lvduane@earth.lerc.nasa.gov (Duane Beach) (07/17/90)
Please help an ignorant mechanical engineer out! I'm interested in building/purchasing a portable data logger. You've probably seen Indy car pit crews plugging a serial cable into the car during a pit stop. What they're doing is downloading instrumentation data to a PC. I don't own an Indy car, but I do race karts around the country... Daytona, Pocono, Talladega etc. I would like to instrument a kart. Basically, there are three measurements of concern, engine RPM, axle RPM, and exhaust gas temperature. All three are currently instrumented with a commercially-produced LCD gauge (no data storage). What I want to do is record all three measurements for one hour and then regurgitate them to a PC. A sampling rate of once-per-second is sufficient. The package must be battery operated and as small as possible. A driver actuated button is needed as a way of organizing data into "frames", it would typically be pressed by the driver once each lap. Right now, this is just an idea and I'm looking for suggestions on how to carry it off. In the best of worlds, an interested electronics-type person would see this as an interesting project and offer their services in exchange for my financing the parts. There might be a market for these things, who knows? Any takers? No? Then the next best is for some friendly advice on (1) past articles/books on doing this topic, (2) recommendations on how to approach this from a 'cook book' mind-set, and (3) any other advice you might deem helpful (beginners books, etc). I've only a rudimentry electronics knowledge... one undergrad circuits course, so please be patient. I'm trying to learn. +--------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+ | Email: lvduane@scivax.lerc.nasa.gov | | | Duane Beach, MS 86-14 | "Eschew | | N.A.S.A.-Lewis Research Center | Obfuscation" | | 21000 Brookpark Road | | | Cleveland, Ohio 44135 | | +--------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+
dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) (07/17/90)
Duane, one approach that jumps to mind is for you to apply one of the "smart" microprocessors, intended for embedded control and data acquisition, with a high-level language in on-board ROM. The 68HC11 family of chips and/or boards would probably be all you'd need in the way of computer power. I believe that device is available with Forth in ROM, and I've seen elsewhere (anyone? anyone?) similar modules with BASIC on board, especially intended for data logging. Some of these would have A/D converters associated with them, as well, possibly eliminating the need to interface with the existing digital signals. Dave dbell@cup.portal.com
valentin.mustatea@f630.n250.z1.fidonet.org (valentin mustatea) (07/18/90)
Good luck! It looks like you need it! --- Opus-CBCS 1.13 * Origin: Nowhere(833-2814) "I hate origin lines!" (1:250/630.0)