Groove posted:

Hi Paul,
I will let you know how I go with the screen.

About the computer, I bought a VIA mini ITX mother board and had started fabricating a case out of alluminium and perspex. I found a suplier for a 12 volt DC DC convertor made especailly for ITX motherboards running in a car ($49) all was looking good.

Then I saw a carputer setup using a laptop and decided to examin my existing laptop a little closer.

It turns out my laptop will start up and run with the screen closed (there is a setting in the setup) and will still send a pitcure to an external monitor at a different resolution to the built in display.

Taking this into account I decided to srcap the dedicated computer idea and work with the laptop. Now I am building a platform similar to a fridge slide under the drivers seat that the laptop will attach to with velcro straps.

All cables will be attached to the slide and it should be a simple job to remove the laptop if needed. This is cheating abit on the carputer idea but why reinvent the wheel, also I figure laptops are design to take a bit a bump now and then so it is well suited to the job. The only unresolve issue is a remote on switch so I dont have to fiddle about under the seat to swtich the thing on, this will require a bit of a hack to the laptop but nothing too hard.

The ITX motherboard will now be turned into a mp3 jukebox and high definition ditigal TV reciever and video recorder, but thats another project.
Cheers