Hi
I hope this is the right forum.. also please, my english is not sooo good, greetings from germany!
I bought the Arduino Uno once, for playing with floppy drives 
Now I connected it to a 16x2 LCD, this works, using the predefined script and played with it.
Actually it is only a playing with it, doing some stupid things, possible the result will be a nice gimmick in my car.
What I want to do ist, to build the Arduino with the LCD in my car's dashboard and sow some informations, displaying short messages by using counter and input lines.
but, i am a c64 kid ... have no idea of this programming language and i run to the wall by trying changing / writing the script.
So I hope, you please can help me ...
My plan:
When ignition switch turns to the first position ("Radio/Stereo") or more nice by unlock central door, the Arduino gets power and boots and displaying a "welcome message"
- here I need no input line, just boot up and display, then waiting for input -
When switching to "ignition position" I want to display first a message for x seconds, then continue some things like,
Countdown (i found out to rewrite the counter, but at zero I need a IF line, and have not idea how to stop the counter getting in negative / large numbers)
Info: "Alternator!" (after motor runs, display message "Alt. ok" (in German "LiMa OK!") (getting here a signal with an IR receifer LED)
Info: "Handbrake" , "R-gear", "Water" and a lot other things with different priority
As I wrote, just actualy only playing, when finish, some really better ideas for displaying messages.
And, speedo and rpm.
So this is my code I rewrote:
// include the library code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);
void setup() {
// set up the LCD's number of columns and rows:
lcd.begin(16, 2);
// Print a message to the LCD.
lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
lcd.print(" RENAULT MEGANE");
lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
lcd.print("System bereit");
}
void loop() {
// set the cursor to column 0, line 1
// (note: line 1 is the second row, since counting begins with 0):
lcd.setCursor(14, 1);
// print the number of seconds since reset:
lcd.print(60-(millis()/1000));
}
As you can see, I did not really come forward. Only message and counter.
I also searched the web for speedo and rpm displaying, but each script only display one of these things, I need a point where I can adjust the speedy and rpm if neccesary (when in the car, using USB cable to laptop, sending new listing into the Arduino)
I was not able to get these scripts together
a huge project sure...
Is it still possible what I want to do, as the memory is not very large, can the Arduino handle all these options?
Back to my script in (code)
The counter works, counting from 60 to ... negative number.
How can I make a IF loop to get at "zero" to stop it, doing an action (output or displaying other message)?
I cant get the lcd.print to get IF=0 or IF<1 then set a THEN or ELSE ...
Here I need a complete getting knowledge of all these things ;(
thanks in advance, hope my english is not tooo bad
