Violet's Rig Build Up

[Violet Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Violet]

Jacto....

Yes - very much home made. I knocked it up one evening after work from some scrap aluminium. I meant to just try it out to test the concept and then construct a better/neater one - but I never got the time before I left on my trip. I plan to go back and do it better later.

Yes this was a 2.5 inch drive - 60GB I think. I think this is fine unless you have money to burn. They are designed for laptops and therefore take a fair bit of abuse. I have had plenty of stories of people using this gear. I have also had my share of stories of hard disk crashes - in home/office computers. I had a laptop backup and an external USB hard drive. It wasn't a life or death situation if it had stuffed up. I had 2 months driving with the majority of time on very rough roads without a problem - but it could break tomorrow.

Just think - this sort of drive is only about $70US. You could buy a backup and still have plenty of cash left over instead of getting a SSD. But if you have run out of other things to buy - they do sound good.

Also don't under estimate the amount of room you may use. I have about 35GB of MP3 files and 15GB of maps. I haven't got any town/city street maps or tun by turn navigation software yet. This also doesn't include software. I also backup my photographs on this PC. I think 60GB is an absolute minimum.

[Jacto Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jacto]

Many thanks Violet,

Yeah I like the look of the computer setup because I am currently using my lapto, which is fairly heavy and gets very hot sitting on Jackies lap and when going over rough terrain it gets very uncomfortable. I am currently running Memory Map software and the maps alone are around 7.5 gig but it is very good and coupled to a bluetooth Qstarz 1200 GPS data logger is awesome.

I was going to look at one of the smaller 8" laptops but they don't come with enough disk space si I thought bugger it your setup looks the goods once I decide on which HDD to put in and what size touch screen. My fitment will need to be different though because I need access to the radio as I don't have controls on the steering wheel and was thinking about fabricating a setup that could be slid downwards when access to other controls were required, problem is getting the time

[Golly Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Golly]

Re: Violet's Rig Build Up

Mrs likes one of those solid state Dell 12" screen jobs. Might be a great idea to mount it like yours Violet, with solid state, bouncin around wont hurt it and it can have a shiteload of MP3's and movies on it to watch for her as we travel. MAPS MAPS MAPS is the go too.

Mmmm