Power inverter for car based PC MP3 Player.

[Quaggoth]

I know I can just get an MP3 player built for a car, but I want a 10" touchscreen . Would a 300W power inverter be enough for a P200MMX or K62-300 or something like that? My local pawn shop has one for $30. I am guessing I could get it for $25. It has leads for plugging it into a lighter OR a battery. I think it was made by Pioneer or something. Looks just like an amp too.

 

[Zach]

If you are good with electronics, you could open up a computer PS and check if the transformer is a 12V. if so, wire it directly to the car.. if not, yeah I think 300W would be fine with a 230W P200 style PS.

 

[Quaggoth]

Ahhh, good call. I'm not REAL good with the component side of electronics (I'm good with PC hardware), but I am pretty sure I know enough to figure that out. Thanks.

 

[DarkManX]

go to www.mp3car.com u might find some info on building a powersupply to plug in directly into mobo and car outlet without the need of an inverter.

 

[DarkManX]

there MSG board

 

[Bulldog7000]

Except Computer power supplies are not your typical transformer/rectifier/smoothing cap PS. They are a high speed, transitor based switching PS. You should be able to power everything off of the 12V from the car. You can make a fairly accurate 5V supply with an inexpensive 3-pin 5V regulator. As far as the 10" touchscreen goes, it should run off of fairly low voltage also. You shouldn't have to go through all this power conversion(12V to 120V then back down to 12V and 5V) to achieve what you want.

BDOG

 

[Quaggoth]

Thanks. I think I have been to that site before but a long time ago. I will check it again to see if there is anything there that can assist me. I am sure there will be. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Nack]

If you decide to do it the quick, cheap and dirty way, and still need the inverter, there is a cheap inverter (300 or 350W, don't remember) at Sam's club right now. I think it is around $23.

Nack

 

[Zach]

The only 5v regulators I've seen in quantity are 1amp, he'd need like 5 of them in parallel to power a small system. An AT PS in front of me is 230W and pumps out 23A on the 5v line.

Unless the mp3 player websites have a great idea, maybe the easiest choice is buying an inverter and using a good single outlet surge supressor in between. Cut and splce all the cords down to a short length. Wasteful, but simple.