Embedded Digital Dashboard

I'm in the process of coding the RPM reading, and I found a bunch of ways that didn't work. Then I stumbled upon a few who got it to work, followed their algorithm, and coded my own version. It worked and was accurate up to 2999 RPM, then the readings fluctuate to smaller numbers and I can't figure out the issue yet. Oddly enough, as I was tweaking some figures, it worked passed 3000+ and was accurate, so I saved the file and hit upload and it somehow broke. :( Fascinating how that works sometime... Still working on it.

Mapped, but not functional... yet!

As I'm gathering analog data and soldering voltage dividers, I decided to solder the RCA connector and pin it to the Arduino and test the monitor using the TVOut library... and it works! Now it's a matter of soldering a few more dividers, crunching some graphs, and coding.

Began the process of wiring. After probing and checking, I've decided to start with RPM, Temperature, Fuel, and VTEC engagement. Temp and Fuel, when tapped from the gauge cluster, is just a voltage range. It'll take a few weeks of driving to figure out what range is hot/cold and empty/full. VTEC is just an on/off voltage, so that's just boolean.

This project just took a turn in a different direction. I need analog pins to interpret all the raw data, and the RPi only has digital inputs. I thought about using the Beaglebone Black as it does have analog in, but it's only mini-HDMI output for video and I have an RCA 7 inch screen that I'm utilizing. The Arduino UNO has enough analog pins to do exactly what I need, but no visual outputs without a shield. HOWEVER, I found out that with a 1k and 470 ohm resistor and some soldering, I can make pins 7 and 9 output video to RCA with the TVOUT library. The UNO (and subsequently the Pro Trinket 5v) can handle the input power voltage straight from the car's battery and the analog pins just need to be stepped down with a 10k and 3k ohm resistor to around 3 volts. So this has basically just become and Arduino digital dashboard. I'll be poking, prodding, and building within the week, so I should have new images and such soon.

The project has just become my CS project for my capstone class. I ordered a 7 inch screen for it to motivate me to begin cracking down on progress. More frequent updates should be rolling in as I get more done.

Just picked up a deal on a BeagleBone Black kit... This prototyping thing could get interesting.

Made friends with a couple of electrical engineering majors this semester, one of which said he can build the 12v to 5v signal converters for me so I can continue working on this. Hopefully I can then start prototyping and see if I like the RPi or Arduino platform better. It probably will boil down to if I want to program in Python or Sketch, and whether or not I want to wait for the RPi to boot up and create a battery backup shutdown for it.