Prototype: DSLive Data Acquistion

[hybrid 1043]

Soooo a few of you know about what I've been up to over the past few years.

Embarking on the long road to dis-assemble my live data from the ECU.

Brendon and I have finally got to the stage where we are have a working prototype which is very 0.1 as far as hardware design goes. But we will be out at the track day on the 29th running it through its paces.

Features so far include ..

Real time Data logging of all live values. Much faster than standard BMW diagnostic equipment.

Records to SD Card in CSV format for easy import into Excel or other video telemetry overlay programs

Real time steering wheel or soon-to-be dash display (optional)

Real time warning on critical values and gear position

Max values stored and displayed

Warm up and over heat warning thresholds and display

Analogue values from active sensors EG oil pressure etc

Selectable buttons which can remotely trigger or scroll functions

Programmable shift light warning system.

This is just a taste of the features it is capable of. We are in development of a lot more and will be supporting all popular modern BMW ECUs and control modules. It will also be expandable so you can add some serious motorsport features onto your base unit.

The aim is to bring this to market with accessible telemetry and an affordable price.

Here is a taste of the working model. Production will be of a lot high quality. Also ignore my tachometer. It reads about 150rpm too high.

[Nobimmer 694]

This is badass

[Tristan 338]

Great work guys, looks bloody awesome.

[HaNs 226]

That sir is awesome

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2956]

Woah! The further you get with this project the more amazing it gets.

That is a whole lot of technology in an E30.

I doff my hat to your crazy skills Sir!

[Michael. 2313]

This is awesome, I am sure there will be a market for such a device, especially on the track!

On my own car I have recordable telemetry available from my auto gearbox TCU, showing live readings of what my engines doing along with the gearbox and other sensor (coolant, oil, intake temp etc), I haven't hooked up a few things but most of its there and working, it just needs a stand alone small laptop to be mounted somewhere to make the best use of it, although I can also buy a special screen from the company I got the unit from to make it all more streamline.

To be able to monitor & record vital live readings and make changes based on them is very valuable, for instance I was able to correct shifting issues from 2-3rd by reviewing the telemetry.

I made this clip (with audio) to demonstrate the live monitoring Youtube clip

[hybrid 1043]

Cheers fellas ... Am working on a whole bunch more next level stuff for this. Almost cant keep up with development because of the features and ideas rolling out but will start small first

Realtime telemetry is the only way to really take the guess work out of many engine related problems on or off the track.

For example, measuring airflow and temp through your MAF you can tell if that air box or CAI system is actually working or not.

You can overlay this data over your video to SEE what your car is doing at any specific time.

[kiwi535 538]

i could be keen on a basic unit for road use..for instance i dont have a temp gauge and would like one...oil temp? boost some other perhaps selectable values??

[Yuen 16]

That sounds very cool Josh, will be following this.

[thorburn 121]

That looks really tidy. I'd hate to think how many hours have gone into it. must be very rewarding now.

Will you be selling the software itself? maybe with a cable like Evoscan software

[hotwire 352]

Hat off to you guys. System has developed well from the last stage I saw it at. Me - envious of your skills

[hybrid 1043]

Cheers fellas.

Well the main things have been learning absolutely everything and not giving up. The ecu part was actually easish programming the hardware for the data logger and display. I wrote a program in Visual Basic first to prove I could make it work before starting on the hardware programming. But had to build my own interface to talk to the ECU. Learnt a lot with this Brendon and I then had to learn hardware design and solve various problems a long the way. Example, writing a robust call and response protocol between the Datalogger box and steering wheel display MCU with checksum to stop bad data if it where ever to find its way into the system.

Hardest defanitely was reverse engineering the output data in the ECU and learning how the DS2 protocol works. I had a lot of help at the start from Jochen to point me in the right direction. The rest of it was developing a test strategy to help take some of the guess work out of it. It took me 2 years of atleast 2 good solid nights a week at it.

Anyways, There will be a suite of applications that will work with this. That is gonna take a little longer. But Brendon and myself are getting the hardware out the door first So this will be out primary focus. Next task, building our own printed circuit board designs for the display and datalogger.

The display can be mounted in most places. For now we just have the gt3 style button plate. However we will make a stand alone version which will suit standard steering wheel setups more.

I thought about trying to integrate it into the dash some how, there are a few options.

Before anyone asks .. there is a very good reason to not go colour at this stage. oLED technology only exist in cellphones these days and are not availible to this sort of thing yet. So we went with a mono oLED display which has the best contrast / brightness in direct sunlight. I will also probably look to have an option sunshade if people want that sort of thing.

The beauty of this system is it works with your standard ECU. It supports later model cars at the moment. Earlier model 95 backwards dont have a lot of live data. However specific models may still work.

It also support external sensors. EG of this is my industrial grade oil pressure sensor. I can map the sensor to GPS data and you can SEE where / if you are getting dangerous pressure drop. You will also get a visual warning on screen and im looking at adding a pezo audio alarm as well. There will also be a large master warning LED as well.

[hybrid 1043]

Prototype #2 is now ready and as far as the programming almost all features are functional.

Still have to program and sort out the hardware for the shift lights ... will probably also use a photo sensor to dynamically adjust brightness .. as the super bright clear LEDs are f**kin bright .. work great in sun light though

And here is some of the output from my dyno pulls a few weeks back

[elmarco 56]

Only max 98% throttle opening??...

[hybrid 1043]

The throttle position sensor is only a 5 volt linear potentiometer. The DME will 0 its position when you power on the DME as 0% throttle. Mechanically the throttle is open. Anything over 90% is open loop as far as the DME is concerned.

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2956]

Just keeps getting cooler and cooler..

Added to my Santa list!

[thorburn 121]

What sort of sample rate will this be able to do?

[yng_750 247]

Great to see good kiwi minds at work doing something productive we can export to the world

[hybrid 1043]

about 9hz .. however the limitation at the moment is writing to the SD card so about 5z.

[E30-323ti 66]

Great work, and a V.nice looking unit!!

Does this use the standard OBDII coms?

Could one use it with the links of the ne Link G4+ ECU's that have OBDII connections.

Do you have plans for a 'universal' unit? With user defined sensors / calibrated inputs etc...

[hybrid 1043]

cheers

At the moment its only build for the BMW DS2 protocol. Unfortunately OBDII is too slow .. but I could support it.

It currently supports 5 volt sensor input and digital 5volt signal. Such as Oil pressure, clutch switch and brake pressure etc. Things like a tach signal would have to be converted from 12volts.
I'm planning of having a config file on the root of the SDcard which can be read. Youll be able to set input config and calculation on that.

Im planning to support various BMWs to start with then move to stand alone + aftermarket CAN/Serial output ECU such as the link.

There is a whole bunch more planned but one thing at a time first.

[richard 384]

when do you plan on putting it on the market

[hybrid 1043]

Thats the million dollar question. It entirely depends on testing output and sourcing of reliable materials and accessories EG the curly chord isn't an easy thing to find .. im using old phone chord as its very durable. But with the world going wireless its not easy finding good quality for a reasonable price. Oh the joys of productionising and quality control !

Example: Those buttons on prototype #2 are $20 each ... They're the real deal used on all f1 and gt3 cars .. but that's a lot of budget on some buttons.

[yng_750 247]

might be a good oppertunity to do a base and race spec model.

many guys starting out will be happy with a cheaper option and possibly having to manualy fix a button etc later on.

whilst other guys will be happy to pay more for gt3/f1 spec materials.

same deal with plastic Vs carbon fibre casings.

[hybrid 1043]

Yeah thats the plan. I have different product plans for pro cars.