Radically re-designed console (Carputer, Climate, and one-touch windows)
12-13-2011, 10:53 AM
#841
Rest in Peace
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Automatic shifters first and then we will also make our own 5 speed shifter heads. the factory rubber heads prior to the GTS are getting very hard to find in passable condition. I spend a lot of times repairing those that are sent to me to recover. So we will make our own, following the same shape.
We will probably also have the possibility to light up the shift button, for those inclined to do so.
Paul
We will probably also have the possibility to light up the shift button, for those inclined to do so.
Paul
12-18-2011, 04:43 PM
#843
Former Vendor
But for those who want to, the board that Hans designed could easily receive it's signals from the computer instead of the switches. So, someone could control his/her windows by the touch screen of the computer. We will need to create the front end and code, but that is within the realm of the software we plan to use and I am sure we can find knowledgeable software gurus here on this board that will be able to help once the time comes.
We plan to add seat switches in that same frame of mind.
Paul
12-31-2011, 12:31 PM
#845
I've got a lot of interest in this console but haven't read every detail in the thread. If you've got a list of people to PM when you know the availability, price and options, please put me on it as I plan to buy one. Really appreciate all the work and dedication that must be going into this product. Thanks!
Mogans
Mogans
03-07-2012, 02:47 PM
#848
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
It seems as though I have been neglecting this project, so though I would post an update.
I have been catching up on the speaker kit assembly, and pre-order fulfillment. I am almost caught up. I have a couple more crossovers to assemble, and then ship out all the international stuff. Seems like it has taken forever to get that project to completion (and even longer with the consoles).
I took some time today to finish up some schematics I have been working on here and there for a while. I will try and post them up for review here later this afternoon after I get them formatted for distribution.
Sometimes you just have to admit your limitations and work around them. I had been trying to do this for some time, contracting with several programmers to finish the code, and modifying the hardware each time to better suit their preference, as well as incorporate features requested here. The most recent contractor has officially withdrawn, and will not be working on the project any longer. This has been an incredibly frustrating process, as well as a severely capital depleting process.
With this news earlier in the year, I decided enough was enough, and the only person I could depend on to get the project done was myself. I am still downright lousy at writing code, I am the first to admit it, so I went about designing a completely new hardware package. Some building blocks from the earlier designs were retained, but on a whole, it is a clean-sheet design. I have removes all the complexity from the system. There are no more shift registers, or mux devices... etc, just a very strait forward pin-for-pin arrangement, which should making programming very linear and transparent.
I have drawn the new schematics in a very modular and segmented way so that people will be able to clearly understand the individual elements and how the connect to eachother. The schematic itself will be part of the documentation, so I made it as simple to understand, and logically searchable.
The entire project will be open source. Schematics will be provided, as well as a complete copy of the code, and I encourage anyone to take a look, edit, improve, and share their results with the group. The first firmware revision will be functional, but it most likely will not be efficient or exceptional. However, with the new hardware "ethos" of pin-for-pin it will be very easy to edit and improve for even a novice programmer.
In order to achieve this new plan, I had to ditch the smaller, more cost effective Arduino Nano, in favor of the Arduino Mega. The mega costs approximately $20 more, which is unfortunate, but was the only way I knew I could get the project done. This does open the door for expansion though. There is a Mega compatible version which has an Android host, so its possible we could see an Andrioid based carputer system with intelligent climate capability.
As mentioned earlier, pin-for-pin is not efficient. We use a total of 50 pins on the Mega. This leaves a total of 12 auxiliary pins independent projects or expansion - of which there is one interrupt pin, three analog pins, and five PWM compatible digital pins. Additionally, I left four serial ports open, so that should allow connection of a slave (or control) module to greatly enhance the overall feature set.
I will try and get PDFs posted shortly for review.
Thanks
Hans
I have been catching up on the speaker kit assembly, and pre-order fulfillment. I am almost caught up. I have a couple more crossovers to assemble, and then ship out all the international stuff. Seems like it has taken forever to get that project to completion (and even longer with the consoles).
I took some time today to finish up some schematics I have been working on here and there for a while. I will try and post them up for review here later this afternoon after I get them formatted for distribution.
Sometimes you just have to admit your limitations and work around them. I had been trying to do this for some time, contracting with several programmers to finish the code, and modifying the hardware each time to better suit their preference, as well as incorporate features requested here. The most recent contractor has officially withdrawn, and will not be working on the project any longer. This has been an incredibly frustrating process, as well as a severely capital depleting process.
With this news earlier in the year, I decided enough was enough, and the only person I could depend on to get the project done was myself. I am still downright lousy at writing code, I am the first to admit it, so I went about designing a completely new hardware package. Some building blocks from the earlier designs were retained, but on a whole, it is a clean-sheet design. I have removes all the complexity from the system. There are no more shift registers, or mux devices... etc, just a very strait forward pin-for-pin arrangement, which should making programming very linear and transparent.
I have drawn the new schematics in a very modular and segmented way so that people will be able to clearly understand the individual elements and how the connect to eachother. The schematic itself will be part of the documentation, so I made it as simple to understand, and logically searchable.
The entire project will be open source. Schematics will be provided, as well as a complete copy of the code, and I encourage anyone to take a look, edit, improve, and share their results with the group. The first firmware revision will be functional, but it most likely will not be efficient or exceptional. However, with the new hardware "ethos" of pin-for-pin it will be very easy to edit and improve for even a novice programmer.
In order to achieve this new plan, I had to ditch the smaller, more cost effective Arduino Nano, in favor of the Arduino Mega. The mega costs approximately $20 more, which is unfortunate, but was the only way I knew I could get the project done. This does open the door for expansion though. There is a Mega compatible version which has an Android host, so its possible we could see an Andrioid based carputer system with intelligent climate capability.
As mentioned earlier, pin-for-pin is not efficient. We use a total of 50 pins on the Mega. This leaves a total of 12 auxiliary pins independent projects or expansion - of which there is one interrupt pin, three analog pins, and five PWM compatible digital pins. Additionally, I left four serial ports open, so that should allow connection of a slave (or control) module to greatly enhance the overall feature set.
I will try and get PDFs posted shortly for review.
Thanks
Hans
03-07-2012, 05:14 PM
#850
Burning Brakes
It seems as though I have been neglecting this project, so though I would post an update.
I have been catching up on the speaker kit assembly, and pre-order fulfillment. I am almost caught up. I have a couple more crossovers to assemble, and then ship out all the international stuff. Seems like it has taken forever to get that project to completion (and even longer with the consoles).
I took some time today to finish up some schematics I have been working on here and there for a while. I will try and post them up for review here later this afternoon after I get them formatted for distribution.
Sometimes you just have to admit your limitations and work around them. I had been trying to do this for some time, contracting with several programmers to finish the code, and modifying the hardware each time to better suit their preference, as well as incorporate features requested here. The most recent contractor has officially withdrawn, and will not be working on the project any longer. This has been an incredibly frustrating process, as well as a severely capital depleting process.
With this news earlier in the year, I decided enough was enough, and the only person I could depend on to get the project done was myself. I am still downright lousy at writing code, I am the first to admit it, so I went about designing a completely new hardware package. Some building blocks from the earlier designs were retained, but on a whole, it is a clean-sheet design. I have removes all the complexity from the system. There are no more shift registers, or mux devices... etc, just a very strait forward pin-for-pin arrangement, which should making programming very linear and transparent.
I have drawn the new schematics in a very modular and segmented way so that people will be able to clearly understand the individual elements and how the connect to eachother. The schematic itself will be part of the documentation, so I made it as simple to understand, and logically searchable.
The entire project will be open source. Schematics will be provided, as well as a complete copy of the code, and I encourage anyone to take a look, edit, improve, and share their results with the group. The first firmware revision will be functional, but it most likely will not be efficient or exceptional. However, with the new hardware "ethos" of pin-for-pin it will be very easy to edit and improve for even a novice programmer.
In order to achieve this new plan, I had to ditch the smaller, more cost effective Arduino Nano, in favor of the Arduino Mega. The mega costs approximately $20 more, which is unfortunate, but was the only way I knew I could get the project done. This does open the door for expansion though. There is a Mega compatible version which has an Android host, so its possible we could see an Andrioid based carputer system with intelligent climate capability.
As mentioned earlier, pin-for-pin is not efficient. We use a total of 50 pins on the Mega. This leaves a total of 12 auxiliary pins independent projects or expansion - of which there is one interrupt pin, three analog pins, and five PWM compatible digital pins. Additionally, I left four serial ports open, so that should allow connection of a slave (or control) module to greatly enhance the overall feature set.
I will try and get PDFs posted shortly for review.
Thanks
Hans
I have been catching up on the speaker kit assembly, and pre-order fulfillment. I am almost caught up. I have a couple more crossovers to assemble, and then ship out all the international stuff. Seems like it has taken forever to get that project to completion (and even longer with the consoles).
I took some time today to finish up some schematics I have been working on here and there for a while. I will try and post them up for review here later this afternoon after I get them formatted for distribution.
Sometimes you just have to admit your limitations and work around them. I had been trying to do this for some time, contracting with several programmers to finish the code, and modifying the hardware each time to better suit their preference, as well as incorporate features requested here. The most recent contractor has officially withdrawn, and will not be working on the project any longer. This has been an incredibly frustrating process, as well as a severely capital depleting process.
With this news earlier in the year, I decided enough was enough, and the only person I could depend on to get the project done was myself. I am still downright lousy at writing code, I am the first to admit it, so I went about designing a completely new hardware package. Some building blocks from the earlier designs were retained, but on a whole, it is a clean-sheet design. I have removes all the complexity from the system. There are no more shift registers, or mux devices... etc, just a very strait forward pin-for-pin arrangement, which should making programming very linear and transparent.
I have drawn the new schematics in a very modular and segmented way so that people will be able to clearly understand the individual elements and how the connect to eachother. The schematic itself will be part of the documentation, so I made it as simple to understand, and logically searchable.
The entire project will be open source. Schematics will be provided, as well as a complete copy of the code, and I encourage anyone to take a look, edit, improve, and share their results with the group. The first firmware revision will be functional, but it most likely will not be efficient or exceptional. However, with the new hardware "ethos" of pin-for-pin it will be very easy to edit and improve for even a novice programmer.
In order to achieve this new plan, I had to ditch the smaller, more cost effective Arduino Nano, in favor of the Arduino Mega. The mega costs approximately $20 more, which is unfortunate, but was the only way I knew I could get the project done. This does open the door for expansion though. There is a Mega compatible version which has an Android host, so its possible we could see an Andrioid based carputer system with intelligent climate capability.
As mentioned earlier, pin-for-pin is not efficient. We use a total of 50 pins on the Mega. This leaves a total of 12 auxiliary pins independent projects or expansion - of which there is one interrupt pin, three analog pins, and five PWM compatible digital pins. Additionally, I left four serial ports open, so that should allow connection of a slave (or control) module to greatly enhance the overall feature set.
I will try and get PDFs posted shortly for review.
Thanks
Hans
03-07-2012, 06:21 PM
#851
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
As promised earlier, attached are several schematics of the new system. I still have a couple tweaks left, and I need to decide what kind of connection system I want to use for the serial bus expansion and the remaining 8 auxiliary ports, but I should be in board layout by this weekend.
Take a look and see if its reasonably clear. I really tried to make everything organized so it could be understood by the outside world.
Thanks
Hans
Take a look and see if its reasonably clear. I really tried to make everything organized so it could be understood by the outside world.
Thanks
Hans
03-11-2012, 12:41 PM
#853
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
One board down, two more to go.
You will notice that there are two relays on this board. The smaller is a high-current automotive rated relay to help fix the AC issue. This is rated at 20a vs the stock 3a part. There is also a fuse on the board to protect the relay. The other larger relay uses that standard Bosch (ISO) relay format we are familiar with - the "53" style. However, this socket is not for a standard relay. The PWM output circuits I have repackaged into this format so it can be plugged onto the boards. The FET devices on this module are way overrated for the factory blower fan, but I am still concerned that in the event of a seized fan, or just a poorly lubricated shaft, it *could* cause the FETs to overheat and break down. The factory fuse in the CE panel is still used, so this again should protect the PWM module, but I figured its better to be safe and socket the device. I can also use this module in other projects by simply using a standard relay socket, so its very versatile. I have this module completed, its all laid out, but not tested in the new pluggable format. I will order boards with this batch and confirm. The board outline is posted for that as well.
Thanks
Hans
You will notice that there are two relays on this board. The smaller is a high-current automotive rated relay to help fix the AC issue. This is rated at 20a vs the stock 3a part. There is also a fuse on the board to protect the relay. The other larger relay uses that standard Bosch (ISO) relay format we are familiar with - the "53" style. However, this socket is not for a standard relay. The PWM output circuits I have repackaged into this format so it can be plugged onto the boards. The FET devices on this module are way overrated for the factory blower fan, but I am still concerned that in the event of a seized fan, or just a poorly lubricated shaft, it *could* cause the FETs to overheat and break down. The factory fuse in the CE panel is still used, so this again should protect the PWM module, but I figured its better to be safe and socket the device. I can also use this module in other projects by simply using a standard relay socket, so its very versatile. I have this module completed, its all laid out, but not tested in the new pluggable format. I will order boards with this batch and confirm. The board outline is posted for that as well.
Thanks
Hans
04-23-2012, 12:54 AM
#854
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Werent you guys making a unit to basically replace the factory HVAC headunit? Essentially a simplified version w/o the carputer? Couldn't recall and was wondering about an update on availability of such a product (or was i dreaming about that one?). ThAnks, you guys are doing some awesome stuff!
04-23-2012, 10:38 AM
#855
Former Vendor
Werent you guys making a unit to basically replace the factory HVAC headunit? Essentially a simplified version w/o the carputer? Couldn't recall and was wondering about an update on availability of such a product (or was i dreaming about that one?). ThAnks, you guys are doing some awesome stuff!
that is indeed the fact and the new AC controller will come out before the carputer.
It will be part of an upcoming update we are working on.
Thanks
Paul