operate
when the crew are in the vehicle. The biggest concern is actually vibration.
For that reason we have used non-CRT displays like TFT (and similar earlier
technology, all the way back to the plasma displays in the great HP Integral
of the early 1980's). The other concern is power. A good NON-SWITCHING UPS.
It must always run things off its batteries, not switch from mains to
batteries. Oh yeah, all our equipment in the vehicle is 220 AC. There are
good reasons for this. Consumer electronics are typically AC. Things like
high-end VCRs. We run up to 5000 watts in some vehicles containing strobe
lighting systems. If you want power in the vehicle, take a look at
Electrolux TravelPower systems. These are great AC power supplies for
vehicles. I think they go up to 7000 (or even 9000) watts now. Not that you
could ever need that much (he said, with a 64K RAM smile). They come
smaller as well. Your vehicle's alternator can provide extra, but this is
iffy, especially when the air conditioner runs.

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:49:22-0800 Ted Ozolins
<ted1 at telus.net> wrote:

> Alma J Wetzker wrote:
> 
> > You will need to be carefull buying OTS parts.  The expected operating 
> > temperatures inside the cab will be out of spec for most comercial 
> > devices, thought mil spec should work.  You may also consider if any 
> > of these sensors need to be mounted outside the cab, making 
> > survivability an issue (as well as keeping the lens clean).
> >
> > Sorry to try being practical, but a car is a harsh, HARSH environment 
> > for electronic gizmo's and gadgets.
> >
> >     -- Alma
> >
> Excuse me! If these devices work well in an environment such as a paving 
> train, then there isn't a passenger vehicle on this planet capable of 
> dishing out a more adverse  environment.  Sphere Research  Corp. has 
> been developing and manufacturing embedded systems for unfriendly 
> environments for quite some time without every having to redesign or 
> recall its products. In a properly encased system with good thermal 
> design a system can withstand any vehicular installation.  This isn't 
> theoretical but actual taken from actual existing products.  Most system 
> that would be more than adequate for such a project run cool enough that 
> a fan is not required to cool the cpu.  Of course you would be advised 
> to use a well designed power supply to protect the system from glitches 
> caused by starting a vehicle and other electronics. Basically some 
> common sense is all  that is required in putting together a mobile 
> system. Once again as in my previous post, the possibilities are 
> endless.  Kurt, if you need info on any part of your project, let me 
> know. I'll see if some of the suppliers will fork over a few sample 
> products.
> 
> -- 
> Ted Ozolins(VE7TVO)
> Westbank, B. C
> 
> 
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? Roger Oberholtzer          ?   E-mail: roger at opq.se        ?
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