RPi PSU with CAN
Had a rather productive Spring with several new HW designs. One of them was a RPi Power Supply Unit (PSU) with CAN interface. In order to have a reliable streaming of data using a RPi, a decent and reliable power source is needed.
JunctionBox
The installation of modules to be used in the airVentDisplay technology ecosystem has been done by either stripping cables and soldering or using posi tap connectors. To ease the installation process, a JunctionBox is made.
Use of Kalmanfilter, MEMS Motion Tracking Sensor and ToF sensor to estimate damper displacement
My brake disk temperature sensor is also equipped with a MEMS Motion Tracking Sensor, measuring rotational speed and acceleration in all three axes. Together with a Time-of-Flight (ToF) distance measurement sensor placed on the damper, it will be possible to do analysis on the damper system.
Brake Disc Temp Measurements mockup
3D printed an interation of the enclosure, soldered the components necessary for doing brake disc temperature measurements and made a first version of the sw necessary for streaming the temperature data over Bluetooth LE.
Test of CAN2BLE HLT in Car
For a few weeks now I have been testing my custom CAN2BLE HLT in one of my e46.
Brake Disc Temp Measurements cont.
Made the first iteration of PCB for brake disc temperature measurements.
MK60 Emulator and aftermarket components
When it comes to the MK60 Emulator, one might get the impression that in order to have MK60 emulation in solutions using aftermarket components, one need my dual CAN solution. That is not necessarily the case.
Final bench test of the CAN2BLE HLT
The last weeks have been spent to test my custom CAN to BLE solution for streaming CAN data to Harry's Lap Timer. Time had finally come to test the CAN2BLE HLT in my test bench.
Custom E46 CAN to Bluetooth LE for Harry's Lap Timer
In an earlier Blog, I wrote about interfacing Harry's Lap Timer, utilizing the Bluetooth LE interface on the RPi meant for streaming the CAN data of my e46 m3 based car. Recently I have played with a nRF52 chipset to develop a custom CAN to BLE solution for streaming CAN data to Harry's Lap Timer.
Brake Disc Temp Measurements
Looking into the opportunity to develop a solution that measure brake disk temperatures using a 16x4 pixels IR sensor and which transmits the measurements over Bluetooth LE (BLE).
CAN Emulator with EWS support
One of the unique features of my MK60 emulators are to emulate with an mss54/mss54hp in the system, i.e. with only the IKE missing. So far, a requirement has been "mss54 with EWS deleted", since the IKE act as a gateway between the mss54 and the EWS.
Interfacing Harry's Lap Timer
Harry's Lap Timer claims to be "the worldwide #1 video and timing app" for car enthusiasts taking their car to the race track. All that is needed is a Smartphone. To fully utilize all the features in the app, an OBDII reader and an external GPS is recommended.
Diff. temperature measurement installed
A part of this project has been to develop measurement of the temperature in the rear differential. The temperature is measured by a custom analog2CAN HW using a NTC temperature sensor, and the diff. temperature is streamed onto the CAN bus once a second and visualized in the airVent Display.
GearBox temperature measurement installed
At the race track it is of great interest to have some sort of control with the temperature in the gear box. Our solution is to use the analog2CAN HW for gear box oil temperature measurement, which streams the temperature measurements onto the CAN bus for visualization in the airVent Display.
Optimizing the bezel
Had to do a few respin of the bezel development in order to optimize for visibility and eliminate reflections in the screen, especially from the rear window during very bright conditions. Happy now...
airVent Display installed in car
Finally, the time had come to install the airVent Display in one of my E46. The first installation had to be in the E46 332ti. I'm very happy with the result. The main color codes matches the E46 M3 instrument cluster colors perfectly when it is dark.
Finalizing the Bezel
The bezel surrounding the display have so far been designed by me. Got some help from a good and very skilled colleague to make the bezel perfect. I'm very pleased with the result...
Custom solution for CAN data telemetry
As said in the previous blog, an important task on the backlog has been to stream the CAN data to the cloud. After testing different providers offering solutions for receiving my CAN data, I realized I had to make my own solution.
Streaming of CAN data to the Cloud
An important task on the backlog has been to stream the CAN data to the cloud. It kind of merge all the work with the HW and SW with all the learnings from the Race Engineer Course.
Optimized KBUS communication
One of the unike characteristics of the airVentDisplay HMI is that it get all its data from the CAN bus. That said, some of the displayed data is taken from the KBUS and streamed to the CAN bus by the KBUS2CAN hardware. With its communication speed limited to 9600 baud, the KBUS is not well suited for high data streaming rates.
