Spring break has arrived for our humble little school district, perhaps its time to pick up an ongoing project.

I needed to get the ball rolling once again on my truckputer. After almost no time at all and with very little contemplation I devised a plan to carefully finesse the 3rd front seat out of its objectifying position.

 

Eureka! Underneath this padded casualty, to my unanticipated surprise was a strange and mysterious box that apparently played a significant roll in the air bag deployment system. I knew this because after halfway dismantling it I came across a word of warning that foretold of bodily injury due to unexpected deployment. Nevertheless this provided me with an opening in the carpet to run a USB cable from the truckputer to a four port USB hub connecting the keyboard, external HDD, or any other USB driven peripheral I may lust after.

Attempt 1: I find that the key to learning something quickly is to make as many mistakes as possible, hence the name "Attempt 1". I disassembled a legal size file MacGyver style for its metal hangers, I created a slim-jim like poll to guide a cable underneath the carpet. Everything started off fluently until I realized my mistake... these things are sharp, real sharp after enduring a dozen cuts on my thumbs and drawing a frightfully small amount of blood I decided to rethink this approach.

 

Attempt 2: Metal coat hanger for the win! I straightened out a metal coat hanger and tied a piece of forty pound monofilament thread to the end, pushed the wire through, tied it to one end of the USB cable and elegantly located it under the carpet.

My data backbone installation achieved victory. On to the power supply.

 

Power Supply

Now that I have the main data cable ran it's time to install a main source of power, my power inverter of choice is a DC to AC 300 watt dual outlet inverter by Sima. I placed the unit under my currently disassembled 3rd seat in a strategic place with the on/off switch positioned in a convenient location.

 

This power supply provides my truckputer and 1TB external hard drive with an abundance of alternating electrons.

Updates will follow...