Vehicle Maintenence Plugin - Page 2

GizmoQ · 06-12-2009, 10:25 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

... one thing i did have to do is scale the mile reading back to once ever 2 seconds because my timer that handles the calculation took more than a second the calculate and save to file.

Maybe scale it back to 5 seconds for those of us with slow CPUs.

JohnWPB · 06-13-2009, 12:11 AM

This is looking good Sonic! One thing I would consider is to input the odometer reading when the plugin is installed and setup, and have that updated on the screen as well. This way you have a real world comparison to see how accurate it is keeping track of the millage. Also making the value clickable, and correcting / syncing it with the actual odometer would be a major plus.

For a quick trip to the store, many of us do not have the computer come on, but would like to keep the "system odometer" in sync with those lost tracked miles ect. Also the "floating" of the lat and lon can add up pretty fast. Back when I was trying to get Festy's gas mileage thing to work, I noticed this. With the USB GPS puck here on the desk, I left it running for a day when I left in the middle of working on it and noticed that I had traveled a few miles hahah.

As far as frequency of updates, personally I think once ever minute, 5 minutes or so is more than enough. Oil changes are the most frequent thing to change for example, & I doubt having to know within 2 seconds that's its time for an oil change is really going to matter that much

This would decrease the overall CPU usage, as well as not constantly thrashing / writing to the hard drive every 2 seconds.

As for the cost per mile for items, that should be fairly simple to do. In your example its $17.50 for an oil change that is done every 3,000 miles:

$17.50 divided by 3000 = .006 cents per mile.

I also completely agree, and would love to see a fuel log wrapped into this! Fill er' up, enter the number of gallons, price per gallon and the odometer reading. At the next fill up do the same, and you can then have it calculate many miles per gallon you are getting.

carputer1 · 06-13-2009, 03:04 AM

subcribe::

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-13-2009, 08:15 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by GizmoQ

Maybe scale it back to 5 seconds for those of us with slow CPUs.

I'll have it user settable... IF the threading idea falls through for whatever reason. If i can have the file IO done separate from the actual distance calculation it should work out great. Only problem would be if RR is closed between writes. RR really needs a way to let plugins know its terminating.

Quote: Originally Posted by JohnWPB

This is looking good Sonic! One thing I would consider is to input the odometer reading when the plugin is installed and setup, and have that updated on the screen as well. This way you have a real world comparison to see how accurate it is keeping track of the millage. Also making the value clickable, and correcting / syncing it with the actual odometer would be a major plus.

Can do

Quote:

For a quick trip to the store, many of us do not have the computer come on, but would like to keep the "system odometer" in sync with those lost tracked miles ect. Also the "floating" of the lat and lon can add up pretty fast. Back when I was trying to get Festy's gas mileage thing to work, I noticed this. With the USB GPS puck here on the desk, I left it running for a day when I left in the middle of working on it and noticed that I had traveled a few miles hahah.

I've got a kick out for floating coordinates that monitors the heading value. This should work really well... unless you guys are out doing high speed donuts lol.

Quote:

As far as frequency of updates, personally I think once ever minute, 5 minutes or so is more than enough. Oil changes are the most frequent thing to change for example, & I doubt having to know within 2 seconds that's its time for an oil change is really going to matter that much

This would decrease the overall CPU usage, as well as not constantly thrashing / writing to the hard drive every 2 seconds.

when i say the timer runs too fast at once per second only real issue is getting the lat and lon from RR before the CalculateDistance function is run. If RR hasnt reported back to the plugin before the function runs the result of the function is Nan and it crashes the system. I can probably easily write prevention for this.. but for now once every 2 seconds has been absolutely no issue on my 1.2ghz celeron i'm developing on.

Quote:

As for the cost per mile for items, that should be fairly simple to do. In your example its $17.50 for an oil change that is done every 3,000 miles:

$17.50 divided by 3000 = .006 cents per mile.

I will definitely add it in some capacity as it is pretty easy to do. i was thinking more along the lines of having to calculate each time the oil change is done.

Quote:

I also completely agree, and would love to see a fuel log wrapped into this! Fill er' up, enter the number of gallons, price per gallon and the odometer reading. At the next fill up do the same, and you can then have it calculate many miles per gallon you are getting.

Will also incorporate this.

One more thing i incorporated before leavin work on friday is a slider that gives you yet another visual indication of how close you are to exceeding your maintenance limit.

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-16-2009, 02:58 PM

I've been plugging away at this for the last few days and i have more progress. I've completed the setup and adding maintenance screens... and also optimized the calculatedistance function a little bit so that a Nan return isnt possible. I've also incorporated a concept similar to what eigenVector suggested to keep I/O overhead down.

Next step is to work on the fueling information. Then adding a cost calculator.

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-25-2009, 04:34 PM

Am i missing anything from the fuel calculation information?

spamminator · 06-25-2009, 04:57 PM

Are you saving off the information about each refuel, so that one can look at a history of their fill ups and see miles/gallon, $/gallon, etc. over time?

Also, the mpg and cost per mile should probably say over what interval (last 10 fill-ups, 180 days, whatever).

Edit:
Also current odometer might be handy, to see if it's drifting from the real thing.

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-25-2009, 07:18 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by spamminator

Are you saving off the information about each refuel, so that one can look at a history of their fill ups and see miles/gallon, $/gallon, etc. over time?

Also, the mpg and cost per mile should probably say over what interval (last 10 fill-ups, 180 days, whatever).

Edit:
Also current odometer might be handy, to see if it's drifting from the real thing.

i'm not currently but i can add a command that will save to log i spose.

The current MPG is calculated at each fill up. Its not a real-time calculated value at this point. Does it need to be? How would i go about calculating a live MPG

The current odometer is available as a label its just not displayed on that sample skin.

spamminator · 06-25-2009, 10:55 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

i'm not currently but i can add a command that will save to log i spose.

The current MPG is calculated at each fill up. Its not a real-time calculated value at this point. Does it need to be? How would i go about calculating a live MPG

The current odometer is available as a label its just not displayed on that sample skin.

I'm not sure you could calculate the instantaneous MPG without a OBD connection, and the OBD plugin can already do that.

Instead of just labels for the last fillup, I think it would be better to have a list with the values for the last X fill ups.

Date Fuel Amt. Price. Odometer
Date Fuel Amt. Price. Odometer
Date Fuel Amt. Price. Odometer
.
.
.

And from that you could calculate the MPG and $ per mile over whatever range you wanted -- lifetime, last 10 fill ups, last fill up, etc.

Ideally I'd love it to store an unlimited number of entries, but you could have a variable in the .ini which limits the size of the log file.

frangolfgt · 06-25-2009, 10:58 PM

Hi

I am very much looking forward to this! I was just wondering if you could implement the option of entering fuel in litres but have the fuel consumption still given in mpg - I think I am right in saying that there are about 4.5litres to a gallon. In the Uk fuel is sold by the litre but we still use mpg for consumption - Yes we do do some strange things

Thanks

Peter

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-26-2009, 10:16 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by spamminator

I'm not sure you could calculate the instantaneous MPG without a OBD connection, and the OBD plugin can already do that.

Instead of just labels for the last fillup, I think it would be better to have a list with the values for the last X fill ups.

Date Fuel Amt. Price. Odometer
Date Fuel Amt. Price. Odometer
Date Fuel Amt. Price. Odometer
.
.
.

And from that you could calculate the MPG and $ per mile over whatever range you wanted -- lifetime, last 10 fill ups, last fill up, etc.

Ideally I'd love it to store an unlimited number of entries, but you could have a variable in the .ini which limits the size of the log file.

i like that idea... i'll go ahead and implement it that way.. that way the MPG is an average and doesnt need to be immediately calculated.

Quote: Originally Posted by frangolfgt

Hi

I am very much looking forward to this! I was just wondering if you could implement the option of entering fuel in litres but have the fuel consumption still given in mpg - I think I am right in saying that there are about 4.5litres to a gallon. In the Uk fuel is sold by the litre but we still use mpg for consumption - Yes we do do some strange things

Thanks

Peter

the initial version will only have gallons/miles.. just to insure it works. Once all the bugs are kicked it'll be possible to switch to liter/km, and liter/miles

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-26-2009, 02:51 PM

Something along the lines of this?

Top MPG is so low because its based on the current distance traveled... which in most cases will be less than a full tank of gas. Should i throw that figure out of the average MPG calculation?

In any event.. the list goes backwards from your most recent refuel and will keep 20 entries.. i doubt there's a need for any more than that right?

I took a sec and added in Johns request to have the total distance clickable and edit it to keep it in sync with the odometer.

Sal R. · 06-26-2009, 03:02 PM

sub'd with much interest. I can retire my hacked together personal solution.

spamminator · 06-26-2009, 03:16 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

Something along the lines of this?

Top MPG is so low because its based on the current distance traveled... which in most cases will be less than a full tank of gas. Should i throw that figure out of the average MPG calculation?

Perfect!

Yeah, I think you can throw away the top most MPG calculation, since there's no way to know exactly how much fuel you're using until your next fill up.

Sonicxtacy02 · 06-26-2009, 03:20 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by spamminator

Perfect!

Yeah, I think you can throw away the top most MPG calculation, since there's no way to know exactly how much fuel you're using until your next fill up.

ok.. i'll show it in list but it will not be calculated in the average.

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