My little black box

[Graham Howard]

Some of you in class 2 have noticed a little box of electronics sitting above the dash on my car this season. It's not data logging but it has helped to analyse my times beyond the data provided by the official timing.

 

I thought I would share with you all what this does here.

 

I have plans to produce a mark 2 version for next year based on what I have learnt.

 

Graham

 

 

 

[robmar]

Graham - that is really smart

[rob spencer]

It's a really neat device Graham. You don't get all the bells and whistles of a commercial data logger but you get the most important bits of info. It certainly seems to have done a good job for you this season 😶‍🌫️

[Z3MCJez]

This is very impressive stuff. Next a GPS?

 

On my dataloggers, I use real-time deltas all the time on one. I think you could make something quite straightforward which plots total number of wheel revolutions against time and then compares this to previous runs. The assumption being more wheel revolutions is good. That may not always hold, if lines are wide etc, but could be a good indicator.

 

You could also have half-a-dozen LEDs - 3 red and 3 green - Then you could have some graduated indication as to how far ahead or behind you are?

 

Jez

[Alan Bowler]

Don't encourage him, he's fast enough already

 

I'm very impressed with it. Having 4x split times is very useful. Not sure how I'd react to a red or green light saying I was on a slower or faster lap though.

When you go into production with these, put my name down for one!

(Happy to tinker with C++ but not so good with lectronics)

[Mark Durrant]

Alan

 

If you build one I suggest you do not waste your money on a green LED 😬

[The Headmaster]

😳

[Alan Bowler]

Abusive posting reported.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

😬

[Graham Howard]

Thanks all for your words of encouragement. To be honest I surprised myself at how easy it was to make this work. I have done a bit of programming before and the electronics is nothing complicated. In the spirit of open source I hope to get around to publishing instructions on how it was made.

 

Jez, the idea of a number of lights to get graduated time is great and I will definitely look at that. To store the time at each wheel revolution would require more memory. I think that is possible.

 

I am considering adding an SD card to record the time for each wheel rev in a csv file and load it into excel for plotting. I could then overlay each run like a proper data logger and derive speed.

 

I am also going to have a small box with just the LED's for mounting near the shift lights and have the main unit with the display somewhere under the dash.

 

And Alan I would be willing to make a special with just red lights to make sure you don't go any faster next year

 

Graham

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Graham Howard]

Here is a basic description of how the box was constructed and its programming:

 

here

 

 

[Englishmaninwales]

Graham

Very impressive and clearly very effective. ( I'd be getting too many red lights 😳 )