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Sensors for Automobile Computers?
Bombcar asks: "I'm going to be installing an EPIA mainboard in my car, using a DC-DC power supply. It is mainly for playing music, but it has the potential for so much more. I know I can get LCD displays, and I know that various sensors are made for automobiles, but I want to combine both these with the computer. Most car sensors are analog, so does anyone know of an easy way to interface with analog (and perhaps some digital) sensors? Anything used would have to be able to stand up to the rigors of automobile use. The EPIA board has 4 serial ports, a parallel port, and some USB ports, along with a PCI slot. I plan to use this for display purposes only (not control any important vehicle functions), but am also leaning towards some 'fun' improvements, such as playing certain
songs when the pedal is floored."
Has to be Danger Zone, Kenny Loggins. I've gotten more speeding tickets with the Top Gun soundtrack than I'd care to mention...
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
aaeeeeee!!!!!
You might want to check out the web pages for the MegaSquirt EFI controller, it tells tons of info about how to interface with the cars EFI system. For example, you'd have to use a A/D converter and hook into the Throttle Position Sensor in order to sense when the pedal is floored, and then play a certain song.
:)
Its do-able for sure.
Do a google search for 'megasquirt' and you'll come up with tons of hits. They have an excellent mailing list too
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
It also costs more...
If these don't work, check into Dinan Performance or one of the other "chip tuners". I'm pretty sure most make kits that'll connect a laptop to the ECM for testing and config purposes. Your board should work fine with these apps.
GTRacer
- No warranty express or implied...
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Search the mailing list archives at dsm.org. I seem to remember some people talking about this, specifically, someone had found a small box that plug in via USB if I remember right, and it had like 24 analog inputs and 8 digital. I think there were even linux drivers for it.
Additionally, if you're car is OBDII compliant, you could order a cable and use FreeDiag to pull the information. All of those sensors feed back to your car's computer anyway, why try to duplicate the data collection functionality when it's already there. Plus, you won't have to worry about skewing the signals received by your ECU when you start tapping wires into things. You won't have to worry about finding the specs on each sensor either (like 0-1 volts == 0-1200 degrees)
I was considering doing a similar thing to you awhile back, and freediag seems like the best way to collect this data. If you manage to get something working, you should start a sourceforge project for it. I'd definitely be willing to contribute.
Also, a couple of years ago, some company came out with an 8" TFT touchscreen that plugged in via USB. They had released a driver for linux that allowed you to run an X-server on it. It was $300 or so. Does anyone remember the name of this thing? It would make an excellent display to mount in the dash.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Given the choice, I'd rather have the Superbird. The Charger was a bit of barely functional body kit. The Superbird, while superficially similar, was quite a different beast under the hood.
Unfortunately, NASCAR, yet again, buried their heads in their ass and banned wing cars. Can't have the MOPAR crowd beating up on GM too much. These are the same asshats who got hemi headed engines and OHC engines banned. And hence we have the technological backwater that is NASCAR. Way to go.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
No offense but I wouldn't want to try passing you in the fast lane! Various governments are banning mobile phones whilst driving for a reason, God knows what a distraction a PC running Linux would be for a driver!
...; modprobe ...; xmms" whilst driving at 55?!
Officer: Sir, could you please explain how you managed to swerve across three lanes of traffic in the rush hour?!
Me: Of course! I was just trying to reload my kernel radio transmitter driver so I could continue listening to "Life in the Fastlane". Do you know how difficult typing "rmmod
Officer: Step out of the vehicle please...
Me: I would if I could but it looks like my Linux-powered central locking has just segfaulted...
You'll need to hack your software for the UK. You wouldn't want the UK Police http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/30/045224 2 to install FreeBSD http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/30/13 2225 while you weren't looking.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
One of the car parts catalogs would be a good place to start. If your car isn't a newer, computer controlled car, you'll have to get digital sending units for your oil pressure, etc. Then just wire them up to your PC through a serial controller.
All cars produced after 1996 are required to support something called OBD-II (On Board Diagnostics II). This is the computer that causes your check engine light to come on, and its the computer that reports to the mechanic what the cause is. You can buy interfaces for this system that lets you monitor all sorts of engine sensor data, as well as things like throttle position, calculated load, etc. There are plenty of companies thats make serial interfaces to this system....www.digimoto.com is one that I like. Even cooler, the law requires that the port be accesssible within 3 feet from the driver!
Needless to say, it sounds like you're going to take the prudent choice and let someone else do the engineering. Try not to be surprised when your system has to deal with the oddities.
Good luck!
--Mike--
PICs have loads of onboard A/D converters. There are lots of reference designs available. Yes you have to program them in assembly but it's actually very easy to learn as there are only something like 30 instructions. Programmers are cheap, the devlopment environment is free, and Microchip pretty much gives the chips away. Anyway it would be a good project for learning a lot of electronic and computer engineering.
http://www.microchip.com
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
In the days of the "Winged Warriors", Ford was the competition. It was a period where GM wasn't involved in stock car racing much. Also the cars exceeded tire technology of the time.
That said, NASCAR was always opposed to one company dominating the circuit. And they did just that. Big time. So bye-bye Winged Warriors. This was probrably a relief to Chrysler, since they lost money on the cars, and by the time the Superbirds saw production, Chrysler had a hard time selling them. There was a Hemi Superbird in Popular Hot Rodding that the owner bought from a dealer after the car sat for 2 1/2 years in the dealer's warehouse because he couldn't sell it! Can you imagine?
OHC engines were banned by NASCAR in the early to mid 60's. Chrysler developed a 4 valve per cylinder Hemi, which never saw production, to combat Ford's SOHC, which did. In anticipating an OHC ban Chrysler even developed a 4 valve per cylinder pushrod motor. Of course that didn't make production either.
> I'd rather have the Superbird. The Charger was a bit of barely functional body kit.
Not quite. Actually, while the cars look almost identical, the Charger Daytona was slightly more aerodynamically "slippery." In fact, last time I heard, the Daytona still held a number of speed records for production cars. The Superbird, however, seems to be more visually appealing to most. Same engines available as well...except that the Superbird had the added 440/6BBL as an option.
> Unfortunately, NASCAR, yet again, buried their heads in their ass and banned wing cars. [...] And hence we have the technological backwater that is NASCAR.
Agreed. They, along with everyone else, have forgotten what the "SC" in "NASCAR" stands for. It's not worth watching. They have crippled the damn cars even more since 1971.
Why wire up your own sensors when the car has them already available to you?
I think you may be right WRT superbird vs. charger daytona. I'm not as up on my old Mopar lore as I used to be. Had to make room somewhere for motorcycle specs.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Like everyone said, OBD-II was installed in cars from 1996 onwards. The OpenDiag project provides an interface to this, I believe via serial port.
[http://www.opendiag.org/]
Les.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
Actually, aerodynamically - they're about identical.
The only real difference was to move the air intake for the radiator from the front (on the '69 Daytona) to the underside of the nose-cone (on the '70 Superbird). This was to improve cooling, as the Daytonas had some serious cooling problems at high speeds.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
dashpc.com is the headquarters for linux car computing enthusiasts. The site seems to be down right now, but if you google for dashpc you can find a ton of info. A cached link to the discussion forum can be found here.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Another thing you might want to try if your up to it is voice control. I've never played with any of the speech packages for linux, but have had great success with the MS Speech SDK and getting my computer to respond to certian commands ("Bitch, Open Notepad", "Bitch, Open eMule"), and am planning to implement something similar in my next car (I'd use 'Car' instead of 'Bitch' though). Also, the use of TTS for things like warnings ("Change the Oil Mother Fucker"). At home I have a push button on the mic so that it doesn't get pickup background noise, figured to place it to the left of the stearing wheel with the mic above the visor. Another idea was to hook up a GPS to the computer (Thx for the link to the DC-DC PSU, I was thinking of using a damned inverter) and having some sort of in car navigation system. The network port can easilly be hooked up to something like the LinkSys WET54G. With and the GPS, you could be war driving when ever your out, when at home you can move new MP3s to the cars computer for listening to, 'apt-get update', upload your wardriving data, what ever. While your at it, get a nice red LED bar for the front of the car, you'll be set.
(Score:0, Interesting)
If so, then maybe look at replacing the stock computer alltogether. Haltec and Autronic make some very nice replacement computers for overclocking your car (so to speak) that have built in com ports and datalogging capabilities. Your really only need to go this route if your trying to get a lot out of your engine, but certain applications it's the only thing that will do (500+hp 1.3 liter rotaries! fun fun!!)