brentp wrote:Sounds good - keep us posted. We'll be spinning up our dedicated dash as well very soon, and if it's something that you'd like to help with on the firmware side we can take care of the hardware design, to avoid frustration.
I wouldn't mind helping on your firmware. I'll be curious to see what your design looks like.
As a side note, we'll also have the firmware updated for realtime predictive timing and realtime +/- offset from best lap. Seeing if I can work that into the soon-to-be released 1.2.7 firmware. \o/
I know, I was talking to Stieg about it last week.
Meanwhile, my MAX232E (not A) ICs arrived yesterday. I'd have hooked them up straight away, but I didn't have the 1uF caps. I've got 8 million .1uF caps, and a 10uF cap, but no 1uF. RS didn't have any (or more precisely, they have them for $2 each, and I need 4 of them...). I had just got back from nerding around the electronics stores in the South Bay, too. If I'd only known I could have grabbed a cople. I will see if tech shop has any in the bin-o-scrap parts they keep near the electronics workbench.
My car was mostly assembled, so I snapped a couple photos from my seating position. It's all back-lit. But you get the idea. This is more-or-less what I see when I'm driving. There's a little room on each corner of the dash, and some room directly behind the wheel which is currently dominated by the tach.
Attachments
IMG_20140217_131539.jpg (60.29 KiB) Viewed 12222 times
IMG_20140217_130802.jpg (56.78 KiB) Viewed 12222 times
Last edited by emdash on Tue Feb 18, 2014 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
brentp wrote:The vantage point helps. Are you planning to replace the tach with the dashboard?
Not until I trust it. I could see getting a smaller tach to make room for another instrument. But what I want from my dash is something that sits just above the wheel, so I don't have to keep looking down.
that is a tiny space. What we'll create will be larger, like the typical digital dash you see out there. Perhaps if you have a chance to collaborate with ours you can 'burn it in' mounted off to the side until you have full confidence.
-Brent
Brent Picasso
CEO and Founder, Autosport Labs Facebook | Twitter
brentp wrote:As a side note, we'll also have the firmware updated for realtime predictive timing and realtime +/- offset from best lap. Seeing if I can work that into the soon-to-be released 1.2.7 firmware. \o/
Does that include lap deltas for point-to-point runs? I don't do laps, but the only thing I want on my dash that I can't currently get is how this run compares to the last.
I had to try just about every possible wrong way to wire the thing, but damn it the summabitch works! Really, what is UP with these data sheets!? So confusing. I would have thought that R stood for RS232, and D stood for DATA, but it's not like that at all. RIN is RS232IN, and ROUT is TTL out. DIN is TTL in, and DOUT is RS232 out. Go figure. Plus I had the caps hooked up wrong, and I swapped tx and rx accidentally a bunch of times. This stuff is painfully hard when you're dyslexic.
Now I can resume my obsession with the design work and the software side of things. All I can say is thank god.
Attachments
You're looking at a random fragment of the data stream. In reality it goes by too fast to see, so I pulled the plug for to stage the photo.
IMG_20140219_113424.jpg (68.02 KiB) Viewed 12196 times
brentp wrote:On the predictive lap timing it will show real-time delta on current vs best lap.
Can I assume this is just for laps, rather than for multiple point-to-point runs? My start and finish lines are not in the same place, but I will complete the same course at least 3 times during competition, separated by at least an hour. Can I access the delta time for the previous run an hour later?
brentp wrote:As a side note, we'll also have the firmware updated for realtime predictive timing and realtime +/- offset from best lap. Seeing if I can work that into the soon-to-be released 1.2.7 firmware. \o/
Does that include lap deltas for point-to-point runs? I don't do laps, but the only thing I want on my dash that I can't currently get is how this run compares to the last.
Based on my understanding of the algorithm, it could also work for point-to-point runs in theory, but in practice, since it will use your best lap from the current session as a reference, it won't have anything to compare it to. I'll ask Andrew about that.
How much current can the telemetry port's +5v pin handle? It'd be convenient if I could run the whole display off of it, but I won't be surprised if that turns out to be a terrible idea.
Now the fun really begins: Trying to cram that prototype into an enclosure that meets my original requirements. My plan is to get something together as quickly as possible, run it for a few events, then do another iteration. I'm sticking with the 16x2 character display for the first version, for simplicity's sake. Even with the parallel interface, I've still got 4 digital pins left over, so I included shift leds along the top edge. There's 6 total, but they're paired so that only takes 3 pins. That leaves one lonely pin left over for something else. This might be a mode switch, or maybe a "check your gauges" master alarm light. Haven't decided yet (not sure where the alarm light would look best).
I took the laser cutter training course on tuesday, and I took the 3d-printer training course last night. Between those two, I can do some pretty rapid prototyping. With the 3d-printer, the quality of the finished part isn't the best. The PLA material isn't my favorite, either, but it will be a while before I can get through their mandatory CNC courses so I can use their routing table. So I may end up using a 3D printing service at some point.
I have a first cut of the housing design (see below). It's pretty straight-forward -- not trying to win any design awards, or anything -- but it's literally designed around the LCD so that it will fit easily. The CAD files are paramaterized such that I can change a few key values, like the LED diameter, wall thickness, led recess depth -- even the LCD unit itself -- and the model instantly updates. It's a lot like programming: I like it.
I still need to design the rear cover and its attachment points (the housing will probably get a bit wider to make room for that). I've figured out where the unit will attach to the body, but I need to design mounts, and they probably need to be composed of some kind of elastic material to help damp vibrations. I need to include a cut-out for the serial cable.I've got ideas on how to do all this, but it'll take a few days to get them into CAD.
For the brain, I'm leaning towards an arduino pro micro. It's as capable as the Uno I've been using up to now, but much smaller and will easily fit inside my enclosure. They run about $10, and they even stock a version of them at Fry's!
There will need to be an additional circuit board to hold the serial interface, connector, and LEDs. Haven't quite decided how that will look yet. I don't want to get into making PCBs until the design is more final (also being able to use the routing table would sure help). So somehow this all needs to work with .1" pitch proto-board (which means I can't use RJ11 connectors). I don't want the LEDs recessed too deeply into the housing, but the back of the LCD would push a single circuit board far back. It will take a few prototype iterations to sort out.
Attachments
Front of housing
DashboardRev1.png (18.12 KiB) Viewed 12158 times
Housing rear
DashboardRev1Back.png (13.96 KiB) Viewed 12158 times
