Lockers H.U.D. almost done, take a look
 

This has been something I've been working on the past few weeks in my VERY little spare time.
The software was programmed using National Instruments Labview 7.0 express. It's the software I've been using for our dyno data-aq.
Imagine 17 frames per second of pure data-aq of the whole ecu ram dumb with 6 extra analog inputs, one alerady calibrated for the DIY-WB. Extra inputs can be used for EGT, accelerometers, wheel speed sensors (traction control ;) ).
Without Bruce taking the time to argue with me and RBob taking the time to explain things in person I know this wouldn't have been possible.
What this software does is display and datalog everything and anything you want, the only catch is that you need a c3 ecu (old 160 baud aldl :D ).
I need to get another serial to usb adaptor before I can test the autotune code. If only the romulator worked directly through usb... maybe I need to get the autoprom... hmm....
Anyways, here's a screenshot.

Looks good!

To bad it only work on 160baud otherwise I would love to try it on my car..

/N.

Looking good Jon.

Now all we need is a lockers solution that is easy. I have looked and looked and looked, and i just don't think i have the skills to build a lockers board (the lack of a scope is the biggest thing ;))

Looks good. Do I see an EGT display in there?

RBob.

whats a lockers board?
im assuming its some kind of homemade board you can directly connect to the ECM to allow faster data capture??

Where do I get this?

now If I could use this on a 165 ecm It would be grrrrrrrrrrreat

Yeah, there's EGT. I'm still working on the accelerometer, shouldn't be too difficult so long as the AO is buffered.
Talk to RBob about the lockers, he's "the man."
The software requires the labview70.dll which I'll package before I release. I just need to make it possible for the user to select what he wants displayed on the chart. Then I need to finish the datalogging and lastly have user config warnings for things like AFR too high, engine overheating, EGT too high, etc. They'll probably just end up being a bit of code that flash's the background color.
Lockers is a board circuit that connects directly to the edge card of the ecu. The edge card was designed for GM and there HUD unit and maybe some other devices that never made it. The edge card is hidden and to access it you need to cut the ecu housing a little and remove the coating that protects the pins.
The design was RBob's so if you have any questions I'd contact him.

I was wondering what that edge card was for. I knew it was there, but had absolutely no idea what it was used for. Does this work with an 8746 ECM?

I think i did talk to Rbob about this quite some time ago, IIRC the one thing holding me back was timing it. Unless things have progressed since i looked at it a couple of years ago. if there is a way to build the board properly without a scope. I am all ears.

c3 huh.............

interesting wonder if said stuff will work on my TTA when its done....

neat stuff john
later
Jeremy

Yes it works for 7747, 8746, the tta and gn ecm's. Any c3 with the edge card.
My ecm is the 8746 heavily patched but still with the rom :( .

You still need an o-scope for timing.

is anyone building these boards for sale?

Jon,

how involved is the timing, i could likely swing whatever i build, over to my friend who works for a dealer near me, they should have a scope with their their diag. equipment, if it is something that can be done in short time (read: lunch-break, ect) i could probably do that. but that would be the only access to a scope that i could get.

MrDude_1: currently no one that I know of is doing complete boards. I did have some PCBs but they are gone.

Dewey316: setting up the timing is straight forward but can also be troublesome. The board should be hooked to an ECM in order to do it. The ECM only needs to be powered up and running (PROM in place). Doesn't need the sensors and stuff.

The troublesome part of the timing is that I have found different manufactuers chips have different timing characteristics. I've had to change some of the fixed values in order to get the timing within the adjustment range.

I hated using the single shot (SS) devices for the timing. It came about because I designed the Lockers system over Christmas break some years ago. Between full time work & full time school it was a 'do it this way' or 'it won't get done'.

Then again it is just a data logger and not something required to run the engine. Also Microchip now sells the PIC used in an extended temperature range.

RBob.

Someone's actually doing it
 

I was wondering why nobody has tried Labview for displaying the ALDL data.
JPrevost,
How exactly are you getting the input to the VI?
I use Labview at work for test system DAQ and know how to create the screens and such, but couldn't think of how to capture the datastream and get it into the routines.
If you need help configuring or generating screens and testing on a 730 by all means let me know.
JP

Re: Someone's actually doing it
 

Probably because of the price? $1k for basic and $4300 for developer...out of my budget.

Re: Someone's actually doing it
 

I used the VISA serial input sub VI's to read in the serial code, process it in a while loop, then go from there. There is a "read number of bytes" and I set that to 1 to read the first byte, check it, if it's what I want and am expecting a byte after, I do another read of 1 byte to check the next byte, if it's all good, I start reading in bigger chunks, do a checksum of the data and if good, set it to the meters.
LabView is expensive, I'm lucky the school is sponsored by National Instruments. The only thing needed for somebody to run a LabView program (once compiled) is the *.dll, I believe it's labview70.dll :) .

compiled executables
 

The thing I have run across using 6.1 is that even if you distribute the executable, the *.dll's are needed.
They only load using NI-DAQ with a board (if purchased).
I have tried to locate all the dlls and include them but it never works for me. There are alot of them that are called from the VI when the runtime starts. let me know if you run into the same thing.
JP

Nice project!!

But since I don't have the resources to build lockers, I think the 7060 pcm swap is for me.

Jon,

Does your school's LabVIEW 7.0 have the App Builder?

I built a program that works similar to VEMaster for taking my scanned file the creating the new VE tables.. ( I have the hooks to have it read in/out of the Bin file but have not added them yet.

Anyway, why not just build the App? I have 6i Beta home as well as LabVIEW 7.0 Express Student edition at home. At work I am on 6.0.1 but will be getting 7.1 Pro Dev Suite.. so if you need an app built.. let me know.

Another thing that might work is to put it all in an .llb and let people buy the student edition at $70, you may need to supply some of the vi's packaged in other versions to be used in the Student Edition.

Looks pretty good though, I cannot wait to start working more with 7.1, it has come a long way since I started using version 3.11 (in 1996)

That's real purdy!

Jon,

Would this support editing the ALDL stream and subbing one param for another? In particular, I was thinking PW.

Jeff, it's not longer the school license. I bought it from them and last year, when I wanted to upgrade, had to buy a personal license. It's got teh app builder but it's got a GUI bug that is annoying me. I can't for the life of me figure out why the build application reverts to a small non-bold font. Rather annoying having to squint so I just run it in development mode.
New features have been added. The best is the playback feature. In a non humble opinion it's really well done. The playback reads the raw data from a file in binary and does the same loops that it does if it was from the serial read.
I added 3 line charts that have 2 axis depending on what you want displayed. Example; First chart has RPM and MAP, obviously different scales, 2nd chart is desired AFR, actual AFR, pulsewidths, and duty cycle, 3rd might be all digital bits like closed loop, learn, idle, moving, etc.
Then I got autotune working. That was scary when I did the test drive. The trouble with it is that I haven't implemented a autotune for the cts and iat modifiers. It's not that I don't know what to do, it's just I haven't had the time, but it does work and does really well. For the test I through in a really choppy VE table and it came out baby butt smooth. Another thing that's impelemented but not tested yet is a desired AFR table (MAP vs RPM) autolearn for doing open loop tuning. I want to get the code to the point of learning what AFR the engine likes best but that's easier said than done. Already have ideas but it's low on the priority list.
Then there is the accelerometer. THIS is cool and thanks RBob for helping with it. It works GREAT and you can do WOT tuning with it. I dare say I don't trust any autotune of the WOT just yet, that's a little leary just incase the laptop battery goes south or a cable comes loose... not cool at 80+mph.
The performance measurements are just like those from a g-tech or tazzo. 60', 0-60, braking distance, horsepower, 1/4 mile etc. Only I've added torque converter slip to keep tabs on it.
The configuration is made so I can select which channel the aux inputs are on and the files to save, read, write, etc. Nothing fance. Also, the autotune "window" coolant temp is on that tab.
Here are some updated pictures-
http://img286.echo.cx/img286/434/lockersgui11ji.th.png
http://img286.echo.cx/img286/4035/lockersgui28jz.th.png

Fonts
 

One thing I do know about the GUI is that if you don't specify a "system" font it will default to what ever is on the running computer. specifying a particular font in each case does work (IIRC) but still resizes on different displays.
It can cause all types of sizing issues on screen.
I'll bounce that off the guys I work with (Labview brains are real good) and see if they can clarify what we have done on application we use for testing.

Re: Fonts
 

I'd appreciate it.

I didn't realize that came out in 7.0.
When I went to the 1st two classes last year they had us build a play back device. Too bad we have 5.0 at work.
If I ever get the time I'll have to check out the student addition.
Looks sweet JP.

No no, the playback was code that I implemented. I couldn't get the "playback" feature in labview to be efficient with processor power. It just couldn't handle it :( . It's all good though because with my code I've got it so I can change the playback speed to anything I want. Full scale, crawling slow mo, or blistering right through a 10mb file in less than 10 seconds... it's ALLL good. I wish I had played with it more but as soon as it got nice out I ripped into my car to get it ready for painting. Everything's out except engine/trans :( . Hopefully sometime mid July it'll be like new and I can get back to playing with this software. I'll be using the autotune on a friends 454SS that just got a bump stick installed. Should be fun.

Wow! That does look nice!

The response from the Labview guys.
"The fonts will only “change” if they are not distinctly specified.

If you specify a font as “Application font” or as “System font” and someone changes the Windows setup for the default fonts (such as specifying “large font” or “small font”, the LabVIEW text will change with the Windows updates.

If the intent is to “lock” the font size and type for something that is size critical (such as a button) the font should be distinctly specified… i.e. set the font for a button to “Arial” and “18pt”. This action locks the assignment."

Makes sense to specify a default font and size for your "defaults" rather than leaving them as the "system" font.

Hmm, but I haven't specified the font and my installs have all be on this computer (most of them). :confused: I guess Labview in develop mode has bold and one size larger than whatever the system font is. That's annoying. I'd rather see it just like it would be run. Maybe there is a preference, I'll look. No biggy because yes, declairing the font works, thanks.