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Bubba 2 in a car

How are you using your Bubba? Got ideas for a cool modification? Share!
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gisraelsson
Posts: 2
Joined: 19 Apr 2010, 00:47

Bubba 2 in a car

Post by gisraelsson »

I plan to install a Bubba 2 WiFi with SSD drive in a car.
Has anyone else done this already?
How did you solve power on/off? I want to hide the Bubba completely
so power on/off should be handled completely automatically.
Did you regulate the power from the car or did you connect the Bubba
directly to the power chords of the car?
RandomUsername
Posts: 904
Joined: 09 Oct 2009, 18:49

Re: Bubba 2 in a car

Post by RandomUsername »

No clue how to do this but I'm really curious why you want to do it.
PeterTuson
Posts: 39
Joined: 22 Apr 2007, 03:01
Location: Great Britain

Re: Bubba 2 in a car

Post by PeterTuson »

I turn my Bubba (1) on and off from the power switch about once per week without any problems, so you could repeat that in a car.

I used to design electronics for military vehicles. The problem with connecting it straight to a battery happens when starting the engine, when the battery voltage may vary significantly from nominal. I would recommend some sort of power conditioning to manage any loss of power when the engine is being started as well as the normal variation of battery power.

It would be better if your Bubba was running from an SSD as the movement of the car on the road may effect the hard disk. We used solid state memory in military vehicles and we tied down the components.

Depending on what you want to do, there may be better solutions out there. For example, as well as a Bubba I also use a SheevaPlug in my house. It is much smaller, runs off an SD Card and uses less than 5W. However, you would need to load any extra packages you need - it is not so configured as the Bubba is.
peter
gisraelsson
Posts: 2
Joined: 19 Apr 2010, 00:47

Re: Bubba 2 in a car

Post by gisraelsson »

I want to automatically capture photos while I'm driving and I also
want to geotag them on the fly.

My idea was to have a GPS puck (a GlobalSat BU-353) and a simple
webcam (a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 Business) and connect them
to a Bubba 2 with SSD. I'm going for the SSD for two reasons:
Lower power requirements and it will stand vibrations better.

I want this setup to be active all the time while I'm driving and that's
the reason why I want it to start when I start the car and stop when I
turn it off.

I'm not too sure the SheevaPlug or the GuruPlug can handle this. I may
also end up with lots of photos so I think the hard disk may be most useful
as well. At this moment I'm thinking that I may use gpsd and exiftool.

Based on PeterTuson:s reply I think I'll start with the 'raw' method of
just switching it off...!
RandomUsername
Posts: 904
Joined: 09 Oct 2009, 18:49

Re: Bubba 2 in a car

Post by RandomUsername »

TBH, yours sounds like an overengineered (and expensive) solution for what you want to do. There must be some kind of smartphone app or even a dedicated device that will already do this. I know there is a gadget that constantly records the last ten seconds of a journey for when you have an accident and what you want isn't much more of a stretch than that. Even something like a GPS enabled netbook would probably be a cheaper and easier solution. Still, I wish you luck though.
PeterTuson
Posts: 39
Joined: 22 Apr 2007, 03:01
Location: Great Britain

Re: Bubba 2 in a car

Post by PeterTuson »

The nokia n900 is a debian linux computer within a phone.

This has GPS, 5M pixel camera, 32GB memory, Wifi, Bluetooth and the normal phone interfaces. Although somewhat expensive off-contract, this may suit your application better.
peter
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