digital dash using raspberry pi + '808

[vn304turbo]

Hi all, has anyone considered the possibility of using a raspberry pi or other ARM linux board to communicate with a delco 808 with the usb com board and an nvram?

The reason I ask about the raspi ia its relatively cheap at 50 bucks or so for the model b (with the ethernet port onboard) its not a hugely powerful board but does come with usb and a hdmi out.

I had been contemplating how awesome it would be to have something like a 7" lcd screen with a flashy looking overlay instead of the crappy vn level 1 cluster I have in my vn to display the usual things like speed, rpm, water temp and fuel level but perhaps also some smaller things like oil temp and pressure Gearbox temp and line pressure, diff temp etc. To start with I would only be looking to intergrate the factory sensors but as I add sensors later down the track like box and diff temp sensors id like to have them in there too.

Half the reason for this is that I also want to he able to keep a very close eye on alot of things but dont want to have half a million guages scattered all over my bonnet and dash.

Now im not much of a programmer altho have done some very basic stuff with VB. I know im going to have to learn a language or two to pull this off but a few points in the right direction would really be great. I have seen some open source adld and obd programs for these ARM linux boards but seeing as ill be going for an nvram and usb comm board anyway I figured it would be a substantially different kettle of fish

[Holden202T]

I see no reason why it wouldn't work, as long as you could get the interface and software to talk to the delco it should be possible.

[festy]

Like this?

dash1a.jpg (100.12 KiB) Viewed 4508 times

dash1b.jpg (76.19 KiB) Viewed 4508 times

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9GyRrYKxSk[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYu8XQRJmYE[/youtube]

http://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2195

There's no reason why you couldn't use a graphic display in place of a character LCD like mine, the rpi has a very decent GPU.

[vn304turbo]

Same idea yea, I have had the idea on the brain for a while and I saw those vids while digging around a few weeks back.
Only differece is I was thinking a much larger 7" or bigger screen wish simulated guages and some form of customisable image to overlay on the guage faces etc and to insert the whole screen into the dash where the cluster used to be. I was thinking of using smaller screens exactly like that mounted to the left of the cluster on the dash to display some of the parameters. I just think they look cool lol

[antus]

Im all for the home brewing, but If you dont want to homebrew it, you can also use ALDLDroid on an android tablet with an FTDI chipset based interface (such as the pcmhacking comms boards and aldl interfaces).

[vn304turbo]

For me its all about making it with my hands, I just love it lol I had been thinking of aquiring some of the programs out there to decompile and see what exactly makes them tick. Im not expecting to see any visualbasic in there tho so im sure ill have to do some learning ; ) then perhaps once I know what it is I have to do ill start my own program. I will be using an nvram and usb comms board (from here) in the car so being able to use a simple usb cable from ecu to the raspi would be a huge plus. And also simplify duplication if im not making alot of custom hardware. Would the 'GPIO' pins on this board also accept sensor signals?

[vn304turbo]

http://www.arndaleboard.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I also have considered using one of these 5420 arndale octa boards for a later iteration if I find myseof unhappy with the graphics quality from the raspi, but at 2-250 bucks its a hell of alot more expensive

[festy]

Would the 'GPIO' pins on this board also accept sensor signals?

No, they're 3.3v digital I/O lines.
You could hook up an SPI or I2C ADC chip for sensor inputs though, there's plenty of threads on the rpi forums on external ADCs.

I wouldn't worry about the graphics capabillities of the rpi, their GPU is pretty beefy. I use one as a media center client (xmbc), it has no trouble with 1080p video.

[vn304turbo]

Guess that hdmi does get put to good use then im happy to hear the graphics side of it will be ok.
Pity about the gpio thing but seems like its easy to work around anyway. Im relatively new to these things and still trying to figure them out. It all started as an idea but I would like to do it. I think I may have to order a few raspi's as tgere are other things I would like to do with them aswell, like a super Nintendo (SNES) emulator called retropi or something, already got a cheapo usb snes controller from ebay lol

[delcowizzid]

might help you along your way http://www.gearhead-efi.com/Fuel-Inject ... ght=logger