Okay, I hope that’s a descriptive enough thread title, if any mod can come up with a better one, feel free to change it.
Just for the hell of it, I’d like to be able to take a laptop PC and hook it up to some devices to monitor various things in my car. I’d like to be able to monitor the underhood temps, count the revolutions of the driveshaft, and probably a few dozen other things once I think of them and I find out what’s possible and how much it all costs. What I’d like to know is what kinds of things are available, how much they might cost, and how hard it would be to build a custom device plus where I can get the parts and plans). I’ve got no problems with drilling a hole in the firewall to run the wires through (car’s going to be scrapped sooner or later, any way) and I’d like (though it’s not necessary) for every thing to be USB capable.
And I’d like recommendations on software to handle all of this. The PC will be running XP Pro, though a dual booter with Linux would be OK.
I don’t know anything useful about car instrumentation, although if you want some easy to use computer hardware/software, check out National Instruments. They have a relatively low cost line of DAQ boards and other hardware that you could use to connect various signal types. Labview (thier programming environment) is great for prototyping and you can also compile it. Unfortunately, we’re talking Windows only and I don’t know of any pre-packaged car solutions like you are talking about. But once you’ve got the sensors in place and are generating some sort of a signal, NI and Labview can do the other half (listening to the signal and giving you some control through the computer).
If it’s a fairly new car, you might be able to get an OBD-II scanner that will give you a lot of the information you’re looking for.
Google “obd-II scan tool” and you’ll get lots of them.
Tuckerfan:
I believe most modern cars already monitor all those things. it should simply be a matter of figuring out how to interface it all. I’m willing to bet most information is routed to your car’s main computer. So it might just be a single physical hookup. After that you’ll probably have to search for some software.
Let us know if you find any. It’d be interesting to be able to monitor the power curves in my car.
Uh, guys, this ain’t a modern car. It’s a 1984 Honda Accord, and about the only electronics still functioning on it are the headlights and wipers (and even those aren’t too reliable).