Hey Everybody Im just posting my idea for a project that Ive started to undertake....

Basic Idea: Computer In car (heh...I know its been done b4 but bear with me)

Functions:
- Sound System (mp3's, music videos, cd's)
- Engine Monitoring (Temp, oil check, gas check, distance able to travel on gas present, etc.) havent thought of all possiblilities or plausibility
- gameplay (why not )

Control:
-Touch screen
- voice recoognition
- keypad (maybe)

I am a programmer so I would develop all the software for the system, ie. voice recognition, operating system, and music software

I wouldnt have a problem with the voice recognition, sound system ideas i dont think... Things would get kinda tricky when i got to the engine monitoring part...(due to my lack of knowlege about cars...) Ive heard theres some hardware already out there that does this stuff.... maybe im just trying to reinvent the wheel here... If so plz tell me

Thanks....any input is apprecieated

 

go ahead do it why not if you like this kinda stuff which i do too then i would say deffenitaly go for it it would be the closest thing to nite rider on wheels

 

check on the electronics and PROM boards, there are guys over there doing stuff very similar to what you're talking about.

 

Oh, also do a search on the web for "cartrek camaro". They built I think an 89 or 90 vert camaro that had EVERYTHING computer controlled, even the transmission. Sorry, I don't remember the web address right off hand, but that thing was sick.

 

hey cool thanks

 

that cartrek camaro is for sale now http://www.freestyle2000.com/startrek/lcars.htm

 

It's been for sale for quite a while, I don't know if it still is or not. I'd be interested in it if it weren't for all the star trek stuff.

 

Holy crap what an uglification of an f-body. What a shame.

DP, for the engine monitoring part, you could probably wire up your own circuit board, and use comparator circuits against the factory sensors (oil pressure, coolant temp, etc). Heck, you could probably run new sensors too, and skip using the car's computer altogether! Just another way to think about it...

 

Generally engine monitoring is done with a program like WinALDL (which is very cool) and you make a connector (it's only 2 or 3 wires) that uses the laptop's serial port to interface with the ALDL connector. There is aftermarket engine management systems but you're talking $1-2K for those.

Tom, as far as the comparator circuits, I wanted to do something kind of like that that would turn on the lights around a particular gauge when it reached a certain level. That way you could spray niteshade on the gauge bezel and then when say you get to 1/4 tank of gas, it turns on the lights around that gauge. Otherwise, you don't have to have them distract you from the road.

 

Thanks for the input guys Its really helping...as of now the project is still in the planning stages...After Im done exams ill put it into full swing with starting to look for the hardware required...

 

Joe, -that- would be cool. I keep my lights super-dim at night... (laughs) I think it's cool, everyone else thinks my battery's dead. Imagine driving and all of a sudden the fuel gauge lights up like a warning light! Cool.

That'd work great, too, since the fuel gauge is a 0-90 ohm sensor. I wonder if a 1:1 telephone line transformer would isolate the comparator circuit (a 339, right? Its been a while) from the gauge circuitry, without inducing extra resistance to throw the fuel gauge off.

All WinALDL is a serial port translator, right? That'd probably work great against an interface board driven right off the CPU bus... shoot, but I'm talking about 8088 and 8086 cpu boards... probably dating myself...

 

I had talked about this on the electronics board, but no one mentioned using a comparator circuit. They just said all the gauges were resistance based. So I don't know if I could just tap into a wire at each gauge. But would that create a voltage drop that would then effect the ECM? i.e. the vss is driven off the speedometer itself right (at least like pre 89 cars) so if you were interfacing with the wire that goes to the ECM, would it cause a voltage drop making the ECM think the car was going slower than it actually was? And could you make it so that you had the lights come on if a value too high or too low? Like have the temp gauge showing until it got to operating temp, and then go off until it started to get to close to overheating, then come back on? I don't know how practical it would be, I just think it'd be really trick to have gauges coming on and off. Plus, I catch myself checking the gas gauge ALL the time, even right after I leave the gas station

As far as WinALDL, it basically just simulates a scan tool for certain ECMs. You build a little interface that consists of a resistor or two and a transistor. That's just necessary to convert the signal from the ALDL connector to whatever the protocol is for the serial port. The one catch is that it does put the car into diagnostic mode and so the ECM stops doing certain things, like retarding/advancing ignition.

 

Good luck! I tried doing this a little while ago. I was going to use the laptop to monitor the engine via the serial port (WinALDL) and control all of the lighting (via parallel port). I was using an old (486) IBM thinkpad, and couldn't ever get the thing to work right. But the old thinkpads had some weird port stuff going on.

 

Yeah, that's why I mentioned the 1:1 transformer. I used to have a few in the basement, but I tell ya, I'll be damned if I could find 'em now. It'd be interesting to hook two multimeters to it; at one end, measure resistance of one coil with one meter, while at the other end, measure voltage of the second coil with the second meter. I'd imagine the 2nd meter would show the voltage of the battery that powers the 1st meter. And if the 1st meter showed "0 ohms", then there'd be no impact on the ECM's reading.

Good point about the WinALDL; I forgot it puts the car into diag mode. Uh, hey, wait, can't it do field-test mode? That doesn't affect timing, right?

But what I meant was, if WinALDL just translates the serial port data into something "useable", a VC++ (or VB? Can VB do port reads?) program could probably be written to read data from an RS232 port, and output it to an interface board off the x86's motherboard, instead of to a screen. Didn't the parallel port outputs go something like this? 8 outputs with a common ground; and you'd just program a binary to decimal routine. (Set bits 1 and 3 high, converts to 10 decimal, send 10 to the parallel port, outputs 1 and 3 get +5 volts). Is my memory what it used to be?

 

Some cars you can get to transmit data without going into diagnostic mode. But since the ALDL connector was intended just for diagnosis and not tuning the ECM wasn't designed to transmit data until it recieved power on one of the ALDL pins. Unfortunatly that also told the ECM to go into diagnostic mode. I don't think that the connector that you make for winALDL does anything except make the signal readable by the serial port. Then the software just reads the port and based on the ECM selected decodes the signal into engine data. The other thing to keep in mind is that there is lots of other software that does the same thing. So I doubt there's any big secret to how it works. If I remember correctly, and it was probably nine months ago, the parallel port did have something like 8 ins, 8 outs, a ground or two and then a few that were switchable. I was only trying to get the parallel port to try and turn relays on and off, not transmit any real data, so I couldn't tell you much there. I really think it was my laptop tho that had issues, not the software. But I definently don't know as much about computers as I used to. Hell, I had to write my program in dos basic. I never learned any language newer than that (aside from HTML). I'm curious tho, why would you want to output data through the parallel port as opposed to viewing it on the screen?

As for the comparator circuit, I was thinking that it would be tied into the wire, as opposed to having the signal running through it (tho doing it your way may be the better way to go). I would think that even if you could keep the resistance under 50 ohms you probably wouldn't run into any problems with the ECM.

 

I'm thinking of the (very) old way; where there were 8 outputs, a common ground, and 3 inputs... they were status lines... paper out, and... oh, online/offline, and ... damn... can't remember the third.

By outputting data, you wouldn't need a screen. Kinda kills the whole point of putting a computer into a car, though, so, nevermind; I wasn't thinking. It was a hell of a round-about way to get the fuel gauge to light up when the level was near empty; but that could really be done without a computer.

Oooh... what about one of those LCD displays... they must still make those... they'd have 1 or 2 lines, alphanumeric, and were driven off a parallel connection; they had their own processor to handle the incoming data stream. Yeah, they still do- WOW, they're cheap now! http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bi...-74&type=store Shoot, I haven't read a data sheet in years... hey, where's my breadboard?

Wow, a four line module, too? http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bi...-85&type=store

 

I've seen guys with 4th gens do what you're talking about. They had one of those flourescent displays built into the dash and it gave the engine read outs. But the way the did it only worked for certain ECMs, the ones in 3rd gens being among those excempt. But it would definently be cool, think of all the possibilities. You could have it say all sorts of nifty stuff. Like it could monitor the TPS and when you went WOT it would say like "Go, baby, go" (gone in 60 seconds flashback) and then go back to showing critical engine functions.