Crazy mad scientist idea: LCD multi-function display instead of gauges!

[CodePoet]

Yeah I would find a small linux or unix distro for something like this. I wouldn't trust windows...but thats just me...and i'm an ass

Later
CP

 

[samrebel]

C,mon guys, it don't matter if the whole computer crashed, or you didn't turn it on. I'm not talking about letting the computer act as the ECU, or even changing spark or fuel maps. I'm just talking about basically "networking" a computer with the ECU to get all that juicy data. And mainly it would just be cool.

 

[CodePoet]

No you wouldn't want it to take over for the trucks ecu...but you wouldn't want all your guages to suddenly freeze up, and having to reboot the computer while your driving (hopefully you'd pull over haha) would be annoying. That's all That and windows is very very very bloated...this would be a pretty specific application so there wouldn't really be a reason to have all that extraneous crap, with linux you can easily eliminate what isn't necessairy, so you wouldn't need an extremely fast computer...goto the college dorm and appartment dumpsters, and pull one out (i'll be doing that next week) and you might find something free that would be able to run the system . Also to be legal you would have to go and buy the 125 dollar os just to do this...linux is free, the desktop envionments are free also! My laptop freezes up all the time because XP, I would have linux on it right now but I'm not sure it would work (i've done some reasearch). All the major linux distro's come with KDE or GNOME, which are great desktops environment in my opinon...i'm getting off on a rant now...i'll stop. Now if there isn't any software for linux out there for this application...well windows would be what you would want but i'd go with NT, or 98se, yeah i know that XP is built on the NT platform...but what the built on top of it sucks in my opinion...my "find" function has NEVER worked, kills my computer

Later
CP

Later
CP

 

[skimaniaz]

Real Time OBD viewing is a Great Idea

I was perusing web pages about your exact idea and I came across this web page: http://www.obddiagnostics.com/ and as I was in the middle of installing a mini itx pc into my car I thought it would be interesting to add this feature to it.