Husky

I always like to think of the scenario that lead the car to this position.

Driver is parking

Is narcoleptic

THUD face hits horn

*Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*

They wake up

Car rolled to a stop

Parking complete

Just a slight observation:

UK = Bonnet and boot

US = Hood and trunk

ok, Im loving this project but its totally out of my depth with all that techi stuff. Why is this better than fitting a straight forward Androd tablet? What can this do that say a Samsung 10" tab cant?

Just interested thats all, not being picky.

Yeah fitting a tablet is certainly an option, I could write an application for it and achieve much of what I'm planning most likely. For me I like designing what's in there, I can modify and update it to suit my needs as required. Say for example there's a nice jump in screen technology putting 4k stuff into tablet sizes, or some change comes around relating to touch control; with a sealed tablet I have to change the whole build in order to have that upgrade, with this I can change only the screen. Same goes for the processor, inevitably faster ones will come out as time goes on, I can simply swap out the controller in this build as opposed to changing the whole tablet in the simpler design. Finally the vehicle level control requires input/output to the controller, for things like the Raspberry Pi and Arduino this is their bread and butter, for a tablet, not so much and you'd have to resort to a more hacky solution.

I love the design and build being personal though, I know how it works, I know how to fix it and I can upgrade it any time I like. It's one of a kind too which is always great.

As far as understanding the techy stuff, It's just big more than complicated so it can be a bit overwhelming. Once you break it down into small sections it starts to fall into place. I could have gone ahead with this project just buying bits and fudging it together, but I don't want it to cost the earth so planning ahead saves money.

I'm a lifer with Windows sadly, never taken the plunge in any other OS as I get frustrated being a noob all over again. If I made this in a Windows environment there's a range of things I could build it in no problem in a lot less time. However that comes with the overhead of an actual PC build on mico ITX; cost goes up, space used goes up and so does power requirement.

 

Do you know about this? https://developer.mi...t/Downloads.htm Not a big windows guy myself, so not sure what you get in it, but may still be enough of the standard OS for your needs.

I was eyeing this up actually, but the brief google I gave it had a lot of criticism of it being buggy so I put it down for later reading. I'm not sure how old those reports were so it may have been sorted. I know that they target that platform at hobbyists so it may be ideal. The basic design of the system shouldn't change so I can still crack on in the direction I'm going, it's only once I get tot he implementation stage that I need to start making a call on the final OS. Even then I think that something such as QT can compile for various platforms anyway so I wouldn't be too stuck. Definately more reading required though!

Sorry, I'm no use to you there, I've played with a few Linux distros on VMs and Pi but never taken the plunge and lived with one on my main machine. I'm too heavily integrated into OSX/iOS to change now!

 

I think NOOBS comes with Linux Mint Debian, which is supposed to be lightweight, but I must admit I got bored with it after a short while. There was a RISC OS on there too, which was purely a nostalgic gimmick to me, taking me back to my youth on acorns!

 

The newer Pi has beefed up processing doesn't it, so should be a winner anyway.

The new Pi is a dream machine now, it's faster home cinema than my gaming rig just because it has the wonderful benefit of not being weighed down with all the BS. Kodi runs as fast as you can smash the buttons, zero load time.

I'm a lifer with Windows sadly, never taken the plunge in any other OS as I get frustrated being a noob all over again. If I made this in a Windows environment there's a range of things I could build it in no problem in a lot less time. However that comes with the overhead of an actual PC build on mico ITX; cost goes up, space used goes up and so does power requirement.

I need to develop an entire GUI that'll run sat nav, vlc and whatever else. At the moment I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to use for it, I actually got scared and started looking at how much it'd be for a car PC so I could have windows on it becasue that's my area, Linux scares me! That's why I got the Pi early, so I can faff about with it and learn while I go. I'm looking at Qt for building the interface. But hey. if you know your way around Linux and have any pointers let me know!

Toys arrived today.

New gen 3 Raspberry Pi, with official case (which is really nice) and NOOBS imaged 16GB micro SD card.

Also got a mini keyboard/trackpad, you can see the gen 1 Pi in the clear case too

Hooked it all up to the screen and fire it up. I put XBMC(Kodi) on there for now as I'm just testing things work with the screen etc, this Pi will run our bedroom projector setup as it's main job.

Super happy with the image quality, within minutes I had it streaming IPlayer

So I know the screen still works after being in a box for a year, but there is an issue with the connection layout, it was designed with the first Gen Pi in mind, by Gen 2 they had moved some ports around and it's now a really bad fit connecting up. I can fudge it with some cables though so I think it's fine. I'll need to image the Pi with Raspbian or Ubuntu to test the touchscreen though, I know it worked a year ago, fingers crossed it still does!

NB: I won't be using XBMC for the multimedia in the final build, it is primarily a full screen program so I can't embed it in a window the way I want. I'll likely use VLC for video/audio playing.

That's all for now

I'll see if I can get Mr Biscuit to tear himself away from the twins and give some input. I'm no expert on the old ones myself.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201603111858884

I'm sure you can haggle 5 grand off for the lack of handling.

I've been looking a the fit of the screen this morning and it's perhaps not looking good I may have been a tad optimistic with the 10inch display! I had a suspicion it wouldn't fit and I am prepared for that eventuality (I have other uses for it) but it's still sad if it wont go in.

The relevant screen sizes are here:

red (full width with bezel) = 269.37mm

orange (screen width, no bezel) = 233.8mm

blue ( screen height, no bezel) = 139.0mm

The very rough measurements I got from the car put the available width at 21.5cm at it's narrowest. Best case scenario is that I can recess the screen where there';s a bit more room, but then there is a very good chance I won't be able to see all of it once it's in there. Time to locate a new screen I guess!

EDIT: My options seem to be:

1. Mount vertically and accept really bad downscaled resolution on any video (is this a big issue really?)
    
   
2. Heavily modify the dash to fit the screen in.
    
   
3. Mount the screen in front of the console so it's sides stick out.
    
   
4. Recess the screen in where there is more space, potentially blocking the view of it's edges.
    
   
5. Find a new screen that's smaller, likely 7inch, although hard to find 720p with touch.
    
   
6. Accept that I'll have no touch input and find a screen that fits (easier to find)
    
   
7. Find a screen that fits and a touch overlay separately.
    
   
8. Remeasure the dash in the hopes that I got it slightly wrong and in fact the screen does fit... Just.
   

EDIT2: I think the decision has been made to mount it in portrait orientation. Reasons:

1. Loss of resolution for 16:9 video isn't critical as watching high res movies isn't a priority. Sat nav can still be full screen, in portrait mode.
   
2. Layout of the GUI is oging to be far easier as multiple sections can be shown at the same time as content.
   

I can't see how the original exhaust tip would come loose? It's pretty much part of the system, not a bolt on.

Agreed, I'd rather the screen was up higher too. Maybe put the vents between screen and HVAC controls?

Yeah that's a good call. I wanted them lower to keep the continuity between screen and controls though, hmm.

I got the measurement done, didn't have any way of measuring the angle so I made some triangles with a tape measure

first one is the left and right swing of the vent, this is a top down view. You can see that the vent has a 26.6deg angle swing from straight, it's the same for both vents facing either way.

Behold the paint art gets better. This one is the vent top down same as before but this time with my hand (pink) on top of the gear stick. My hand would be 10cm away from the vent, my fist is about 10cm wide, so that leaves 5cm for the vent to get past on either side. It turns out it's the exact right angle for it. Bear in mind this is when I first start feeling the vent air movement, not full force, that's not until a full 45deg angle before it is at max air flow.

The tilt has the same articulation as the swing so should't be an issue at all.

Further info while I was out there. The vents are ~21cm wide and ~5cm high. The console right down the bottom is 18cm wide, so it looks like they will have to go up a bit anyway unless i want to cut the vent width down with some creative chopping.

Thanks for the interest guys

Ekona: let me go measure now, I'm not entirely convinced on the location either but I'm struggling to fit them in anywhere else as I want the screen as high as possible.

that's does seem incredibly annoying - given how much computing power cars have these days and that pretty much every car has an on board computer, I don't see any reason why all cars don't have a manual mode, where all the settings can be individually set up by the driver. by all means have a few presets as well, but forcing you to have rev matching when sport mode is on is just retarded.

 

its often confused me why auto gearboxes don't allow you to set upper and lower rev limits, when i'd thought it quite an easy thing to do. for example, when doing spirited driving, and I brake hard for a corner, the gearbox will hold 4th as I brake, then only downshift when I exit the corner and put my foot down. would be really beneficial if it had a minimum rev of 2500rpm, say, so it would automatically start downshifting as i'm braking so i'm in the right gear when I exit the corner.

 

even more stupidly, is that I know autos prevent engine damage by not downshifting if it would overrev the engine, but it really irks me that if I need a bit more power to make an overtake when the car is cold it'll happily take the engine to the redline when the engine is cold, when it seems such a simple thing to limit the revs until the engine is up to temperature. Theres only one car I can think of that has a redline that increases as the engine warms up (BMW E46 M3), would have thought on performance motors it should be more commonplace.

If only auto transmission controls was that simple It's what I do for a living and yes, your ideas are great, however it isn't as simple to get the implemented. First off you have to remember that you are the 1% (if that) of the user base that would expect, want or even use the functionality, that alone is idea practically dead in the starting blocks. None of them relate to safety, in fact they may introduce a higher factor of risk to the transmission by their implementation, that's another road block as you'd have to do a full hazard and risk analysis of each one. You have to answer questions about what setting limits would do in every conceivable situation, would it endanger the driver or others? you get the idea.

You have to tune everything and you have to do it for every variant of the car. If I use that gearbox in 4 different vehicles I make, I have say 3 engines for them, each engine has 2 power variants, then I have an AWD option in 25% of the options available. That's 4x3x2 = 24 plus the AWD = 30. All of a sudden you've gone up to calibrating for 30 different vehicles and that is a monster amount of work.

A lot of sport modes do what you are describing though, you need to test drive the box you are going to buy as they all have their own nuanced behaviours that you may or may not like. Something like holding a gear while in sport is common.

In regards to the downshift while you are braking, that's a huge big ask right there. The driver expects an amount of brake to give an amount of deceleration, if you down shift during that you are going to decelerate the vehicle more than expected. So your choice is; do you release the brake electronically in proportion to the expected deceleration of the vehicle due to driveline drag? or do you increase the virtual throttle pedal to negate the driveline drag, this means you have to be constantly changing the virtual pedal in relation to braking, vehicle speed and engine speed. Across 30 variants to calibrate... Big job right there.

The prevent downshift when cold is somehting that could be put in, but that would require the EMS to have a signal telling the Trans that it's in cold mode, and then the transmission would have to react to that. So the transmission guys need to agree with the engine guys to use the signal, the signal needs to be signed off for the correct safety rating, then they can crack on and make the functionality, but wait, they dont actually make the gearbox or the code... So they need to build a set of requirements that they send to the gearbox supplier, the supplier charges them a fortune and develops the functionality for them. After they get the new stuff from the supplier they then need to test that all their requirements have been met and the software doesn't do anything funky, it's an iterative process if faults are found.

The car isn't one big computer, it's 100. Those 100 computers have tens of thousands of signals. It's a massively complex system that has major safety implications if done wrong, so we only do things if we can justify the feature and it's cost.

but it only comes in when you turn on Sport mode.

Wow, that seems extremely backwards

It actually annoys me a bit that they introduced the throttle blip thing on the 370z. A manual transmission should be exactly that IMO, matching of revs included.

 

Scallywag, get yourself a Nismo 380RS Accelerator Pedal, which will make heel and toe downshifts easier

The 370z uses the same transmission as the 350z, the 6-speed FS6R31A manual. The 350z quite nicely proved that the syncromesh within that box is made of cheap chocolate and will easily die off if not treated with care. The rev matching is a function added to give the gearbox an easier time by protecting it from poor driving and thus last longer. It's been marketed as a feature even though it is a sticking plaster over a problem.

All my own opinion of course but it seems highly likely to be the case.

It's me doing a stupid custom project again, it's been a while.

This time I'm looking to build a custom multimedia unit, I'd rather call it infotainment but people find that word odd even though it's the technically correct term. I thought I'd written a thread on this a year ago, but can't find it, anyhow it was something I kicked off over a year back and had to put to the side as life got in the way.

Be warned, this is probably going to be a dull read unless you find system design interesting It's a work in progress thread, so I'll add to it when I have more done.

What I have at the moment:

Car: Well it's the first step isn't it, Celica GT4 ST205

Screen: This is the one I'll be putting in, it's a bit of a beast at 10" so we'll see how fitting that in goes... I can buy a smaller one if needed but I'd really like to keep the screen real estate as big as possible.

Controller: Raspberry Pi, have the older gen one, will be upgrading to the newest gen later as I progress. I found the older gen to be a bit laggy with certain applications so wasn't overly confident in using it for this purpose, the new gen is way faster though, so shouldn't be an issue.

System/Network Design:

User Interface Design:

Physical Design:

Function Design:

Shopping list:

Controller (Pi)

Controller housing

Data storage

Link

£54.95

Keyboard/mouse

Link

£10

Screen:

Link (bought new, however is discontinued now)

£95

http://i.imgur.com/frHdJ72.png , http://www.chalk-elec.com/?p=1576

GPS reciever

Link

£38.77

I've had it in a few Jap cars, seems they like moist trousers

You can actually watch a lot of live feeds from the ISS, also if you have never watched them, I'd say to go and look at all Cmdr Chris Hadfeild's videos from the ISS on youtube. It's all above board and real. The amount of telemetry data from the rocket landing will be immense, remember they didn't one shot this, you can watch all the footage of the previous ones blowing up.

The rock samples from the moon landing are agreed as legitimate extraterrestrial, the soviet union at the time didn't dispute it and they had every reason to. The moon landing happened and you'd have a tough time convincing me that it's some conspiracy considering we did it over and over.

Most people have done some kind of tax evasion or avoidance in their life and seem totally fine with it but when someone else does it suddenly its another matter altogether

 

Never have, wouldn't even know how to. They just rape me while I bend over taking it screaming "YES MORE PLEASE", because I'm far to lazy to do anything about it and would prefer to spend my time sitting on the bog shitposting on Reddit. Hmm, I should get an accountant.

 

Never bought fags back for someone on holiday, always made sure you declared ALL your holiday purchases, never paid a price "for cash" or done a "cash in hand" job, never had an overseas purchase slip though the customs charge most people have at some point.

Yeah, sadly I am squeaky clean as far as being a good citizen goes My wallet doesn't like my principles

The engineering required to pull this stuff off is just crazy!!

 

Indeed, I'm going to look up how on earth it manages to re-enter the atmosphere without burning up.

 

Pete

Heat-shielding?...

Ahhh, I feel like there was going to be something special there

If you class acid leaking down the chassis as special, there sure was!

Ugh, no idea why the forum is being a dick about the .gifs.

Impressive maybe but why would you ever need to do that?

It's pretty significant, and although I agree that on the face of it, it seems super simple and "haven't we done that already surely" it's a big deal.

Reusable rocket; super important, simply put, it lowers cost. the cheaper space flight is, the more of it we can do, the more research in space we can do and the more we can expand our horizons scientifically and as a species. They have already landed a reusable rocket on ground once before at Cape Canaveral, but landing in the sea is important as they will be landing a third of their rockets in the big blue in the future.

What's the deal with the water landing? It is the tricky one! It is a tiny moving target in an enormous shooting range, making it far more difficult than other landing types, if they can get this one sorted, everything else is a piece of cake! You also have to remember that thus far, all of their attempts have resulted in KABOOM sounds with attached fireballs, super good that's on the water. But here's the important bit about the water, they aren't tied down to a fixed landing spot which costs a lot of fuel to manoeuvre to. The drone ship can position itself in a handy dandy place for the rocket to come down at, a lot easier moving the bit down here than the one up there. Less distance = less fuel = less money = more space!

What did we do with the rockets before? Wasted, most are tossed into the void and forgotten about. rocket costs 60 mil, fuel 200k, it's easy to see where the funding is being wasted and why this is so important.

Here's the vid of the landing, it's looking pretty damn sci-fi with the landing gear deployment and the fact they nailed the target so amazingly accurately.

and a big ass Gif if you don't want to open Youtube

And if you want to listen to a lot of very excited people from the live stream, here you go (volume warning my god the crowd are loud)

Drone ships: Pretty cool sounding and and have awesome names: JRtI, just read the instructions and OCISLY, Of course I still love you. These guys are autonomous vessels and are able to position themselves within 3 meters of the target location even during a storm, which is nuts. These guys can be left to sort themselves out, or someone can take control and drive them around remotely.

Don't forget they are also putting the BEAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Expandable_Activity_Module up there for testing. This is an awesome technology, inflatable space habitats that will make a lot more possible for a lot less. They are going to be testing one of these for the next two years to see how it fairs in comparison to a normal module. if it's all got the go ahead it's going to massively reduce the payload required for expanding our foothold in the big black; Just think, one rocket blasts of, delivers a whole space station, then comes back down to earth and lands on a barge that sailed itself into position, back home in time for dinner.

God dammit, it's exciting times!

/engineering nergasm over

Most people have done some kind of tax evasion or avoidance in their life and seem totally fine with it but when someone else does it suddenly its another matter altogether

Never have, wouldn't even know how to. They just rape me while I bend over taking it screaming "YES MORE PLEASE", because I'm far to lazy to do anything about it and would prefer to spend my time sitting on the bog shitposting on Reddit. Hmm, I should get an accountant.