Project P3rvette

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Wes, thats awesome! well except the totalling and near death part. Now i know im not documenting my project in vane. U gotta drive it though, that kinda car is not made for sitting in carage! oh and its about time to wreck that dash and put in some xlobby screen!

I love the Vette too, u americans know how to make cars

Mayby that new ZR-1 with LS9 and 638hp will give u a justification to spend some bucks as for me, i cant dream about anything newer than current, well unless i end up working in states, because prices are so crazy here, cause of taxation and small markets, besides im financially challenged. Price of mine would have bought me that sweet Z06 511hp version of C6 as new in states and that one as used costs here 107k€, which i believe is around $160k at current rate, i bet u could get somekinda Ferrari in states for that...Yep thats why i call it Funland, everything fun: gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol and cars are so heavily taxed u have to make double or triple fun out of them

About skin, u pretty much have seen all there is so far to sharkskin, i started it from tabula rasa and screens are added as needed, there are some shots of now defunct PhoneControl.NET part on PCd-thread. Ill be posting more shots as i move on... really im not a skinner at all... i wouldnt be doing it myself if there would be a other way... next im gonna finish mp3 screen hopefully by wednesday... BTW i dont know if this is too much to ask, but would be great help if u could take picture of back lights of yours, both on and off, directly from behind, so i could replace my euro lights on skin with them cause they dont fit on sharskins color scheme...

Today started as any other summerday me jumping into vette and driving to a beach to read some Ivo Andric and get tanned.... Except this morning I had that fancy MP3 player on my car! Yes project's Maiden voyage has been completed!!! And i can tell u guys it was sweet Thats the reason i didnt respond earlier... yesterday i was working from dawn till dusk on the project, well except taking 2 hours to watch the funland VS latvia hockey match.

Theres lot to report about the project, but i will leave it and pictures for later... and just tell u guys that im happy about todays testdrive. Having something concrete finally on the project which has been going on for so long with so many setbacks, is just motivation boost which was needed. Also today was about as bright as finnish summer gets and sharkskin worked very good on the screen, especially comic kinda style provides some valuable contrast, i had no problem to see what was on screen at anypoint, allthough some pics came out less than great.

[wesblack]

Yes I love my car to. I just took it for a spin the other day. To busy right now to do this to my own car, 11+ years ago I use to own 2 shops that installed high end car stereo systems and of course I was last on the list to do anything to my own vehicles, but back in 1985-86 I was one of the first pacbell distributors to carry cell phones and they were big and expensive. If you have a moment to shoot a video of the system in action I can post it on the website.

Yes a faster car is a nice incentive but believe me I had my share of tickets when I was younger.

Thanks for sharing your project Its really cool to see xLobby in a car, especially a corvette.






Wes Black \ Calrad

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

If you have a moment to shoot a video of the system in action I can post it on the website.

I might do that, but later when skin has more funcionality to show, like navigation and video atleast.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Ok i guess its my time to play a little catch up what went on in the project between march and first test drives. Its not all that much, since i was occupied other more important project. Here we go:

First CD, well actually writable DVD-drive ofcourse, arrived so i worked it also into that wooden support frame for monitor. Drive is ofcourse laptop slimmy and slot loading model, not that theres anything wrong with the tray, heck that could double the role of spare mugholder also, but i just felt slotty more suitable for car environment. Drive was a tight fit but it went rather decently there on right hand side as u can see in the pic if u pay attention, its not in the middle cause stick could be on way of inserting disc. However drives vibration was making terrible noise when playing audio cds, funny thing is data CDs were silent. I was lucky to notice this before putting it in the place. So on i went to wrap the drive into package material to damp it. That didnt help, i kept trying and trying... so it happened i broke the damn drive to pushing it in and out of its tight fittings. U know these slimmies are made of aluminium as thick as in beer cans. None of my computers couldnt read it. So against the laser warnings i proceed to inspect the inner workings of the thingy... I can tell u guys theres pretty damn tiny mechanics inside those slimmies... that is all i can tell u though: u would need to posses the skills at alien technology they study at site 51 to fathom the delicate inner workings of that artifact. That didnt stop the bear to touch every moving part with paws though and for sure as recompiled, everything was in order again, even noise with audio CDs was gone. I permanently taped the drive with the rest of the dash unit and wont touch it again. But problem arise when i was trying it into dash. There was aluminium bar inside vette dash which prevented the CD-drive to fit in. As i was hesistant to touch the drive again, i remembered about reading a lightening up the car -projects on vette forums. As that particular bar didnt seemed to have any other function but compartmentalising the dash. I decided that my light weight project starts at the moment and went to look for dremel tool... five minutes later monitor was back in dash.

Also, while the monitor was off the car i was running first test using it with the skin. It worked nicely but there was a one problem: for some reason i get noise, allthough its apparent only on black areas. I went on to purchase high quality VGA cable, not high end stuff like those $200 per meter cables, but decent quality 50€ cable with cast aluminium gilded plugs and thick shielding. As expected, it didnt help. So noise-on-black problem remains unsolved... i just made new design constraint to avoid large black areas on shark skin. On positivenote buttons seemed large enough for bears paws. Theres also pic taken during these tests below.

to be continued...

EDIT: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME though. I got eyepain or atleast eyestrain working with the open drive, although its highly likely my vivid imagination kicked in and it was actually placebo effect... whatever it was i got killbillish kicks out of wearing the eye patch or "pirate eyewear" i found in my medical cabinet for rest of the night

[Marbles_00]

Don't know for sure, but concerning your noise, it could be a grounding issue. Make sure of your grounds from the carputer and montior are "starred" together with a good ground lug and metal contact.

Another thing it could be is electrical interference, which a cable with a good shield should be able to help with. Make sure that the shield is tied to ground at one end, not both, or you could induce a ground loop.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Marbles i think u r onto something here, cause anomaly really looks like hum bars, So if it is indeed a groundloop issue could i attack it simply doing some surgery for the vga cable? could just separating shield in another end do the trick?

Lately playstation has consumed all my free time and project has been simply resting on its wheels. To be frank i kinda lost much of motivation when Phoco.Net failed on me.

Today i got some of it back though, i finally connected OBDII interface i bought several months ago between car's computer and carputer and it worked right out of box. I could inspect variables like speed and RPM + gazillion others realtime conviniently from touchscreen using interfaces own soft. Now i just have to integrate it to xlobby via pervtalk (as u might remember xPerT already contains gauge support just for this). So u guys can be expecting ScanTool.Net plugin sooner or prolly laaaater Their software is open source, but as far as i know doesnt have plugin interface, so i be prolly recompiling new version of their software with pervtalk connectivity or writing pervtalk device with capability to speak with elm natively.

They have all kinda interfaces for each/any dialect of OBDII and communicating with comp with bt or usb... but one i go with was simple old interface only with capability to speak VPW via RS-232. I got it dirt cheap and locally from funland. VPW was simply all i needed cause thats what vette c5 speaks and i ofcourse plan to install it to my setup for all eternity. Also RS-232 is perfect for me cause mobo has two unused serial ports, and quite frankly i loathe both USB and BT...

[Marbles_00]

Marbles i think u r onto something here, cause anomaly really looks like hum bars, So if it is indeed a groundloop issue could i attack it simply doing some surgery for the vga cable? could just separating shield in another end do the trick?

Do you notice this in the car, or only on your test bench? On a test bench, if devices are plugged into supplies that are connected to different wall outlets, then there could be a voltage potential difference between grounds of the outlets. In this case, the shield may become the ground "wire" that is connecting these outlets together, which is not the norm for a shield. The easiest thing to do is to tie the grounds from the different outlets together with a length of wire 14AWG at least. This will ensure that both grounds are at the same potential. Then cut the shield from one end of the VGA cable. If in the car, ideally you want to have a "star" ground where all returns come to this common point. Ideally it would be close to the battery terminal. Since the corvette is basically fiberglass, with a steel frame (I think), you would want to make sure you hit that frame, since it will be your best path back to battery negative. GM most likely ground the negative to the engine block which is bolted to the steel frame. But pratically, it is not advantageous to tie everything to one big ass bolt at one point. Usually we tie grounds to the closest, or existing returns and call it quits. So tie the VGA cables shield to ground on the device that is closest to the battery terminal.

Hope all this helps.

PS. It's a shame we weren't envolved in all this years back. I used to work for a company that designed automation test equipment for mainly testing automotive electronics, and I had all the specs and documents on the OBDII, ISO9141, J1850, CAN, and a bunch of others.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Both the test bench and in car. On test bench both comp and monitor actually draw power from single regular PC AC->DC PSU, cause monitor is designed in-case use and has typical 5½" drives molex power connector. In car however monitor and computer are powered by different batteries, monitor is connected to cars ACC where as computer draws power from separate optima yellow top in the trunk. Whars the marb verdict? could it possibly be ground loop issue? they sure look like hum bars to me...

Since we are talking about power now... id like to have advices how to provide juice for computer in the future... basicly i see two options:

1. Ditch the original battery and move optima its place and draw new lines from it to trunk for powering computer.

PROS:

-Easy solution.
-Have to ditch original battery anyway cause its pretty much gone and leak may cause problems with harness and computer underneath (typical for c5).
-Cheap.

CONS:
- Play time will be limited by need to reserve a cranking charge while car is not running.
- Will yellow top fit its place? it only has posts on top, will adapters fit under the hood?
- Is the yellow top up to the task?

2. Go with two batteries, buy a red top in front. Replace alternator with "dual homed" one or perhaps fit two alternators there somehow. and power both monitor and computer from yellow top in trunk.

PROS:
- Playtime unlimited

CONS:
- Expensive
- According to literature corvette comes with pretty good alternator, so they advice against replacing it.
- What i read it appears that alternator also communicates with car's computer so replacement might not be as trivial as it looks by first göance.

So what do u guys think? have better solutions perhaps? Wes?

[Marbles_00]

Problem with using a PC PSU is that they are inharently noisy buggers (electrically) to begin with. No where close to the specs of a true lab certified PSU (though no where as expensive either). In the car, make sure that the batteries, since at different locations have a good guage wire to common the ground connection between them. Though it should be good enough, don't always rely on the car chassis for a good path.

Sorry, I'm not totally up on the car audio scene now-a-days, but how much are you drawing between the carputer and monitor. I know back in the days when guys had 1000W systems, then they would dedicate a battery for powering the audio equipment, and leave the stock battery for the car functions. What else are you drawing that requires the use of two batteries. Also, normally it is the high current drawing devices such as HVAC that determines the size of the alternator that will be installed in the car. Though maybe with the new vehicles, the computer monitors the alternator current and voltage to verify that the charging system is operating properly.

In the very least, other things you should do is to beef up the guaging from the following:
-batt to chassis
-eng to chassis
+alt to +batt
The call this the "big 3" mod.
I've been reading that individuals use 0AWG to 4AWG cables and connectors. Another thing you could look at is using caps in the system (1Farad or more), instead of a second battery.

*EDIT*
After re-reading your earlier posts, and looking at your options above, and considering that the carputer and monitor are not drawing that much to require a second battery, I'd go with option "1", and do the "Big 3" mod. From your earlier posts, you have no intentions of yanking out the Bose system, so besides the HU and carputer, the system is stock. In my hayday (boy how I do miss them), I had a nominal 500W system running off of stock battery/alternator. With an additional 1 Farad cap, I had no problems running the system with the engine off for lengths of time. Your yellow-top should be good enough to supply ample amounts of current with the engine off if just sticking with the stock system, and even beyond.

That's my $0.02.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

PS. It's a shame we weren't envolved in all this years back. I used to work for a company that designed automation test equipment for mainly testing automotive electronics, and I had all the specs and documents on the OBDII, ISO9141, J1850, CAN, and a bunch of others.

It realy is a shame these puppies would have been real gold nuggets. Right now im piecing information about OBDII together from elm datasheet and scantool source, im not sure they have all sensors included from general OBDII though. Also i managed to salvage a list of vehicle specific fault codes for pervette from digitalcorvette forums...

... but what i read from ELM DS it appers some vehicles pass their "real-traffic" (non obdii SAE-regulated stuff) trough, so it can be accessed with ELM, im seriously hoping corvette does just that. So there might still be plenty of hidden gems, unless i can find docs or specs about this stuff, il just have to start to do some serious sniffing and reverse engineering with ELM, now that is confirmed its v2.0 which has sniffing features implemented. I guess problem is though 322 has rather slow bus between comp and chip so it might not be able to capture all traffic, i believe in this sense 327 would be better choige for revrse engineering.

Well before i get all exited imagining me self controlling car windows trough pocketpc XL thin client... up... down... up... down... up
it might be these features are not exposed afterall.

But if anybody has some good sources about either general OBDII or some corvette specific features other than fault codes, please do pass me a linky

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

As already mentioned on other threads ELMd and FRd were tested on racetrack on saturday. Apparently somebody catched this very nice shot while P3rvette was having a chat with a gorgeous newer breathen.



EDIT: damn pic doesnt quite fit

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Well holy fcuk did i just got a great idea or what?!! Its so damn simple i cant figure out how i didnt think of this before!! I was reading about new developments about 6axis/ds3 pc connectivity when it suddenly hit me:

What if bolted one of these controllers into P3rvette and have it to feed on board comp with gyro and accelerator data!!!

I know which project is gonna keep meself busy now on

Now i dont know anything about the quality of these sensors in sixaxis, not to mention are they suitable for providing any meaningfull data in automotive environment... but how i see it... theres only one way to find out

and best of all, this project will have assigned cost of $0! surely u didnt think me and my mate reached that TOP3 position in world on SSDHD without breaking any controllers did u?