Mr G
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 posted on 18/12/03 at 12:35 AM |
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10" COLOUR LCD PC DASH!
I found out about the iopener ages ago and was looking into one as a digital picture frame/mp3 server for my front room etc etc.
I have an astra gte digital dash that i was going to fit into my car sitting around doing nothing waiting for me to start sticking magnets onto the
propshaft 
I've just realised after searching for the iopener again that people have installed them into cars using a dc supply and run sat nav and
mp3/multimedia apps on them!
Now roughly this device is a stripped down pc that was intended as a cheap internet appliance in the states - it was cheap because it was subsidised
by only being able to log onto the net through the suppliers isp. Needless to say it was promptly hacked!
IOPENER INFO
I had loads of sites saved off in my favourites but have since re installed the os and lost all my links!
As its roughly a 200 mhz pc with colour 10" tft you can add laptop hard drives network usb etc etc. It has a parallel,ps2 and usb port.
You can put what os you see fit onto it.
If you could design the relevant input module to interface between a speed sensor and other engine sensors and the iopener running a piece of software
to display all the information you would have one amazing piece of kit - with built in data logging capabilities etc.
Just my thought's and i know there is on going digital dash development going on.
As this was only available in the states a search on ebay.com will bring up whats for sale or complete items - cheap as chip s too!
Cheers
G
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gsand
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 02:37 AM |
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and how much would this cost?
Because ive got myself a car mp3 system , that has cost me bugger all. Its a Celeron 600mhz, underclocked to 400 to minimize heat and therefore does
not need a CPU fan, and is silent. 8gb notebook drive, again small, and almost silent. A 5" TFT screen originaly made for a PLaystaion, this was
the only real cost of the project and cost me $100 australian. GOt schematics for a 12V dc power supply that i am yet to make, but no rush atm seing
as i havent got a car to put it in  . It will eventually go in the Locost . FOr now the system is installed in my desktop beast. heres a few
pics
 
Rescued attachment beast.jpg
4st Insanity
Maybee i should start wearing a Welding mask.....
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TheGecko
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 06:23 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by gsand
A 5" TFT screen originaly made for a PLaystaion, this was the only real cost of the project and cost me $100 australian.
Just out of interest, where did you get the screen and how long ago? That's a pretty good price for a 5" TFT with backlight and video
in.
Dominic
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suparuss
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 06:40 AM |
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that would be very interesting, you could have all your dash nice and flat right behind or to the side of the steering wheel! and all
customiseable.
am i right in saying you could also put your ignition system into it as well? and also security protocols?
RUss.
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ceebmoj
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 08:41 AM |
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I would be intrested in the power schimatics if it is for an inverter or transformer that gives all the nesasery voltages for a pc i.e. +-12v and +-5v
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AvonBelgium
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 09:28 AM |
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Some time ago I found this
LINK and this
Link.
Very nice software to make a dash.
I think the major problem will be the hardware and the interface.
AvonBelgium
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mackie
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 10:44 AM |
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I've thought about this too. It could be really neat and it can't be terribly difficult to hook up some home made electronics to the
serial or parallel port.
I doubt blueshift would want to sacrifice his old laptop though and my P3 500 HP Omnibook is just a little too good to hack to bits to make a
dashboard...
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 11:05 AM |
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I considered using my Toshiba Libretto as an instrument panel - but even though it's an old machine now, I still find it invaluable for doing
stuff on the train! (If you haven't seen one of these, it's a complete 75MHz Pentium PC in a case about the size of a VHS cassette)
What really pigs me off about all these OCX libraries is that very early versions of Visual Basic used to come with quite usable dial and gauge
controls as standard - now you have to pay quite big money for them now.
David
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timf
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 11:22 AM |
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imagine the police man
sorry officer i didn't realise i was speeding cause my dash board was booting 
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 12:26 PM |
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Yes!
A 'blue screen of death' takes on a whole new meaning...
David
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splitrivet
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 12:57 PM |
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Wonder if you could do it with a Sinclair ZX81
Cheers,
Bob
I used to be a Werewolf but I'm alright nowwoooooooooooooo
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PioneerX
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 02:33 PM |
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Splitrivet,
Z80 (processor from the ZX81) is not as silly as it sounds, it's used in loads of stuff but requires alot of support electronics.
I personally am planning put a LCD based dashboard in, but not PC based due to the booting time. I plan to use a PIC (RISC based microprocessor),
running at 20Mhz and already having PWM modules, non-volatle memory & all the other things that you would need to do electrically built in. Plus a
100ms boot time makes it ideal.
My company produces lots of tools for the car OEMS based on these PIC's. we do even work with a copy called R3 that produces PIC based
automotive interfaces for cars.
Anyone want more info just me an email I'll give you as much as you want.
Simon
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ceebmoj
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 02:45 PM |
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PioneerX
what PIC/compiler are you using. I am presently using hitec C and 18 seris for my hobby stuff (i know ther are some sever limitations) pending what it
is could I posibly get a coppy.
at work I am using a veriaty of motorola and other company chips for simaler embeded applications.
Blake
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PioneerX
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 02:54 PM |
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Ceebmoj,
PIC16F84 for hobby & small projects
PIC16F877 for anything that requires more power.
Compilers are CHBasic & C++.
Dont use the motorola as I'm not too familier with it.
Simon
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Bob C
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 03:14 PM |
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Yeah a dash doesn't need an awful lot of grunt, a Z80 running 'C' would laugh at it. I made a monochrome graphics LCD dash 12 years
ago for a "lotus elan" I was building and that used a 1MHz 6502 running BBC Pascal. Loads of spare power so it had clock, date, day of
week & wee numbers 0-5 on the tachometer bargraph showing the revs at that speed for the different gears, a feature I've never ever seen
since!
The FPGA based dash I'm doing now for my car uses a watch crystal at 32kHz, but the logic would be good for over 70MHz - ie the thing has the
power to do 2000 dashboards,- there's the power of raw logic for you! To be honest it doesn't really even need 32kHz, but that gives me a
64:1 brightness range in the multiplexed LED displays so it ain't dazzling in the dark.
cheers
Bob C
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PioneerX
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 03:59 PM |
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Bob,
I planned to use 20Mhz, thought it would give me enough leftover processing power to other things too.
Looked at some of the MP3 decoding chips, with the PIC16F877 acting as IO controller at the same time as running the dash.
Baiscally software based dash ment I could set the speed reading (using a mapping table) to anything I need so giving me what I need for SVA. Plus
being techy I wanted at least one CPU in there somewhere.
Simon
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ceebmoj
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 04:58 PM |
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the 18F877 is what I genoraly use for my hoby stuff af it has more then enuf power for all most all projects.
I was using one a bit back as an io controler with aa mp3 decoder chip and a hard disk witch is a resnoble intresting project and ther are lots of
resorces out the in the web as well.
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suparuss
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| posted on 18/12/03 at 05:06 PM |
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the first nuclear bombs were designed on computers with less power than a pocket calculator, its todays software that makews us think everthing need
loads of processing power, especialy win xp for christ sakes, all im doing right now is typing into a webpage and windows is running 33 processes to
keep itself going.
simon, what other features are you planning on having? an mp3 player would be nice to have intergrated in there. will you be mass producing them at
all? if so how much will i have to part with?
Cheers,
Russ.
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PioneerX
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| posted on 19/12/03 at 09:48 AM |
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Suparuss,
I know just what you mean. Bad code (poor programmers) make for power hungry programs. I'm not the best of programmers (I'm a database
programmer) so I do require a little more power than programs by really good programmers, but I'll get better.
I fact when you consider the NASA saturn 5 rocket was all trasistor based (only on microprocessor on board) and the Shuttle is running on 8086
processors @ 0.5 & 1 Mhz. And now we have games that require processors at 2Ghz to run (2 billion operations a second).
Still back to original question, I have plans to use the 20Mhz I have to run the clocks, possibly MP3 player running from either IDE Hard Drisk or
more likely IDE CompactFlash & the ultimate, I have been designing a variable supercharger system.
I can hear it now (tell me more aboutthe supercharger). OK then
Superchargers are basically designed to put more air in the engine by compression (basically an air pump). Now most superchargers are crank run which
gives no flexability in the boost demand. Replace the crank supply with a geared electric motor and a speed controller. This means now I can use PWN
(pulse width modulation) to vary the pump pressure. (Garrant are making electric superchargers for lorry diesels). Add to this a mircoprocessor &
crack speed sensor. Put a map in the mircoprocessor so you can set the amount to boost you get an any RPM you want, makes the whole system totally
configerable.
Let me know what you think.
Simon
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Bob C
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| posted on 19/12/03 at 12:38 PM |
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Re: electric supercharger,
Loads of folk look at this & think why not. The reason why not is the amount of power going into the pump - for a car engine this would be
typically 50hp or so. This is a SERIOUS size electric drive & you wouldn't want to run it from 12V!
A further major factor is the efficiency of the pump - turbos are best at around 70% peak, positive displacement types (most superchargers) are pants,
less than 50%. So the air gets hot as well as compressed (this happens whether you like it or not, hence intercoolers) all this power has to be
supplied by the electric drive (90% efficient if you're good), which is itself supplied by a <90% efficient alternator. Do the sums &
work out the horsepower you'll need, then try to find an alternator, then give up & use a turbo.. ;^)
cheers
Bob C
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Bob C
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| posted on 19/12/03 at 01:06 PM |
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Thought I'd better sanity check the 50hp figure (remembered from ages ago when I looked at this.....) & I might be a factor of 10 high -
give me a few minutes...
Bob C
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Bob C
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| posted on 19/12/03 at 01:21 PM |
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OK fag packet sums.....
1.6 litre engine @ 6000revs and 100% VE sucks in 1.6 * 6000 /60 /2 = 80litres/s of air.
To boost to 1 bar take 2 litres of air & squash it into 1/2 volume, work done = 50kPa * 0.001m^3 = 50joules (assumes 100% efficient)
80l/s * 50joules/l = 4kW
But your pump is 50% efficient so that's 8kW - about 11hp
8kW from 12V would be 670A!! ouch
At 0.5bar it looks quite a lot more do-able.
BTW with a bar of boost the engine will be twice as powerful, but you have to subtract the 11hp (+drive etc inefficiency) that go into the
alternator/pump. And yeah the engine won't be twice as powerful because you'll have to reduce CR & back off timing etc. etc.
All good fun
Bob C
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PioneerX
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| posted on 19/12/03 at 03:07 PM |
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Bob,
To be honist not done the math yet. Looking at the Fag pack figaurs it would require quite some amount of power for modist return. I'm guessing
thats why Garrant only make them for big diesels. Looking like the inefficentcies in the motor ESC and pump are just too much to overcome. Guess what
we really need is something that can convert heat energy direct to electricity
I just wondering what the looses are in a turbo system, as the same amount of power is required for the pump so guessing it is just picking up some of
the wasted kenetic energy in the exhaust gasses.
Still just thinking aloud. Wonder what else I would use the redundant CPU time for??????
Simon
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garage19
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| posted on 19/12/03 at 03:10 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
I considered using my Toshiba Libretto as an instrument panel - but even though it's an old machine now, I still find it invaluable for doing
stuff on the train! (If you haven't seen one of these, it's a complete 75MHz Pentium PC in a case about the size of a VHS
cassette)
Great minds think alike! I am going to use a libretto in my dash. Got the idea after seeing one at work. They are cheap as chips on ebay. Going to try
and split the screen and keyboard, flush mount the screen in the dash and flush mount the keyboard at the top of the trans tunnel. I am planning on
running emerald engine management. The software for this has a page for live adjustments on the run. It shows rpm, temps and even a lambda scale. I
also will be able to store alternative engine maps on the libretto and download them at the touc of a button anywhere with out having to hook up to an
external laptop/PC. As an added bonus i'm also going to use it as an mp3 player. Just have an output to a small amp and then to a phono jack in
the dash for my big DJ stylee earphones to plug into!
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gsand
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| posted on 20/12/03 at 05:05 AM |
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WOW That pulled alot of questions.
So here goes.
TheGecko: I got it about 5 months ago at Electronic Beutique (??). They are around the country in most places. They *SHOULD* still have them in
stock...
ceebmoj: A PC power supply is not just made up of 12v and 5v lines, it is much more complex. I have schematics for a 12v PSU somewhere, but seing as
im lasy, ill prolly just use a 12-240v inverter
PioneerX: In regards to booting time, I musing a custom miniman install of Windows 98, and using my Celeron 600 boot times are less than 20
seconds.
One more thing, There is a company somewhere on the net that sells software and interfaces that enable you oto hook your PC up with any fuel injected
engine. To ginve you All kinds of Stats.
/me goes to find the site
4st Insanity
Maybee i should start wearing a Welding mask.....
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