Car PC Hacks

Chapter 1. Car Power Basics

Hacks 1-11: Introduction

Home electronics and car electronics are quite different. Homes are designed to power dozens of large appliances; cars are designed to power a handful of small electronic devices. Homes run on high voltages that could give you a heart attack; most of the electricity in a car won’t even give you a shock.

This chapter is going to give you a rapid-fire, metaphor-rich tutorial on electronics, and automotive electronics in particular. It will go over key terms, such as voltage, amperage, and wattage, and give you a basic understanding of how to do arithmetic with these numbers. The goal is to get you up to speed quickly on car electronics, and show you the essential system upgrades that will help you hook up and power your in-car computers and accessories.

Understand Car Electrical Systems

Different electronic systems, such as those for houses, cars, and computers, use very different connectors, voltages, and power levels.

If you are familiar with only home or computer electronics, you will need a little bit of background before you start playing with the wires in your car. This hack will introduce you to automobile power. Because you will probably want to “bench test” your in-car computers in the house before installing them in your car, it will also show you how you can hack a computer power supply to power your in-car accessories indoors.

The first term you need to learn about is voltage, which is simply the amount of potential (work, ...