ETech Day 1: Hack Sci-Fi Features into your Car

Related link: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2005/view/e_sess/6242

If people say the the journey is half the fun, they've never battled LA traffic on their way to ETech. I know that ETech will be tons more fun than being stuck in traffic -- hands down. On the drive to San Diego I was pondering my past ETech experiences and how I could avoid some of the frustrations that I encountered when I was faced with too many enticing sessions all happening at the same time. Inevitably I try to take in as much as I can at ETech, but that is about as successful as taking a sip from a firehose. There are always too many cool sessions and too many cool people to possibly take it all in. C'est la vie!

My plan for this year is to attend fewer sessions but pay closer attention to the sessions I do attend. Given this resolution, I was quite pleased to see the new format for this year's conference. There are fewer 45 minute sessions that run in parallel, and more high order bits sessions that are a cross between 45 minutes sessions and lightening talks. Each of these sessions is about 15 minutes long and attended by everyone at the conference.

I am excited by this new format -- it should cut down on the sheer number of sessions that conflict with one another and allow me to pay attention for longer. 15 minutes per subject is enough to get the idea of what is going on, but not long enough to get distracted with silly things like answering email. I have high hopes for this new format -- we'll see if it can help me stick to my resolution. I'll report back on this after the conference.

Now on to the Hack Sci-Fi Features into your Car tutorial -- presented by Damien 'hack your car' Stolarz and Raffi Krikorian. First, Damian and Raffi covered the basics of hacking your car by presenting the relevant standards, car buses (ODB-II, MOST, CAN), hardware terms and off-the-shelf computer components designed for car use. After this introduction, some basic issues about 12 volt (12V) car electrical systems were covered.

12V electrical systems are pretty simple and straightforward when compared to high voltage AC systems, but they do present a number of pitfalls and downsides. For instance, the 12 volt battery in your car powers the car's internal electrical system car, so you don't want your onboard entertainment system to drain the battery so you can't start the car. You also get quirks such as the 12V power in your car being interrupted when the car is started, since the starter motor requires all the available power when it turns the motor to start the engine.

Fortunately, hacking your car is not terribly difficult. After being in charge of the electrical system for an art car at Burning Man, none of the things that Damian was talking about were significant challenges. Though the standard precautions of safely working with electrical systems apply -- no one wants to see their hard work (and perhaps their own lives) go up in smoke.

The field trip to check out the 2005 Dodge Caravan and the 1950 Nash Ambassador really opened my eyes. While the Nash had higher coolness factor by having high tech hacked into and older car, the Dodge Caravan was the cooler of the two in my eyes. In the space of two days time Damian hacked a Mac Mini into the dash of the Caravan and connected a simple off the shelf flat screen panel to fold down from the ceiling of the van.

None of the fancy hardware that Damian previously talked about was part of this hack -- it was a standard Mac Mini, a power inverter, a cheap flat panel screen and a X10 webcam. Such standard components give this souped up mini-van DVD playback, HD-TV capabilities, a rear facing web cam to see the cars behind you, and XM satellite radio integration. All with parts not designed for car operation and all hacked together with very simple knowledge of 12V car power systems. Simple and cost effective. A comparable after market car system would cost $2000 where this hack came in under $1000. And which after market car system would let you run OS X??

In the end I realized that this entire system was a completely parallel system to the car's own computer. While it would be possible to hack ODB-II support into a Windows based OS, the integration with the car's internal computer would still be of limited use, since the internal car buses are primitive compared to the entertainment system that was hacked in after market. It is really sad to see that car manufacturers continue to build cars with closed systems that do not allow users to extend the capabilities of their own cars. I wonder if some car companies will wake up and realize that some people would pay extra to be able to hack their own cars.

This tutorial was certainly an awesome introduction to this year's ETech -- I can't wait to see what other goodies the O'Reilly conferences team has in store for us this year. Stay tuned -- I plan on covering all three days of the conference here.

Have you done any cool car hacking? Please share!