Race Car POV LED Displays

July 15, 2011 by Mike Nathan 26 Comments

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Last year, when [Alex] was asked by his friend [Martin] to help him out with building some LED POV modules for a race car, his response was a enthusiastic “YES!”

[Martin’s] goal was to involve fans more deeply in the race, so he decided that the POV modules would carry messages from fans on-board, printing them in the night as the race cars screamed around the track. The pair started prototyping and testing a design, wrapping things up shortly before this year’s 24 hours of Nürburgring.

The modules consist of an Arduino-compatible AVR, a GPS module, a 16-LED light bar, and the circuitry for driving the LEDs. While most of the components are pretty standard fare, the we don’t often see a GPS sensor built into a POV display. [Alex] says that the sensor is used to calculate the speed of the cars, ensuring a uniform font size.

They took their LED displays to the 24 hours of Nürburgring, where they were invited by Audi to install the modules on a pair of R8 Le Mans race cars. As you can see by the pictures on his blog and Flickr set, the POV units worked out nicely without having to stretch the camera exposure times too far.

If you’ re interested to hear a bit more about how the displays were built, check out this entry in[Alex’s] blog, where he goes through some additional details.

Update:[Alex] pointed us to the videos!

DIY Wiper Speed Control And Collision Avoidance

July 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 24 Comments

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On many new cars, automatic wiper speed control can be had as an upgrade, though most cars do not offer front-end collision prevention at all. [Rishi Hora] and [Diwakar Labh], students at the Guru Tegh Bahadur Institute of Technology in New Delhi, developed their own version of these features, (PDF warning, skip to page 20) which they entered into last year’s Texas Instruments Analog Design Contest. Under the guidance of professors [Gurmeet Singh] and [Pawan Kumar], the pair built the systems using easily obtainable parts, including of course, an MSP430 microcontroller from TI.

The collision prevention system uses a laser emitter and an optical detector to estimate the distance between your car and the vehicle in front of you, sounding an alarm if you are getting too close. In a somewhat similar fashion, the wiper speed control system uses an IR emitter and detector pair to estimate the amount of water built up on the windshield, triggering the wipers when necessary.

While not groundbreaking, the systems would be quite handy during monsoon season in India, and seem easy enough to install in an older vehicle. The only thing we’re not so sure about is pointing lasers at cars in traffic, but there are quite a few available alternatives that can be used to measure distance.

Continue reading to see a video walkthrough and demonstration of both systems.

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Automotive Battery Voltage Monitor

July 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 32 Comments

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[Rajendra’s] car had just about all the bells, whistles, and gauges he could dream of, but he thought it was missing one important item. In an age where cars are heavily reliant on intricate electrical systems, he felt that he should have some way of monitoring the car’s battery and charging system.

To keep tabs on his car’s electrical system, he built a simple device that allows him to monitor the battery’s instantaneous voltage when the car is powered off, as well as the charging voltage across the battery when the car is running. A PIC16F1827 runs the show, using a simple voltage divider network to step the input voltage down to an acceptable level for use with the PIC’s A/D conversion channel. The resultant measurements are output to a four digit 7 segment display, mounted on the front of the device.

He says that the voltage monitor works quite well, and we’re sure he feels a lot better about the health of his car’s charging system. For anyone interested in keeping closer tabs on their car, he has a circuit diagram as well as code available on his site.

Amazing Hemispherical Omnidirectional Gimbaled Wheel Robot

July 9, 2011 by Mike Nathan 33 Comments

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Bradley University grad student [Curtis Boirum] has built a robot which uses quite a unique drive system, one we’re guessing you have never seen before. The robot uses a single motor to drive its hemispherical omnidirectional gimbaled wheel, propelling it across the floor at amazing speeds with uncanny agility.

The robot uses a simple two axis gimbal for movement, which houses a small brushless RC airplane motor. The motor spins a rubber wheel at high speeds, which propels the robot in any direction at the flick of a switch, thanks to a pair of RC servos. When the servos tilt the gimbal, they change which side of the wheel is touching the ground as well as the gear reduction, eliminating the need for a mechanical transmission or traditional steering mechanism.

While he originally thought that he had invented the concept, [Curtis] found that this technology was nearly 100 years old, but that most people had forgotten about it. We’re pretty sure people will remember it this time around. How could you not, after watching the demo video we have embedded below?

We think it’s a great concept, and we can’t wait to see what other robot builders do with this technology.

[via Gizmodo]

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On-dash G-meter Project Is Another Way To Distract Drivers

July 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

[PJ Allen] built a meter to display gravitation force in an easy to read way. Good thing it’s easy to read, because he’s added it to the dashboard of his car. That way he gets instant feedback when he puts the pedal to the metal. We’re hoping this encourages safe driving practices. But since it appears that not only is he watching the meter while he drives, he’s also holding a camera at the same time, we’d say this makes him a menace on the road.

But we do like the hardware concept. He used five Red/Green LEDs to show what the accelerometer is sensing. A green display reflects acceleration, while a red display shows deceleration. Inside the project box you’ll find a Parallax 2-axis accelerometer and an SX28 micrcontroller. This is an 8-bit Parallax chip family that was discontinued a few years back.

MSP430-based Palm Size Quad Copter

June 27, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

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[Thanh] has spent some time flying quad-copters measuring 12” motor to motor, but wanted to build something smaller so that he could fly indoors. Instead of building just one, he actually constructed five different quad-copters, with motor to motor arm spans ranging from 10” to just 3”.

In his forum post, he highlights the construction process of his 10” copter, covering each step in great detail. While he breaks down his component lists into two categories based on motor to motor span, the one common item is the TI MSP430-based controller board. In particular, he used the eZ430-RF2500 development kit, which has the added benefit of a built-in 2.4 GHz wireless radio. His quad-copter uses a Wii Motion Plus gyro board to help keep it aloft, as well a handful of other components which should be pretty familiar to most of our readers.

It’s great to see the construction broken down in such detail, we imagine it will be a great resource for anyone else looking to build their own quad-copter.

Stick around to see a quick video demonstration of his mini quad-copter in action.

[Thanks, Panikos]

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Automotive Backup Alarm

June 26, 2011 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[Dino’s] project of the week is a backup alarm for your car. This is a feature that has become popular on many large vehicles like SUVs where visibility is an issue when moving in reverse. But it doesn’t sound like he was motivated by the need to have this in his own car. Instead, he was looking for something to build using a laser range finder.

[Joe Grand] (the brains behind DEFCON badges) has been working on an inexpensive laser range finder for Parallax. He sent one of the first-run prototype boards to [Dino] for beta testing and we’re glad that [Dino] decided to show it off. It uses a small red laser diode and a camera module to measure distance in millimeters. The board communicates serially and this particular project uses an Arduino along with a character LCD and speaker to display distance and sound an alarm when the car is within a meter of an object.

Check out the video after the break to see the build in its entirety. The system works reasonably well, if the object you’re about to hit is perfectly lined up with the laser dot.

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