Car Install, Xbox Car installation Options

[whopacha]

Hey everyone....

sorry if some of these questions have been asked before... but the search function appears to be broken for me?

i've browsed through these forums over the years.. but never really posted much, or anything,
but im after a little help.

backstory:

I'm in the process of installing an xbox into my car.
I tsop flashed it because:
a.) had only ever installed 1 mod-chip in one of my boxes and the rest were all softmods.... wanted to give tsop flash a try, and
b.) i wanted to change the boot animation - no animation.. xbox logo blue to match my car.. and the brand symbol - and make on the boot screen - success... looks cool.

also turns out i can remove the dvd drive and dont have to worry about a lockable hdd? is that correct?

i ripped out the powersupply and replaced it with an m2-atx i got off ebay.
made a little power converter board thing for the power levels or whatever.... (will post schematic if anyones interested....its a combination of multiple versions of schematics)

keeping the xbox in the boot of my car.... already have an amp in there and ran the +12, ground and ignition (remote amp on) to the m2-atx from that. i wired the j8 connector from the m2-atx (sends a pulse to power on) to the xbox power button on the front panel.... so whenever i turn the car on/off the xbox will also turn on/off.




question time..... basically i dont want the box to draw heaps of power - since its a car install - dont want a flat battery.

Q1 - dvd drive:
i wont be needing a dvd drive.... does removing it help with power draw.. even if its not being used?

Q2 MY MAIN QUESTION FOR THIS POST - hdd:
dropping the 3.5" drive to a 2.5" drive will save me power.... an ssd would be even better... moving parts like a hdd in a car may become a concern - however, ssd are expensive (will that even work in an xbox?) my main question is this: is it possible to use some form of IDE to memory card adapter to boot from?

whether it be a cf / sd / micro sd / usb drive.... whatever.... is this possible? has anyone done this?

example of what im thinking of:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Compact-Flash-C...=item20b5153cc4

if this works.. it wouldnt draw much power.... im assuming my tsop xbox wont care if its lockable? and should be pretty cheap? anybody tried something like this?




whilst im here.. does anybody have any tips for a car install once im up and running.... one thing on my mind is being able to resume playing from the last song in xbmc, found a script for it once but i could never get it to work... anyone get this to work?






sorry for the massive post.

This post has been edited by whopacha: Feb 6 2012, 01:37 PM

[AZImmortal]

Q1: The power savings will be minimal, but not having a DVD drive connected will save power.

Q2: The adapter should work assuming the adapter itself correctly "fakes" itself as a regular PATA device.

[Heimdall]

....and search works perfectly. Button at the top right of the screen, third from the right. There are loads of threads on car installations.

[whopacha]

Yeh ok, search does work properly.... my bad.

I purchased that cf to ide adapter.... but it turns out cf cards are just as expensive as ssd's anyways....

I bought a sata to ide adapter thing..... when it arrives ill try out a 2.5" sata drive I have laying around... if it works... I might go and purchase an ssd for it. :-)




Cheers.