list your cool/clever/unusual project, devices and or programs - Page 3

0l33l · 02-20-2005, 01:01 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Vchat20

i think that would be a coll idea 0l33l. just allows for so much customization beyond a simple speedo. of course, DO make sure to have some kind of backup just in case. you never know whats going to go wrong

Yeh... I'm thinking something like a 4" LCD instead of the speedo.

Problem would be that I wouldn't be able to have a touchscreen on that. Map would be much better displayed on the 7". So the 4" would be good for just huge turn arrows and how many feet/meters are remaining. About the GPS data though: if we just update a speedo with the current speed, the needle would never be smooth, but it would jump around whenever it gets data.

Vchat20 · 02-20-2005, 01:11 AM

thats something where id recommend somehow interfacing with the engine/ecu/whatever takes care of the current speedo and using that for the speed. you'll never get an accurate or steady reading from the gps.

0l33l · 02-20-2005, 01:28 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Vchat20

thats something where id recommend somehow interfacing with the engine/ecu/whatever takes care of the current speedo and using that for the speed. you'll never get an accurate or steady reading from the gps.

My "engine/ecu/whatever" speaks OBDI

I didn't want an OBDII car because I wasn't on this forum at the time, and because some OBDII cars are practially self-aware (rx-8). This is a digital speedo, but I don't know how well it works. Like does it just go all over the place? How fast can the GPS spit out speed data?

cbergeron · 02-20-2005, 01:50 AM

o33lo, you can use the VSS wire of your vehicle (yes, even yours). The Vehicle speed sensor is an Pulse wire that varies the pulses with the speed. Using some simple electronics, you can interface this to your carputer and read the engine speed. All you need to do is crimp/vampire into the VSS wire and connect our circuit to your serial port/usb port.

It's microprocessor based, so it works much faster than the carputer can boot.

Kind regards,
CB

P.S.
You just gave me a great idea; thanks for the post!

0l33l · 02-20-2005, 03:43 AM

This is what I'd have my cluster look like:

0l33l · 02-20-2005, 08:10 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by cbergeron

o33lo, you can use the VSS wire of your vehicle (yes, even yours). The Vehicle speed sensor is an Pulse wire that varies the pulses with the speed. Using some simple electronics, you can interface this to your carputer and read the engine speed. All you need to do is crimp/vampire into the VSS wire and connect our circuit to your serial port/usb port.

It's microprocessor based, so it works much faster than the carputer can boot.

Kind regards,
CB

P.S.
You just gave me a great idea; thanks for the post!

Cool! I wouldn't want to interface it to the ECU anyway because when I get new tires I'd have to get one of those speedo calibration things, so I'm like w/e. Probably cheaper and easier to get an OEM GPS with deadreckoning and SiRF and update the speed very quickly.

You can use the idea, just what size screen are you going to be using?

turbocad6 · 02-24-2005, 08:37 PM

well, hows this for cool? this is a gyration wireless keyboard embedded in my steering whell, still under construction. I had to curve the keyboard quite a bit for this & let me tell you, keyboards don't like to be bent. It took a few of these keyboards to finally get it right, but what you see is a fully functional unit. there is a mouse & radio controls on the back of this, kinda at your fingertips. the aluminum bar at the bottom is for the horn, activates a microswitch. the upper open area will be finished off with a 1.8" lcd, can be switched from rear view/navigation/kidcam in back seat/or whatever

Dexter · 02-24-2005, 09:08 PM

wow...now i can take your sig literally!

Vchat20 · 02-24-2005, 09:41 PM

lol. that is crazy man. id hate to have the airbag go off though. leave imprints of the alphabet in your nostrils.

tj!2k4 · 02-24-2005, 10:47 PM

Damn I don't know how you could even get the keyboard to bend like that

syfenx · 02-24-2005, 11:11 PM

now i know you have electronic stores in your area, want to mess with them?

this is my idea i made...

its a program that you can customize and make it say whatever you want, and it will be displayed @ whatever time you set it to.. (the font it displays is 72) and it also swaps the mouse buttons right left right left every 5 seconds.. watch the people try to close it hahaha

so after you open it you have either 15, 30, or 60 seconds to get some distance away from it!

did i mention it flashes on the screen like no other, some of the most annoying color combinations you can think of!

only to get attention of course, i think of it this way, with something like this you can advertise and be funny at the same time

put it on a floppy or a flash drive or something?

www.sys9.net/annoy

try it out you might like it

let me know what you think...

cbergeron · 02-25-2005, 12:04 AM

Why would you put a KB and LCD in your steering wheel?

The wires are going to get all tangled up unless you run concentric rings for each data line. The LCD alone is going to use about 30 data wires and the Keyboard will use at _least_ 4.

How are you going to realistically pull that off?
Also, did you Photoshop that image at all?

Kind regards,
CB

turbocad6 · 02-25-2005, 01:19 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by cbergeron

Why would you put a KB and LCD in your steering wheel?

The wires are going to get all tangled up unless you run concentric rings for each data line. The LCD alone is going to use about 30 data wires and the Keyboard will use at _least_ 4.

How are you going to realistically pull that off?
Also, did you Photoshop that image at all?

Kind regards,
CB

dude, your thinking to much.this is no gimick or fake, I'll take a few more pictures & you'll see that it is real. The lcd is a 1.8" lilliput, the board is a little bigger than a matchbook & resides in the wheel itself, behind the little lcd. all this board needs is 12v & video signal. this runs through the clock spring, which is the coil in the column that supplys the factory horn, the factory air bag(2 leads) & the factory steering wheel radio controls(2 leads). these 5 leads will now supply 12v, horn, video signal, & I still have 2 leads left if I can use the column ground, which should be good because the column is designed to provide a good ground as it is required for the horn circuit. the 12v will be stepped down to also provide 6v & 3v in the wheel, which is necissary for the keyboard & remotes, I may use more than one lead to provide power if I have extras & I am concerned about amperage draw vs the tiny ribbon cable that is the clock spring, to much amperage will burn the trace, but were talking small draws here, shouldn't be a problem...

remember there all WIRELESS, no wires except power, no usb, no nothing, WIRELESS.......if it wasn't for the lcd & the horn, I would need NO WIRES as this is set up right now with a battery pack inside, lasts for months.........I can use this wheel freely in the air with no wires right now, actually one of my thoughts was to keep the battery pack & mount this with a quick release, wanna use the pc & not sit in the drivers seat, I can just hand you the steering wheel...........

why you ask,...why? there could be many responses to this but the short answer is; because I can..............

I originally was building this wheel for a pre-airbag car, a 91 deville with a wild multimedia system, but I have since replaced this car with an 02 montana,also pretty wild, which this wheel can also be made to fit. Only problem is that it would involve replacing the factory air bag.....If I do install this wheel in the montana it will be in a way that I could swap back & forth with the factory wheel airbag combo, mainly for inspections or just to have the backwards capability(or would that be foward capability,hmm?).

I also have a caddy coupe showcar that I could use this wheel in, problem there is that it would mean that this wheel will just sit in an unused vehicle most of the time.......& I want to use this.....I did use it in the other car for a while in it's development stage, & it is AWSOME. forget about the actual letter & function keys for a minute & look at all of the multimedia controls across the top. it doesn't take long to memorize the functions & you can control your multimedia while driving as easy as a remote...I'll post internal shots for you to see the mouse & radio controls & to see that it is real..........

I'm surprised that you don't believe this.........it's really not that unrealistic, is it?

but then again even some who see this functioning think that it is a novelty until I tell them it is a real, usable wheel,.....

why.......how else am I supposed to type while driving?!?!?!

Chairboy · 02-25-2005, 02:04 PM

I have a couple:

1. Webcam installed looking forward. I have two plans for it:
a. Periodically (at a rate determined by speed, more often the slower I drive) take a snapshot and put it in a directory. Each time the computer comes out of hibernate, I'll want it to take all the snapshots and put them together as an AVI.
b. Run OCR on the images in the lower center of the screen where, at normal following distances, license plates are usually found. Make a database full of license plate numbers that I've driven behind. Later on, maybe I'll do analysis of how often I encounter the same cars more then once and correlate it with the current GPS coordinates.
a and b have hardware in place, but I'm having trouble selecting software for a and have done some work with open source OCR and command line photo manipulation (for cropping down to the license plate area) with mixed results.

2. I'm interested in putting some of polaroid sonar transducers on my bumper (using the I2C interface kit) and having a 'backup mode' program that, when I put the car in reverse, pops up on screen and extrapolates a simple 'radar return' type image of how far obstructions are behind me. Eg, if I'm parallel parking and I have 4 or 5 sensors, there should be 5 points drawn with lines between them to assume that it's different points of a solid object so I can zip back into place with confidence. This is in early planning, no hardware purchased yet.

3. I'm looking to write a program that can log every drive I make to a database or comma delineated text file with the eventual goal of generating statistics on which routes are fastest at different times of day. This is becoming less important as I am moving to Oregon, but in LA, it would have been great.

4. Thinking of having a program keyed to record video at the press of a button from the webcams so if I see something crazy happening in front or behind me, I can capture it.

Redeyez · 02-25-2005, 11:27 PM

That sounds pretty cool. But why not add cameras that begin recording when the car alarm is triggered? I might come in handy to have a picture of the guy running away with your carputer. I guess for this you would have to have the cameras record to a mini dv/ hi8 tape or some other random kind of storage, because the comp. would be gone or off.