CarPi

What is a CarPi?
A CarPi is a Raspberry Pi with a 7 inch touch screen and optional audio DAC packaged together and mounted on a vehicle headrest support. It's meant to run Kodi or any other preferred media software to handle playing movies and games to keep passengers entertained.

Why?
This idea was born roughly 3 years ago when our kids got bored of always watching the same dvds, or worse fighting over who got to watch a dvd, in the portable headrest dvd players. We frequently travel several hours to see family, so we needed some form of entertainment, enter the Raspberry Pi. I wanted to make something capable of holding several movies, possibly games, and in a small self contained form factor. The original design I made 3 years ago involved buying an ipad headrest mount and throwing the ipad mount away and using the headrest mount. It used a tab design to mount the Raspberry Pi assembly where you would push it in and pull down to lock it in, but there were issues. Mainly fitment wasn't too great, it would sometimes fall off if accidentally hit from underneath, and it would rattle due to the vibrations of the road over time. I decided to adopt the GoPro style of mounting so it could maintain a level of adjustability and has worked out perfectly. In the 3 years it's been used by the kids, since the youngest was 6, it's been easy for them to use after a short “how to navigate Kodi” session.

Supplies

• Official Raspberry Pi 7 inch Touch Screen
• Raspberry Pi Power Supply or other reliable way to supply power
• Raspberry Pi 4 (should also work with a Pi 3, not tested with a Pi 5)
• IQaudio DAC Pro for better audio if desired
• 12 M3x8 screws

Tips

• Cars get hot, hot enough to warp PLA+. Unless you live in a cold climate or plan to take it inside your home every time, I would recommend PETG at a minimum or ABS.
• I use a Raspberry Pi power supply to plug into the 120v outlet in the car. Has never had an issue.
• For the OS, I installed the Raspberry Pi OS and than installed Kodi and put it as the only icon on the desktop so it's easy for the kids to find
• The audio DAC is a IQaudio DAC Pro I picked up at MicroCenter because at times when using the Raspberry Pi audio jack, the audio would get some interference.