On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:06:46 GMT, "Paul" wrote:

I've been wondering, what would be involved in having a computer interpret
and display gauge readings.

By this I mean something such as having a laptop receiving inputs from the
various gauge sending units such as oil pressure, engine temp etc. and then
displaying them in some way.

I don't believe this is something I would actually do, it's just I was on a
long drive yesterday and it got into my head and I would really like to
figure it out.

I've googled unsuccessfully (I'm ashamed to admit) so if anyone can point me
in a direction ...


I'm not sure if you are talking about buying a solution or building
one. If it's the former, someone already mentioned CruzPro. Their
stuff looks nice, but I don't know anyone with personal experience
using it. If ibuilding a solution interests you...

I've talked to some engineer friends about designing the data capture
hardware and they say it could be done rather cheaply with off the
shelf parts. Serial and etherner driver chipsets are cheap, as are
analog to digital convertors. Something like a PIC processor should
handle assembling the data sentences easily. It's outside my current
area of expertise, though

The computer part is definitely doable, as you can see from my sig.
The software is hard to build form the ground up, but if architected
correctly, easy to extend to new instruments. For example, I can
generally turn around a request to support a new NMEA sentence in less
time than you'd believe. Adding a whole new guage takes a bit more
time, but is still not a big deal.

For engine instruments, I'd want to add more alarm functionality.
Using built in sound functionality in Windows would be easy, but I
think you'd really like an external alarm circuit with an annoying
piezo.

I already have the logging function, which to me would be the real
value of using a computer in this application. You could track
changes in things like oil pressure, fuel consumption at a given rpm,
water temp, and alternator output over time.

Of course, you could accomplish the same thing with mechanical
instruments and a logbook. Logbooks are known to be highly resistant
to lightning strikes and consume almost no power. :-)

__________________________________________________ __________
Glen "Wiley" Wilson usenet1 SPAMNIX at worldwidewiley dot com
To reply, lose the capitals and do the obvious.

Take a look at cpRepeater, my NMEA data integrator, repeater, and
logger at http://www.worldwidewiley.com/