What would mp3car like to make?

Punky · 07-04-2008, 01:36 PM

I'm a long time member of mp3car, and this fall is my final year of electrical engineering. We must complete a 4th year electrical engineering project as the curriculum requirement. I did not like any of the topics provided, and i would like mp3car's input. Since i have no industry experience, i don't know whether a project would be way over my time limit, and knowledge. What i'm looking for is an idea that would benefit the carpc community and reasonable for a 4th year electrical engineering student to do. So throw them out, and see what i could do!
Thanks

galvitron · 07-04-2008, 01:50 PM

Reverse engineer Alpine's AiNET interface...

Punky · 07-04-2008, 04:56 PM

lol, that would probally raises some legal issues, and plus i'm not really making anything presentable.

colin · 07-04-2008, 06:27 PM

AC Controls are usually a touchy subject... if you could get a CHEAP controller that could output for a servo and a couple vacuum solenoids... you'd have one hell of a presentation, one hell of a market, and one hell of a wallet when youre done.

It can be done, and if nobody does it soon, Ill be making one. I just need cash for the stupid vacuum solenoids.

EDIT: I know theres the AirCon or whatever it's called -- not what I meant. I mean something reasonably priced for hobbyists. You could do this for MUCH cheaper with a simple $9 PIC and a motor driver chip... I can't see it costing more than 15 bucks for prototyping (not including the acutal hardware such as the solenoids / servos, but including things like temperature sensors and USB ports).

NiSlo · 07-04-2008, 07:54 PM

A video switch?

Two Inputs - VGA & Composite
One Output - VGA
Idea - It automatically switches to the composite input when composite becomes active and switches back to VGA when composite becomes inactive. This would be sweet, as an easy way to add a reversing camera to a setup. You could just put it inline with the VGA input from the PC so you don't have to worry about manuall changing inputs on the monitor.

nobb · 07-04-2008, 08:08 PM

I thought you just finished 3rd yr...I guess your not doing internship next semester?

Why not present the whole carpc as your project? A carpc can do now what automakers are trying to achieve in the future. You can integrate it to your home network, phone, internet/email, check weather & traffic, voice recognition, etc... Maybe some sort of surveillance/dashcam, that would be really useful considering all the theft &vandalism that's going around town.

Punky · 07-04-2008, 10:03 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by colin

AC Controls are usually a touchy subject... if you could get a CHEAP controller that could output for a servo and a couple vacuum solenoids... you'd have one hell of a presentation, one hell of a market, and one hell of a wallet when youre done.

It can be done, and if nobody does it soon, Ill be making one. I just need cash for the stupid vacuum solenoids.

EDIT: I know theres the AirCon or whatever it's called -- not what I meant. I mean something reasonably priced for hobbyists. You could do this for MUCH cheaper with a simple $9 PIC and a motor driver chip... I can't see it costing more than 15 bucks for prototyping (not including the acutal hardware such as the solenoids / servos, but including things like temperature sensors and USB ports).

I'm a bit confused on what exactly you're describing, excuse my ignorance when it comes to HVAC systems. Is what you're asking me to do is create a controller that control every car's HVAC system? Because every car is different and some are just manual switches, and others are automatic. Unless you're talking about totally replacing the car's original HVAC and replace it with a whole new motor, and whatnot. Please expand, i'm somewhat interested in the idea.

Quote: Originally Posted by NiSlo

A video switch?

Two Inputs - VGA & Composite
One Output - VGA
Idea - It automatically switches to the composite input when composite becomes active and switches back to VGA when composite becomes inactive. This would be sweet, as an easy way to add a reversing camera to a setup. You could just put it inline with the VGA input from the PC so you don't have to worry about manuall changing inputs on the monitor.

Without industries experience, but from the way it looks, this project might be to easy for something that would require me to spend 1 whole year on. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

Quote: Originally Posted by nobb

I thought you just finished 3rd yr...I guess your not doing internship next semester?

Why not present the whole carpc as your project? A carpc can do now what automakers are trying to achieve in the future. You can integrate it to your home network, phone, internet/email, check weather & traffic, voice recognition, etc... Maybe some sort of surveillance/dashcam, that would be really useful considering all the theft &vandalism that's going around town.

Sicked of school, i wanna finish asap, so no intern.

The thing about the carpc system is that most of it is done by someone else, and if i want to make a new FE or something like that, it'll take too much programming, which isn't my expertise by any standard. Maybe a smart surveillance system.

myrus · 07-04-2008, 10:23 PM

Hello

Just a Idea.

A control module for input, Car door (open close), Car ruf (open close), Car trunk(open close), car windows (open close), seet belt (open close), temp (in out), ligths, and so on.

A electronic and software control module that allow the user to control all thing in the car.

Thanks
Bruno Pereira

colin · 07-04-2008, 10:40 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by myrus

Hello

Just a Idea.

A control module for input, Car door (open close), Car ruf (open close), Car trunk(open close), car windows (open close), seet belt (open close), temp (in out), ligths, and so on.

A electronic and software control module that allow the user to control all thing in the car.

Thanks
Bruno Pereira

As much as that is a good idea, I (high school student self-taught) completed one of these projects that runs on USB in about... say... 2 weeks? There's no way that could take a whole year, it's just a generic USB I/O controller. Make it a (/an depending how you read this) HID device and you can control it easily with pre-made components in almost any language.

Quote: Originally Posted by Punky

I'm a bit confused on what exactly you're describing, excuse my ignorance when it comes to HVAC systems. Is what you're asking me to do is create a controller that control every car's HVAC system? Because every car is different and some are just manual switches, and others are automatic. Unless you're talking about totally replacing the car's original HVAC and replace it with a whole new motor, and whatnot. Please expand, i'm somewhat interested in the idea.

Thing is, most cars aren't that different after all. Typically, all of the manually controlled car AC systems have three things:

- a fan speed control which simply powers or grounds pins for fans; from my research, ive noticed that typically there's 1 for the MAX AC, and 2 other ones that are used for the low (1 fan on) or medium (both on) settings.
- a heat/cold control which just turns a door; you can easily control this with a typical servo
- a couple vacuum activated doors that control where the air blows; if you get a solenoid driver in there, you can easily control all of these and even make custom settings.

If you could provide relays to trigger the blowers, a servo control for the heat, and a vacuum actuator -- you've got it.

That's just what I would do. There will obviously be time left over and climate control algorithms are pretty advanced, so throw in some temperature sensors with the bazillion extra inputs you'll have on a microcontroller and then you've got yourself a sweet project with lots of practical uses and a market. You'll make enough money to pay for the prototypes easily.

myrus · 07-04-2008, 10:53 PM

Hello

I was not talking in a simple USB I/O port controler, but an advanced one.
You can make one that control just every stuf in a car, door, windows, trunk, windows, ligth, the car AC systems, and more...

A system that can control and monotirize all the car, even the start of the motor, by the PC, you can also make an alarm system that can send via web or phone info to the user and vice versa, with the integration of a GPS send the exact possition of the car (car anti jaking, car alarm).

I was thinking on a system that make by a integration of a Pc the user can control and monotorize all the systems of the car.

On the AC systems you can make a manually controlled car AC systems with some algorithms in to a comple automatic.

and that's just and idea.

Thanks
Bruno Pereira

Bugbyte · 07-04-2008, 11:52 PM

How about this? A bluetooth dongle that turns the PC on when you get near the vicinity, an unlocks the doors.

colin · 07-05-2008, 12:08 AM

I have that same idea written down in a notebook and I was dying trying to figure out how to use RFID within a certain distance and always get the right action (open windows / put top down on a hot day) with only a card in your wallet or something.

On second thought, that's a much better idea, I vote for that one since SO many people would want it. Im not even willing to start tackling that project because right now theres only a bunch of small projects that can possibly be used to make this, but theres no central one. Confused? I mean like, there's bluetooth / RFID readers that are independant, then there's antennas, then there's card reader/writers, then theres bluetooth hardware stuff, then theres the actual program. All of these separate cost a lot of cashola.

Zoltan · 07-05-2008, 12:19 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by NiSlo

A video switch?

Two Inputs - VGA & Composite
One Output - VGA
Idea - It automatically switches to the composite input when composite becomes active and switches back to VGA when composite becomes inactive. This would be sweet, as an easy way to add a reversing camera to a setup. You could just put it inline with the VGA input from the PC so you don't have to worry about manuall changing inputs on the monitor.

Search for "cheesebox" . It's a box that does just what you're saying except the auto-switch. I wired a relay that pushes the button when my backup lights go on. Works just as you desire.

Good luck.

NiSlo · 07-05-2008, 03:30 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Punky

Without industries experience, but from the way it looks, this project might be to easy for something that would require me to spend 1 whole year on. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

Ahhhhh, I see what you're after now. Yeah it would take a lot less than one year to build I would imagine...

Quote: Originally Posted by Zoltan

Search for "cheesebox" . It's a box that does just what you're saying except the auto-switch. I wired a relay that pushes the button when my backup lights go on. Works just as you desire.

Good luck.

Sweet, thanks for the heads up!

Punky · 07-05-2008, 12:01 PM

I'll definately look into the bluetooth key thing, but damn that thread is long, anyone has been following it please give me a recap.
Hvac is definitely keeping in mind. Though, i'd like to ask how that would interract with our carpc? To be honest, i don't trust MS windows to control my HVAC cuz, even if its stable right now, its still crashes here and there. Hell i don't even trust PC hardware to do it, because in canada it gets below -40*C HD goes out and you got no heat control lol. IF i go with an embedded processors or such, then how much difference is it from today's automatic climate control?

Myrus' idea sounds great, but I'm going to have to research on that before i say anything because it require a lot of component that are software engineer and related problems.