http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk/public/teaser.jpg

Don't get too excited just yet. This is still under development; it's significantly different from the last versions so there's a lot of work to do. I'm not accepting orders yet, and I don't have a price yet. I don't know if it works yet. Also, I'm still recovering slowly from my broken back, so don't expect great speed. But so many of you seemed to want one...

It has a higher-resolution display than previous versions, so it should be easier to read, and the mounting plate is expected to be carbon fibre... I just got off the phone to a supplier and his initial estimates are competitive with a stainless steel plate.

Neil

outstanding, no pressure, i want one lol, you do ,do one for the 20vt right

Oooh I'm excited

I foresee a whole pile of "what does it do?" type questions in your future Neil

ooooo i cant wait, i wouldnt mind one of these this time round... got my juices flowing now...

Oh, cool. I'll be watching this!

I've been considering making one of your microwidgets for rs232 or USB together with my neighbor (I'm more of a software geek..). But I might just wait and see where this goes first...

Ohhhh shiny!!!!

Form an orderly queue!!

Phill

Barnacle - What does it do?

(Stan you were right! )

Stan has a brainwave........... click here if you don't know what a widget does

let the flood gates open

Im excited

Excellent all we need to do is remove the 16v logo and add a 20vt Limited Edition screen and we will be there

Can it play asteriods ?

Looking good! Nice big screen as well.

Don't play with them, just apply the cream and they'll heal up in no time!

you have hit rock bottom stan..

i want one after reading the 1000's of posts asking to borrow one!!

Who's Rock?


Moving swiftly along........Neil, have you thought about mounting positions?

Hi Barnacle,
Will the MK IV now be compatible with the 20v VIS engine?

Stan, same mounting as the previous versions - in the right-hand vent slot.

MM and others - it will work for 16v NA and T, 20v NA and T, but *not* 1.8 or VIS engines.

If it works at all, of course

I'm with you on that one savster!

I'm in the queue!

ooh! I'm excited! Will defo be interested in one of these

I'd like one, but only if i can mount it on the dash and have it removable, ie a connector at the rear of the unit.

Ross

yes,count me in

Count me in as well mate

me too

Yes please

Definately need 1,

Please take a ticket you are number 1275 in que for Mark IV widget!!!!!

Darn long wait................ but great

Ah Baracoupé, bad news I'm afraid............the widget won't work on yellow coupés

That would be my preference indeed.

Is this going to be a possible option?

thanks

lol u guys u rock my world

One thing at a time, boys and girls. The default and first option will be mounted on a carbon fibre plate for the right hand air vent. Left hand drivers may have to either modify the plate (I don't know how easy it is to cut the fibre) or fabricate their own; there is a minimum order for plates that would make it uneconomical for only a couple.

For those wanting it in a box:
1) it's possible to put it in a box
2) it's not as elegant since the USB socket is unlikely to line up with the outside of the box (I'm not making a new PCB to fit the box)
3) the box is unlikely to *mounted* on the dash anywhere. Stuck on with blue-tack perhaps...
4) removable connections are possible
5) it's going to cost more. (a) there are extra parts; (b) there's a *lot* of extra effort involved; and (c) I don't really want to do it that way. The very few boxes I made for previous versions took *hours*

Neil

Looks like my Greddy's going in the ashtray after all.

Provide.

Looks like I'll have to try and start saving

Hopefully I`ll get round to buying one of these this time .

Baz

defo want one of these, no matter the cost, its worth it in the long run, as a year or two down the line people still goes crazy for them lol

Now *that's* my kind of customer!

Yup Yup, I'd be after one of these straight away, no questions asked.

got to give credit to you going out the way and doing somthing like this for fellow owners, surely if this was on the market it would be alot more expensive

How bout going on the dragon's den

Hi Neil, I'd also like to have one in a standalone case. Is it very expensive to get a limited run made by a plastics moulding company?

Conversations with their sales reps tend to run along the lines of 'how many thousand would you like!'

Alternatively, several hundred for a one or two-off...

Barnacle give me the measurements for a box for them to fit in?

I run an injection moulding company

Aha!

It'll have to wait until I have a proper final prototype built; this one is using an original Mk1 circuit board I happened to have lying around, just as a test rig.

It'll be a few weeks yet, I think - need to get circuit boards from Bulgaria.

I have been waiting for quite a while for you to make a new version barnicle. I 100% want one and i can hear my car shaking in happiness

I will be following this and looking forward to it. Good luck with building it all and hope your back gets better soon.

Ash

And just when I though I was getting closer to buying another apexi avc-r, think the money will have to go on this instead........Barnacle you are a genius, I want in!!!

Cheers
John

That's most of the software out of the way; just a couple of tiny details on the graphics to sort out.

http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk/public/tease-logo.jpg
http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk/public/tease-display.jpg
http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk/public/tease-error.jpg

The display's a lot easier to read now, I think.

Looks like it should be available with black/green, blue/white, or blue/white colour scheme.

Next thing - finish off the software details and then stuff it in a box and check it still talks to the ECU

More pics soon, when that's done.

Neil

Not sure what this does, but it looks cool, I'd be interested!

Gareth

Arrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

That's why I posted the link on the first page

Hey, chill! Having a laugh, remember that, a laugh!? If I could work out how to do smilies, I'd stick my tongue out at you, but I'm too old to know these things!!!

Gareth

Gareth, Just get saving the pennies because after you have read all the information on the widget you will really really really want one

If you have a look at the post you'll see I put a cheesy grin at the bottom, meaning I was having a laugh too

Oh, and if an old codger like me can work out how to do smileys....

(quick keyboard smileys: use a colon plus a *D* for a grin, like this : D without the space. Use a colon plus a *P* for tongue out : p easy! Although slightly off topic, and Barnacle has a short temper.... )

Nice idea with the fault being displayed as text rather than the number, could the revised software be loaded onto the old style widgets or will the software have changed too much for the new lcd ?

I have heard from my mate Bill that there is money to be made in upgrading software

I know this Stan, it's just that smug face looking back at me from your sig!

I'd already read it! It's a superb piece of kit that I will be stumping up some cash for me thinks. We are pretty damn lucky to have a genius in the club I guess, seems to me that this widget will be worth every penny, just think of the savings from not having to get a diagnosis done everytime your Coop fccuks up! Brilliant.

I'll wait for it to become available, saving in the mean time!

G

Has the coupe finaly found its translater

In for this,money well spent.

What does it do

Off topic I know, but thats much better Stan!

Oh, and thanks for the smiley tip!

It does Stan?!!?!

Surely this thread should have NSFW plastered all over it,

Neil - what's the chance of getting it back-lit?

Also, consider the mounting used for the Harman Kardon Drive & Play - the screen is standalone and can be mounted almost anywhere.

http://www.harmankardon.com/drive-1/

Might be interesting to have the screen seperate to the main box of gubbins - would make it simpler to mount maybe?

Finally, I guess colour screens are prohibitively expensive?

Some clarification - the code which talks to the ECU is exactly the same as the original. Errors are spelled out to a maximum of 20 characters on the screen; to get a more detailed error message - the magic numbers - you need a terminal and USB connector. You'll still have to decode those numbers by hand, I'm afraid - there isn't room on the display for all the information that's available.

What's changed is that the resolution of the screen has increased, and the shape is a little taller. That has meant that I can improve the font for better legibility and that the measurement bars are proportionally taller - again, that makes them easier to read.

All the screens are back-lit. There's a single LED - sadly, cast into the plastic housing so probably impossible to change colour once decided - and while I can't find a guaranteed lifetime for it I would expect it to be more reliable than the green/yellow MK3 versions since it's mounted differently and I can be conservative in its current feed.

Colour screens are prohibitively expensive, but also computationally so; they require a minimum of three times as many writes to the screen and more usually twenty-four times. With the processor I've used, that would make the screen writes too slow to be useful.

Separating the screen doesn't really help. The circuit board (it won't be the one shown in the teaser pics; that's just an old MK1 board I use as a test mule) is about the same size as the display, just a few mm longer. The HK mount is possible; I'll be talking to Baracoupe about mouldings but I'm making no promises. The initial offering will be on a carbon-fibre/fibreglass sandwich composite plate, as per the original.

<sigh> It's so much easier when you expect to sell a few hundred thousand... you can go to manufacturers and get their undivided attention, *and* their best prices. Effectively, I'm doing everything buying at retail here. It's expensive, and it's annoying.

when you say this will be significantly different to the other versions neil, do you mean it'll do extra stuff or is it mainly cosmetic changes, or is it still a secret?

im tempted anyway, just curious.


...and that post above has just answered my question........ lol

If anyone wants to develop a colour interface then it would be better to get one of the these http://www.roalan.com/Bluetooth%20Wireless%20Serial%20RS232%20Converter.htm (or similar) and plug it into the widget and find a pda that has bluetooth and supports the bluetooth serial port protocal and do it that way. I would imagine that it wouldn't be *that* hard to build using VB (famous last words !!) as all you would be doing it decoding a stream of numbers and converting those to a graphical output.

You could then hide the widget away and place the pda where ever you like, I always liked the idea of embedding something into the sun visor as thats about the only place that I can see as being free apart from from sticking out of the dash:)

Dont quite know if it would work with the later usb widgets.

Sorry if offtopic.

Out of interest, providing all goes well and the new widget works... Can we expect a rise in price from the previous model? if so roughly how much are we talking?

Nathan.

p.s Interested!

i am 100% intrested in one off these

paul

Price is as yet undefined - the PCB chap charges in Euros now instead of dollars, the git, and I haven't totalled the parts yet since I haven't confirmed everything works.

But it is my intention that this goes at approx the price of the last one - £125-140 inc european postage.

oh im excited, get a riggle on

Although I'm not sure that you intended this thread to be a list of those with intent to buy I'd also like to register my firm interest Just don't go stooping over a hot soldering iron too much with the back as it is!

maybe pushing my luck but whats the chance of getting one with the picture changed for a Marea?



does look really interesting!

Zero...

Don't think it would work with a Marea, anyway - aren't they all post 2001? In which case, they'd be OBDII compliant.

But you can have it in a choice of English or Italian.

Or Scottish:

1). Warning! Broken. Expensive

2). Warning! Broken. Fccuking Expensive

3). Warning! Broken. Sell the bairns!

4). Warning! Broken. Sell yer kidney!

Lol stan, that would have to be a ross special edition to say things like that on the screen.

Seriously, Italian is easy. The Italians bought a big pile of the Mk1 and did all the translation for me; I just have to change one line of code and it all happens!

Neil

Nah. Mines would be...

1. Its broke, try fix it yourself, but fail.
2. Its broke, you'll need to spend money.
3. Its broke, you'll need to scam money off someone
4. Its broke, you'll need to start again

Ross

You could use your phone, if it was of the PDA variety.

You could *use* it, but you couldn't *see* it. One of the problems I've had has been finding displays big enough to see at a glance at arm's length.

The PDA idea works well, but of course costs the price of the PDA on top of the widget. If you can find a serial adaptor (and a reliable version of WinCE - it's buggy as hell on comms functions) then the simplest way to do this would be to use a microwidget and modify Star Trek to work on 20v and WinCE.

And before anyone asks, NO. Do it yerselfs! That's why it's open source

Neil

Hi Neil,

The PDA idea would provide people who already have them (e.g. on their phones) the ability to display more info should they have the inclination to develop the required software

Cheers

Scott

PS If I still have my car when they start coming out of the Barnacle Factory Ill take one!

put my name down for one!

Okay, stuffed it into a bodged plate and got it in the car. 'Tis a runner! Now I feel I can get the quotes for the carbon fibre plates and the circuit boards.

http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk/public/p3180039.jpg

(Er, the final version will only show the active area of the screen, not the entrails... )

I like the idea of using my Palm phone/PDA and bluetooth to communicate with the widget, I already use bluetooth for GPS and SatNav, but I have no idea how to program the PDA with Palm OS. I have written a few very clunky programs in SmallBasic, and you could get a lot of useful info on the 320x320 screen

Looking good Neil.............I'll take 200

Funnily enough I did try to use smallbasic and did a small test but unfortunalty the graphic processing was so slow for even the most basic of drawing. This was done using a palm 111e I think so maybe the later ones are better/faster and have the capability. What Palm pda do you have by the way ?

Treo 650 (using it now ) haven't felt the need to upgrade, it's mature technology - like me!

erm, lets say i have a 1997 20vT in the shape of a Marea.... now what are the chances?

Well, I can do it in 20vt flavour

Basically, there are four bitmaps in the source code; they're displayed depending which of the four coupe variants you use. I'm not about to change that part of the source code; at the moment it works and I really don't want to mess around with it.

So, if you have a 20vt engine *and* ECU in your Marea, then a 20vt logo is what you'll see. But only for five seconds.

(Just went out to see how bright it is at night... plenty bright, plenty green! )

if its just a case of a bit map can you send me over and example one i could modify for my design and just load it onto the device you send to me in place of the 20vt one?

In theory yes; in practice no. I really don't want to mess around with working source code. No reason why it should stop working, but...

Also, and more importantly (to me!) is that once I start getting into personalised versions, there's no telling where it will stop. *Any* change to the default code is an extra version to track, to maintain, to back up, to keep separate. I'm not a software company; I'm a bloke doing this when I'm not at work (and currently still suffering pain and fatigue as I recover from a broken back and internal injuries).

Looking very good in the test picture dude, does it just need plugging into the ecu for it to work?

no theres a free magic wand, just wave it in front of the display and all will be reveiled lol

If we could get one mounted in a box that is removable or separate I would be interested.

i would expect this to come at a higher cost though

Go to Maplin, they have plenty of boxes you can mount it in. I am putting my one in the glove box. A black plastic enclosure box costs about £3

would look good replacing the ashtray, suppose im ok, dont smoke

excited to get my hands on one of these...

no chance of a HUD version is there?

Would be intrested in one too.

I would like to too. Should of bought one last time!

Not going to be a head-up version - but for info: the bare circuit board and display are 75mm by 45mm by approx 20mm deep. The display active area is 50mm by 25mm. This is slightly smaller than the earlier versions.

barnacle> Can the source-code be downloaded somewhere?

Looks good Barnacle! Is it possible to get oiltemp on 20vt from the ECU?

Source code and construction details for the MK1 are available here: http://www.circuitcellar.com/avr2006/winners/DE/AT2625.htm

You'll need to source different display and rewrite the driver code as required. It's modular, so not too difficult.

I'm not releasing the code for the MK4 yet

Oil temp is not an ECU function, so no reading available

Neil

What is the difference between MK1, 2 and 3?

Mk1 used the original larger displays with an electroluminescent display backlight which dims with age, and a serial port.

Mk2 - only two or three of those, I think - used a different display but was still serial port.

Mk3 - yet another display (in a couple of backlight variants), but with USB connection.

Mk4 - is currently under development; the screen has higher resolution that previous versions and it's a USB connection.

when are these going to be available to buy? Does the start up screen only disply 16v or can it be changed or even blank with just the pic of the car? I have a 20vt how do i know what engine it is or am i being thick?!!!!!

There's a description of its use in the FAQ section, which should save me writing it all out again but - the device is set by me before I ship it to the coupe type you've chosen, so for you I'd set it to 20vt and that's what the picture would be. The default is, of course, for the 16v since that's what I have.

It can also be changed using a terminal program on a laptop if it's in the car. It needs to be told what to talk to as there are three different protocols involved.

They're going to be a few weeks yet; I'm waiting for a batch of circuit boards from Bulgaria and once they're here I'll knock up a second prototype and run that for a while to make sure it behaves (as the code has changed a lot from the early versions to cope with the larger screen) and sort out the carbon fibre mounting plates.

Neil

Is there any chance that you can change the display of a MK1 to a MK4 display?

Not tidily; the holes don't line up. I'm using a MK1 board with the Mk4 display for testing, and the display is effectively held in with gaffer tape and elastic bands.

Im sure the is alot of excitement getting about these. Im guessing this will be a first come first serve basis?

Oh yes

yes so look back on the first page, oh and i should be near the top then

Will be keeping very close tabs here then, only heard great things

Would be annoying if you missed your 'now on sale post' only to end up at the back of a very long queue!

There is no formal list at this point - and there won't be, until I have completed the testing and worked out a price. Once that's done, I'll announce here and a couple of other places - probably the FAQ thread and in technical - with a pointer to a new thread with 'for saleness' about it.

That will likely be in either group buys (where the original sale threads were) or 'parts for sale' - depends what the other mods think is the best option.

When they're available, it will be a case of *first paid first served* - I've been bitten too often with folk being absolutely certain they want one, real soon now... leaving me with a pile of stock I can't sell in case they decide to buy it but costing me dosh in the meantime. I build them once I get the dosh because they're expensive and this is not my day job; I'm not a factory that can afford to tool up and make thousands in advance...

But... I've just been advised that the first circuit boards are on their way from Bulgaria.

* Please Lord, let thy Barnacle list these widgets for sale when I'm not working. Have mercy on those who don't access Fccuk during their working hours - thank you*

Haha Theresa, i bet it all goes live and i am at work not even knowing that these babies are going. Barnacle can i give you a nice backhander to secure my widget status at the top

I am following this with eagle eyes as its a fantastic idea and very beneficial to the coupe.

Ash

same here thats what im worried about, they get posted up and im at work, come in log on and they are gone

And while we wait for the Mk IV boards to get here, I have been working on the MK V: http://www.avrfreaks.net/modules/PNphpBB2/files/p3300043_723.jpg

It's a little larger than the previous versions but it has a lot of advantages:

- bluetooth connectivity
- wifi updates (or use it for drive-by checking of email)
- full colour display up to 14" diagonal
- voice warning of faults, in your choice of iambic pentameter, or haiku:

- uses the new 'Sofia Proll' format for advanced engine analysis
- auxiliary sensors permit testing of systems not normally available, e.g. exhaust colour, passenger terror level, time to next breakdown
- manages all car systems to ensure e.g. that the spare is flat, the jack is missing, and the locking wheel nut remover is still at quickfit

I need only to reduce the ninety amps or so it takes and get the size down for better packaging. Shouldn't take more than a year or so...

Neil

^^^ PMSL - nice one Neil.

Now only if it could do all that. Time to next breakdown (Monday morning Lay in)

Well I managed to overclock my widget last week. The results are amazing !!

I will post up results later but I am generally seeing a 10% increase in performance. Have tried to increase the front side bus voltage to +9.4 volts but its becoming a little unstable. My friend has offered me some 400mhz memory for a reasonable price. Once that is fitted I reckon I could get at least another 5% on top of what I have already.

Neil I have fitted the prototype this morning but on the 20VT is it possible to get the Home Service?