Basic Data Aquisition

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello Everyone !! First let me say when you read BassDoctor, don't think of fish but think of an Italian VIOL musical instrument :slight_smile:

I'm new to Arduino but not to electronics. I had C programing in 1992 in college so I'm a little rusty, OK. I build race engines and i cannot get enough feedback from the drivers as their too busy driving. We currently started using GoPro cameras to watch the gauges but its not accurate enough due to vibrations of from the track.

I wont to start with a basic project but eventually build a data acquisition system. I think the UNO might be a good place to start. Here are the design requirements,

  1. Read 5 analog 0-5vdc signals and store them to an SD card.
  2. Simultaneously displaying these values on some type of display.
  3. sample rate would be 50 msecs to conserve memory on the SD card.
  4. optional, if the data could be transmitted via Bluetooth or WiFi that would be awesome.

This unit will monitor engine TEMP, TPS, MAP, AFR, and TACH on an internal combustion engine. A race can last for 20 to 30 minutes, but if i could get just a few laps of data aquired, it would help tremendously !!

Any help and guidance would be greatly appreciated.Thanks, Mark.

2

You don't need to worry about space on an SD card. At that sample rate, a whole race worth of data is only ~300K. What you want to do sounds feasible enough except for the telemetry transmission. Neither wifi nor bluetooth will have enough range unless perhaps you're racing go-carts. There's other radio tech that'll get you better distance though.

3

Thank you WildBill for your reply and help. a simple display on the UNO and the SD Card should be enough then. what shields and hardware do you suggest for this project. ?
i believe the WiFi has greater range than Bluetooth. How far will it transmit?

4

BASSDOCTOR:
I believe the WiFi has greater range than Bluetooth. How far will it transmit?

A sensor in the egine bay ought to be good enought to transmit to a central collector somewhere in car with either Bluetooth or WiFi.

Although robust wired connections would make a lot more sense.

5

wifi's 100-150ft. Depends on what's between the transmitter & receiver though. It does occur to me though that that might be enough if you would be satisfied with getting a lap's worth of telemetry each time your car passes the pits.

6

Hi,
Welcome to the Forum.

If you google arduino analog data logger

Quite a few shields and assemblies for the Arduino pop up.
Such as;

This is the shield and you need to add the UNO underneath.
It has RealTimeClock as well, it would be a good place to start.
It comes with documentation and Libraries to get everything going.

Adafruit have good support of their products as well.

Hope it helps.. Tom.. :slight_smile:

7

Thanks for all the help. I just ordered a UNO starter kit. I think saving the data to ab SD card would be best and then analyze it when the car returns to the pits.

The UNO seemed the best for beginners and had enough Analog inputs for my needs.