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Programming Software Hardware IT Technology

Sensors for Automobile Computers? 40

Posted by Cliff from the computers-and-automobiles dept.
Bombcar asks: "I'm going to be installing an EPIA mainboard in my car, using a DC-DC power supply. It is mainly for playing music, but it has the potential for so much more. I know I can get LCD displays, and I know that various sensors are made for automobiles, but I want to combine both these with the computer. Most car sensors are analog, so does anyone know of an easy way to interface with analog (and perhaps some digital) sensors? Anything used would have to be able to stand up to the rigors of automobile use. The EPIA board has 4 serial ports, a parallel port, and some USB ports, along with a PCI slot. I plan to use this for display purposes only (not control any important vehicle functions), but am also leaning towards some 'fun' improvements, such as playing certain songs when the pedal is floored."
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Sensors for Automobile Computers? More

Sensors for Automobile Computers?

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  • Requirement (Score:3, Funny)

    by Txiasaeia ( 581598 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2003 @12:56PM (#7835904)
    ..."am also leaning towards some 'fun' improvements, such as playing certain songs when the pedal is floored."

    Has to be Danger Zone, Kenny Loggins. I've gotten more speeding tickets with the Top Gun soundtrack than I'd care to mention...

  • You might want to check out the web pages for the MegaSquirt EFI controller, it tells tons of info about how to interface with the cars EFI system. For example, you'd have to use a A/D converter and hook into the Throttle Position Sensor in order to sense when the pedal is floored, and then play a certain song.

    Its do-able for sure.

    Do a google search for 'megasquirt' and you'll come up with tons of hits. They have an excellent mailing list too :)
  • You might be able to get an OBD-I or OBD-II interface. Like the techs use to troubleshoot with. OBD-I should be pretty cheap and I think it goes up to 1998 or so. OBD-II was mandated for late-models, and has far more data available.

    It also costs more...

    If these don't work, check into Dinan Performance or one of the other "chip tuners". I'm pretty sure most make kits that'll connect a laptop to the ECM for testing and config purposes. Your board should work fine with these apps.

    GTRacer
    - No warranty

    • Re:What Year is the Car? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by karnal ( 22275 )
      That's exactly what I was thinking -- get a converter from ODB(1 or 2) to serial. You could then poll for any data you would want... (play Nelly's "hot in heere" if the engine coolant is low, etc) It would make for a heck of a fun project, if you're in to tearing apart stuff.

      Aside from that, however, if you wanted to tinker and not spend any money, why not just put a switch either under the gas pedal ( but not impeding travel) or near the intake (where the TPS is anyways) so you don't drag down any of th
  • An OBD-II scan pod. It connects to the On Board Diagnostics jack in your car and lets you display trouble codes, engine sensor readings and graphs of things like mass air flow, spark advance, coolant temp and rpm. http://www.ghg.net/dharrison/obdscan.html

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2003 @01:05PM (#7836010)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I believe you're talking about the Touchscreen that is made buy a company called Massworks.

      http://www.massworks.com/

      But alas they seem to have stopped producing them!

  • Try the superbird (Score:2, Informative)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 )
    Given the choice, I'd rather have the Superbird. The Charger was a bit of barely functional body kit. The Superbird, while superficially similar, was quite a different beast under the hood.

    Unfortunately, NASCAR, yet again, buried their heads in their ass and banned wing cars. Can't have the MOPAR crowd beating up on GM too much. These are the same asshats who got hemi headed engines and OHC engines banned. And hence we have the technological backwater that is NASCAR. Way to go.
    • > I'd rather have the Superbird. The Charger was a bit of barely functional body kit.

      Not quite. Actually, while the cars look almost identical, the Charger Daytona was slightly more aerodynamically "slippery." In fact, last time I heard, the Daytona still held a number of speed records for production cars. The Superbird, however, seems to be more visually appealing to most. Same engines available as well...except that the Superbird had the added 440/6BBL as an option.

      > Unfortunately, NASCAR, y
      • I think you may be right WRT superbird vs. charger daytona. I'm not as up on my old Mopar lore as I used to be. Had to make room somewhere for motorcycle specs.

      • Actually, aerodynamically - they're about identical.
        The only real difference was to move the air intake for the radiator from the front (on the '69 Daytona) to the underside of the nose-cone (on the '70 Superbird). This was to improve cooling, as the Daytonas had some serious cooling problems at high speeds.

  • ARGH! (Score:1)

    by Ianoo ( 711633 )
    No offense but I wouldn't want to try passing you in the fast lane! Various governments are banning mobile phones whilst driving for a reason, God knows what a distraction a PC running Linux would be for a driver!

    Officer: Sir, could you please explain how you managed to swerve across three lanes of traffic in the rush hour?!

    Me: Of course! I was just trying to reload my kernel radio transmitter driver so I could continue listening to "Life in the Fastlane". Do you know how difficult typing "rmmod ...; m
  • You'll need to hack your software for the UK. You wouldn't want the UK Police http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/30/045224 2 [slashdot.org] to install FreeBSD http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/30/13 2225 [slashdot.org] while you weren't looking.

  • One of the car parts catalogs would be a good place to start. If your car isn't a newer, computer controlled car, you'll have to get digital sending units for your oil pressure, etc. Then just wire them up to your PC through a serial controller.
    • They may be for digital guages, but it's still an analog signal. In the case of an oil pressure sender theres a small bourton (sp?) tube attached to a rheostat or potentiometer, and with temperature senders its a cheap thermocouple. The only thing in cars that could be called digital (besides the computer) would be the switches and idiot lights (12V = on, 0v = off).
  • All cars produced after 1996 are required to support something called OBD-II (On Board Diagnostics II). This is the computer that causes your check engine light to come on, and its the computer that reports to the mechanic what the cause is. You can buy interfaces for this system that lets you monitor all sorts of engine sensor data, as well as things like throttle position, calculated load, etc. There are plenty of companies thats make serial interfaces to this system....www.digimoto.com is one that I l

  • Automotive Electronics Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ka9dgx ( 72702 ) * on Tuesday December 30, 2003 @02:00PM (#7836690) Homepage Journal
    Cars are VERY hostile to electronics. You've got the pulse noise from the ignition, a power supply that can vary from 0 to 15+ volts during normal operation, and environmental extremes that go from whatever the coldest night you encounter, through more that 20 degrees C over the hottest noon.

    Needless to say, it sounds like you're going to take the prudent choice and let someone else do the engineering. Try not to be surprised when your system has to deal with the oddities.

    Good luck!

    --Mike--

  • PICs have loads of onboard A/D converters. There are lots of reference designs available. Yes you have to program them in assembly but it's actually very easy to learn as there are only something like 30 instructions. Programmers are cheap, the devlopment environment is free, and Microchip pretty much gives the chips away. Anyway it would be a good project for learning a lot of electronic and computer engineering.

    http://www.microchip.com
    • I found the OOPIC to be a bit easier. You can program it in C (ish). Its based on the 16F877 / 16874 PIC. The bare chips are available at Superdroid robots for $21 and the schematics are available at www.oopic.com (or www.oopic2.com) all of the hard stuff has been coded including I2C, timers, nav sensors, ranging modules. Here is the bare processor link. There are also starter kits. Use a 40 pin ide cable for off-board development. http://www.superdroidrobots.com/oopic_products_ac c .htm#OOPIC_II_Chi
  • If it's a '96 or newer, start by interfacing w/ the OBD-II system. There should be a diagnostic port under your dash (typically directly below the sterring wheel, between your knees). Schematics for the wiring, etc. online are readily available, and there are several pieces of software out there you can use to read it.

    Why wire up your own sensors when the car has them already available to you?

  • Like everyone said, OBD-II was installed in cars from 1996 onwards. The OpenDiag project provides an interface to this, I believe via serial port.

    [http://www.opendiag.org/]

    Les.
  • dashpc.com [dashpc.com] is the headquarters for linux car computing enthusiasts. The site seems to be down right now, but if you google for dashpc you can find a ton of info. A cached link to the discussion forum can be found here [216.239.39.104].

  • Another thing you might want to try if your up to it is voice control. I've never played with any of the speech packages for linux, but have had great success with the MS Speech SDK and getting my computer to respond to certian commands ("Bitch, Open Notepad", "Bitch, Open eMule"), and am planning to implement something similar in my next car (I'd use 'Car' instead of 'Bitch' though). Also, the use of TTS for things like warnings ("Change the Oil Mother Fucker"). At home I have a push button on the mic so t
  • If so, then maybe look at replacing the stock computer alltogether. Haltec and Autronic make some very nice replacement computers for overclocking your car (so to speak) that have built in com ports and datalogging capabilities. Your really only need to go this route if your trying to get a lot out of your engine, but certain applications it's the only thing that will do (500+hp 1.3 liter rotaries! fun fun!!)

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