Has anyone worked with or made antyhign to interface with a parallel port of the comptuer i have some ideas i want to work with ive been lookingin up resorces and such.. i want to get the comptuer to read voltages work with some relays ect.. maby some of you can see where im going with this i just need some help getting started its confuseing me pritty good can anyone lend a hand?

You could use the parallel port to control loads directly, if the port outputs drive a transistor, or transistor & relay, or the port could talk to external circuitry that you build - data latches, etc. To read voltages you would need an A to D converter of some form to do the digitization. Of course, you would have to write the SW to talk to the port, as well.

Do you know any resorces on how to acomplish this i know basic circut stuff real bigginer ive been looking for a resorce on how to do this but come up empty handed. i would like to start simple like switching a relay on and off but my goal is to get deeper into it .. one if the things i want to get is it to read the voltages off the TPS .. allso force the car to do things like go rich or lean by cutting off the o2 and sending the apropriate voltage well thats all stuff i want to mess with for fun.. any ideas of a good starting point some pointeres or anythign like that

Thanx
-Ed

Here's a good page.

Try these two links as a starting place. They should provide all of the information you need without drowning you in the gory details. http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/interfac.htm
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/par/
One link also makes reference to a book called "The Robot Builders Bonanza". I seem to remember this book in its original form talking about parallel ports a little. It has been over a decade since I last saw it so I can't tell you how good the information is. The new version of this book may contain information about it, but I wouldn't buy it until you have a chance to see what is there.

The parallel port is actually an easy way to get low speed data in and out of the computer. I am not sure from what you have said if you would be better off trying to reprogram the car's factory computer. I would definately look in to what you can do with your factory computer before trying to trick it with another computer.

Well i would mess with the factory comptuer but im not really intending on messing around with the way the car runs i was thinking more along the lines of useing my throtle position sensor as a nitrous safety switch maby like do some diognostics trough the comptuer aswell and since i allready have a nice lil lcd screen in my car i was going to have it display the information infront of me .... and go from there

Why do you have an LCD panel in your car already? Maybe you should look in to the Basic Stamp. Putting a PC or laptop in your car is only going to be good on a short term basis. With the Basic Stamp you could leave it in the car all of the time. I don't think the programming would be any harder. It would just cost a little more since I assume you already have a computer you want to do this with.

Basic stamp i dont know too much about that could you explain it or help me out lol well i wanted to go really indept with it with it is it possible to make it on the comptuer test it out and move it to basic stamp? im not sure what it is so im lost .. what i have in the car now is a lcd screen like a small tv screen . oh incase your wondering im not doing this for any spacific reason im doing it to see what i could do to get the joy out of it basic stamp sounds interesting but i looked at basic stamp kits and there runing over 100 bucks :X

Here are a few schematics that may be of interest to you (this post and the next two). The first schematic has LED bargraph for the TPS, A/C cutout @ 3/4 throttle, and nitrous enable @ WOT circuits. The second and third schematics are nitrous fuel pressure monitor circuits. The second is a bit more involved, circuit wise, but allows the nitrous solenoid to open immediatly without delay, which is not the case with the first one.

Fuel pressure monitor ckt #1:

Fuel pressure monitor circuit #2:

Thanx for the help, im going to mess around with stuff this weekend see if i could get a light to blink or something well see how this weekend goes i allso made a spot for my lcd screen i took out the heater controlls and put the heater/defoger on a switch and put my radio where the heater controlls are and my screen where the radio was it fits perfect 4 inch exept for the sides w/ ill have to find some abs plastic to make sides for i could have pics if anyone is interested,
-Ed

Oh ya!

Well its not the gratest pic of the intiror theres a glare on the tv and i need abs plastic to fiish the sides off anyone know where to get it or have the abs plastic to put on the sides? well i want to run my diognostics trough this right not its the playstation .. i use it when im waiting for the girlfrend its a tool no boyfrend should be without!!! open for ideas and opinions knowtice the radio is where the heater use to be the 4 inch lcd screen fits perfectly in its place


- i think its badass

Email me. I've got all the ideas and im doing the same damn thing your doing.

Kingtal0n@aol.com

Im also designing the program to do it with.