[Alan] did an extraordinary job building a computer controlled model gearbox. His project from several years back is based on a dual-clutch Direct Shift Gearbox that was developed for VW and Audi vehicles. His design uses a gear head motor to provide the locomotion to this transmission. Shifting is computer controlled through serial cable, with servo motors providing the physical motion to change gears. Seeing all these moving parts in the clip after the break might make you a bit dizzy.
This is some extreme model building. It reminds us of the guy who built that aluminum aircraft model that was all over the Internets in December.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUdc48RH9OE]
[Thanks Alex]
My jaw literally dropped when the page loaded and I saw that picture.
Amazing. Love the QBASIC control software.
@Masterbater Is this your first time at the site?
I am thoroughly impressed. That takes some skill to implement a full working transmission in a model.
I was not aware qbasic could control hardware ports.Is it like the c64 where you could poke a specific memory location to change a pin value? I would really like to know as I studied it for many years.
yes thats exacly right if i remember right from way back in the day (like when i was 8) peek and poke was used to set and read memory locations
I get a headache just looking at that thing. One more reason why I switched from engineering to something that requires me to use a gun.
damn, that is some very nice hardware
also, @Masterbater, it’s more productive than being an asshole on the internet
@ nave.notnilc A very, very good point
@shitehawk:
I didn’t read the article, but the PC parallel and serial ports are memory-mapped. So, you’re right: you can poke a specific memory location (usually 0x300 for parallel; I don’t remember for serial) to write a value to the port.
thanks rak0ribz!
Now just to make a Meccano Audi TT to put it in.
That’s an impressive amount of effort. Although having said that, I’d put one under glass in my coffee table…
ObWhine: What a whole PC for that? d8)
If I lead a good life, I will go to heaven. There, I am certain I will find endless boxes full of Meccano parts.
Unfortunately, here on Earth, those little buggers are darned expensive! Check out the prices for a single pinion!
http://meccanoman.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=1
I wonder what this transmission cost to build…
Also used in the new E9X and E60 BMWs.
And this is another reason why the future belongs to electric cars. No more clutch or complicated transmission ;-)
Nice model though. God job.
All that with an atmega8!! Amazing
” And this is another reason why the future belongs to electric cars. No more clutch or complicated transmission ;-) ”
Though it’s better to have electric cars, it’s sad that these nechanical wonders will not be built that often anymore.
That is incredible,
anyone else curious to know what Masterbater said? Also…that model….disturbingly large ammount of work. impressive. worthwhile? not for anyone but him. (no offense intended)
shitehawk, with a little bit of coersion, QBASIC can be made to do anything.
I can’t remember how it’s done, but you can make QBASIC run assembly instructions. I’m sure if you google just that phrase, you’ll find a tutorial or two.
By extension, it could be made to run functions in object files somehow, I’m sure. I’ve never bothered looking into that.
Schprockets is for DANCING!
I seem to recall PEEK and POKE for fooling with hardware (registers, I/O ports, etc) in BASIC, but it’s been like 20 years since I played with it on my Atari XE.
Oh come on, not a single word about Porsche’s PDK transmissions?
I do believe they used this concept “first” WAYYY back when in their 911 and 997 Turbo’s for racing purposes only,
but now it is available as an option on select models for anybody.
Got the love these kind of projects, its just great! :D
cool; but the visual effect would be greater with some wheels attached + a motor with higher RPM. Even better if it had a speed counter or summat on the output(s).
that lad will go far, Il give him a few weeks before audi kicks down his door and demands his services for the good of mankind. Though the dawn of the lecky car suggests that this kind of thinking is a little outdated. damn nice tho :)
yes but… where does the arduino go?
QBASIC has the OUTP command just for writing ports, not sure what happens if you just POKE the same address. POKE was in constant use on the C=64 but I don’t think I’ve ever used it in Qbasic.
That is a glorious steampunk desk accessory.
WHERE IS THAT TRANSMISSION YOU INTERCEPTED???
BASIC on the c64 used PEEK/POKE to access memory and IO was in the same memory space as RAM
with QBASIC on a x86, the IO is in a seperate memory space, but i beleive QBASIC has extra functions to peek/poke IO
and yeah, it also has some functions to run assembly
This project is awesome – I love mechanical things, bonus for automated control.
Qbasic under dos works well for these projects because dos does not have the memory protection layers that insulate the hardware as found on subsequent os’s., though there are some dll’s that allow similar functionality under vb.
INP and OUT are the commands you are thinking of to control the port.
Fwiw, I’m currently working on a project that uses COM serial port pins under vb2008… what’s nice is that there is a PINCHANGED event that fires when things like the RING pin change state, so you don’t have to poll the port for input.
Damn! I wish I still had my old Erector set!
And….
Long Live QuickBasic 4.5!
Excellent….beautifully done…kudos dude…
hah!, this is quite embarassing. Most of the robotics projects I had seen were coded in c. I never could get the hang of c, it seemed so unintuitive. All the responses are more than I could have hoped for.
wow… qbasic… that brings me back to my beginnings with programming in elementary school. I believe qbasic set the tone for my lack of coding conventions. It was great to learn with, but man the coding was ugly.
That is stupidly amazing. I mean, it’s so much compact into a little space and all so precise. It is truly amazing what that guy did.
However, it’s disappointing that he did all that but did it in QBasic in the end. It also looks like he’s been brain washed into thinking DSG is the way to go for people’s cars. Just keep it simple, fun, and interesting and stick with a single clutch and real shifter :-). I guess it would be great for a robotically or remotely controlled car though.
But all in all, very, very nice.
–Teran
Modeler after my own heart. With some excellent cad skills, a very precise breakdown of said model, & a state of the art machine shop…
Electric cars won’t do away with gears completely, driving up a hill or when 4wheel versions become available or electric vehicles that pull heavier loads, they would need gears to not burn out the coils surely, and having a faster pull up without burning out would also be aided by gears.
Look at electric models cars and robotics and such, some stuff needs gears other stuff can be driven directly.
p.s. unless a 4wheel drive uses that in-wheel motor thing http://www.hybridcars.com/files/michelin-active-wheel-610c.jpg
Holy shit!
The South East London Club has a new video of this model, including an interview with Alan Wenbourne, at http://youtu.be/SLNRUU6Q_Vg