Raspberry Pi data logger with display. Need help

[alfa147x]

I've done the easy part. Designed the GUI:
Larger Image

Plan is for it be running off of a $35 Raspberry Pi
+ $10 OBD-II STN1110
+ $20 GPS chip (Pharos GPS-360?)
+ $5 accelerometer + compass (LSM303DLH or ADXL335).

$80 gives you a computer with HDMI and RCA video out for your head unit.
I want it to be touch / interface optional. So you can set it up at home and then take it out to your car and hook it up to a non-touch enabled display.


Anyone know how to program something like this? Anyone want to partner up?

 

[foghorn67]

I wish I could. Me and my buddy ordered 3 of them. I know nothing about coding, just going off the hundreds of well known Pi "hack's" well documented.

 

[alfa147x]

I wish I could. Me and my buddy ordered 3 of them. I know nothing about coding, just going off the hundreds of well known Pi "hack's" well documented.

Ah. I got one ($45 is hefty for a college senior). Planning on ordering the rest of the hardware soon. I'll go piece by piece. Probably get the obd2 and accelerometer + compass. Hopefully I can get it where people follow a hardware tutorial and download a sd card image or run a bash script. I'll try to keep this thread updated.

 

[alfa147x]

Oh I forgot to add. You set a home location. Every time you arrive at this location it will attempt to connect to your wifi network and upload the log file to a dropbox account. It will then run a md5 checksum on the local version and the dropbox version to verify that they are the same. You wouldn't have to take out of the car to read the log file.

 

[foghorn67]

Ah. I got one ($45 is hefty for a college senior). Planning on ordering the rest of the hardware soon. I'll go piece by piece. Probably get the obd2 and compass and compass. Hopefully I can get it where people follow a hardware tutorial and download a sd card image or run a bash script. I'll try to keep this thread updated.

Awesome. I am definitely interested in your progress. I never thought to put the Pi in car related applications.
That, and your idea seems perfectly reasonable and attainable.

 

[alfa147x]

Just found a tutorial for the cheap ebay GPS:
http://astrobeano.blogspot.com/2012/10/pharosmicrosoft-gps-360-on-raspberry-pi.html

edit:
Got a team going. Programmer and engineer have been sourced. This might actually become a real thing!

 

[Crono]

Pretty GUI mockup.

Look forward to hearing/seeing more. I bought a Raspberry Pi a while back, but ended up giving it away because I didn't find time to make a build out of it. But I would love to get another unit, and not need to use something like Nexus 7 with OBDII app (Torque is what I used to use), which isn't quite as flexible as a Pi would be with your program.

You should name it Carmawesome (short for Car: Maximum Awesome)

 

[alfa147x]

Pretty GUI mockup.

Look forward to hearing/seeing more. I bought a Raspberry Pi a while back, but ended up giving it away because I didn't find time to make a build out of it. But I would love to get another unit, and not need to use something like Nexus 7 with OBDII app (Torque is what I used to use), which isn't quite as flexible as a Pi would be with your program.

You should name it Carmawesome (short for Car: Maximum Awesome)

Haha awesome. We got a hardware guy on board. Waiting for PCBs to get printed and stuff. Should be a few weeks away from that. The PCB for the OBD-II -> Serial should only cost $15 - $20 before the cost of the actual connectors.

Looks like we're going to choose to stay away from BT for this since it will be made to be installed into a car vs portable. The PCB does have traces for a BT chip but we won't be using it. So you could use BT if you wanted. You would just have to populate the chip and connect it to the RPi.

It's getting close to finals week for me so I won't have much time to devote to this but the other guys are recent grads with more free time. Hopefully once we get the PCBs made the project will be on a role.

 

[Crono]

Haha awesome. We got a hardware guy on board. Waiting for PCBs to get printed and stuff. Should be a few weeks away from that. The PCB for the OBD-II -> Serial should only cost $15 - $20 before the cost of the actual connectors.

Looks like we're going to choose to stay away from BT for this since it will be made to be installed into a car vs portable. The PCB does have traces for a BT chip but we won't be using it. So you could use BT if you wanted. You would just have to populate the chip and connect it to the RPi.

It's getting close to finals week for me so I won't have much time to devote to this but the other guys are recent grads with more free time. Hopefully once we get the PCBs made the project will be on a role.

Sounds like a good plan.

You should do a Kickstarter or other crowd sourcing project if you want to mass sell it. I'm betting a lot of car people would want one once they catch on to the features. Even if you don't, put me down for one unit. Or please update this thread if you release the RPi software for Linux.

 

[skyking]

I have a different project, much the same as far as the data logging, but I want to control fans and louvers on my truck based on various parameters. I too am in need of help

 

[alfa147x]

I have a different project, much the same as far as the data logging, but I want to control fans and louvers on my truck based on various parameters. I too am in need of help

I would start here:
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2013/0...n-10-stepper-motors-raspberry_pi-raspberrypi/

and here:
http://www.susa.net/wordpress/2012/06/raspberry-pi-relay-using-gpio/

You might be better off using an Arduino for control.

 

[alfa147x]

Sounds like a good plan.

You should do a Kickstarter or other crowd sourcing project if you want to mass sell it. I'm betting a lot of car people would want one once they catch on to the features. Even if you don't, put me down for one unit. Or please update this thread if you release the RPi software for Linux.

I think we're going for free for fun and the lack of support. None of us have very much Python experience so we don't want to make commitments. If it's free people can complain but can't do anything about it. If we sell it then we have to support it.

If it goes well we might be able to do a "pro" version or something of that nature.

 

[alfa147x]

Also our hardware guy is very adamant about it being open source / free. Without him we would be forced to use a $50+ OBD II board.

 

[skyking]

arduino is what I was looking at, with all the analog and PWM capability.