open source data aquisition/display/logging project ideas (Page 1 of 4)

Do it. Look at Maker Shed and sparkfun, they've got a ton of Arduino stuff that would be perfect for this project. Like a GPS shield...

Have you been snooping on my email?  I was just talking about this very thing to someone else.

Actually, my full project, which never got beyond some rough sketches, was based on an Arduino board, an add on GPS module, some sensors to tie into instrument gauges (tach, temp, pressure, etc), and an Xbee Pro board (2 mile outdoor range) to radio live telemetry back to the pits where a receiving station would receive the transmissions.

The Arduino would require a bit of programming, but ultimately it should be minimal as all it is doing is collecting data and sending it over the radio, some error checking for dropped packets would be about all that might be needed (he says without having built the thing).  The more involved piece would be the receiving station that displays the telemetry.

Turns out, the receiving part I actually started working on this weekend while parsing through some GPS data and trying to create a video overlay, none of the apps I found for this worked on a Mac, so I'm writing my own tool for this, and realized this AM that I'm going to be about half way done with what I need for the receiver by the time I have this working.

Likely it would be several weeks before I'd be starting in on this, but the project seems to be building steam...

At the end of the day, all this data is going to tell me what I already know.that the car is basically a pile and the drivers dont know how to drive.

I didn't, but I was talking to someone else this AM and did mention it then.  But the one definitely got me thinking about the other.

I came across it while looking into building a quad-copter with a camera for getting some interesting shots of Lemons races.  That's when the thought of telemetry came to me, and I never got back around to ordering hardware.  Having our car blow up put a few things on the back burner. 

Well, that simplifies things greatly, you only need to illuminate one lamp on the dash...

Jimbo, google “arduino auto pilot" someone sells an autopilot shield for rc that will fly predefined gps coordinate patterns

I did a row of 12 LED’s for progressive shift lights with an arduino. I can send you the code, it used interrupts for speed. Using a megasquirt, I sent the tach signal to the arduino after conditioning it on the proto area with a transistor.

Bear in mind most car sensors are resistance measuring devices. The computer sends a voltage to the coolant temp sender, for example, and measures the returning current. Only 1 device can actually “measure” the returning current, so you would have to double up on sensors. So the only option you have is to place your arduino in line to make it an amp meter so that it can measure the same current as the gauge. This will introduce a small error (the resistance of the measuring resistor in the amp meter) to the Gauge but nothing too big. You should also use the arduino to measure the applied voltage (across the sensor) and you can then calculate the resistance.

Also, I built a “flash to pass” on the steering wheel which clicks a relay on/off 4 times per second for 2 seconds, which goes to the headlights. I saw it on TV on the Le Mans LMP cars when passing those slow GTE cars : )

olaaf

Olaaf, thanks for the sensor info, that's what I was wondering about, but didn't know how to define or describe... you post explained it better than I could after a couple hours of browsing and researching that I did.

And flash to pass, how sweet that idea is.:-)

Track master will do some live laptime reporting

If you want to collaborate on this, let me know. I've been planning a similar project for our cars with OBDII integration (because we're bastards and drive 'new' cars)

I just haven't been arsed to actually start it, because, hey, it's a ton of work. I'm a trained software developer and have a bit of hobby-level experience doing the hardware engineering side and some theoretical experience actually laying this project out on PCBs (I got really fucking bored)

Oh, and I have a nearly unlimited supply of freebie cop-car GSM (old skool 2G) modems if you want to get stupid.

I've got a dormant software project that I'd love to have the motivation, and time, to complete. I think it would be something that could be used here.

Link: http://www.kstreetstudio.com/software/bs4tv/index.html

It was originally being developed for the GTech Pro, because that is what I had, but I had plans to adapt it to work with any system's data, even fictitious data. In the later versions I would have the data load into a spreadsheet that included lots of motorsports functions, such as speed from GPS data or from RPM and tire size, aero power losses, etc. Once you had the data the way you wanted it you just assign a column from the spreadsheet to a gauge or other display, the press replay. I'd also try to find a way to eliminate the blue screen step and let you merge your video and data in my software, but hat could be a big headache, trying to keep up with evolving video file standards.

I was also talking to some of the guys who develop extensions for the old Viper Racing game, to get them to provide sounds. Don't like the sound of your 4-banger, how about a Ferrari, or Viper with straight cut gears?

Have you seen this?  http://ecomodder.com/wiki/index.php/MPGuino

And this is why you use the Mega.

Just for shits and giggles, I did a PCB layout for a Mega shield with just about everything under the sun on it.

I ran out of room to route traces on a dual-layer PCB before I ran out of I/O.