RC nitro boat datalogging

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Exhibition
1

Hello,

to solve some tuning problems a friend of mine made a datalogger for his boat:

its a Boarduino, with my TypK print and a SD Card, easy to use and quite practical :slight_smile:

gives you data like this:

More information and Sourcecode: RC Boat Datalogger

2

I am struggling to understand the throttle readings .In purple I think. Are they continuous readings or spasmodic. What do the dots mean Is it just hard on or hard off or is there more to be seen here?

3

Methinks the driver should be nicknamed "Leadfoot". To save costs, he should just use a toggle switch for the throttle - labelled:

1 - GO LIKE SNOT!
0 - WHOA NELLY!

b

4

whenever there is a valid reading (no timeout) it prints the dot :wink:

ever driven RC boats? there is no need for 75% or some other throttle positions, just 0% or 100% :sunglasses:

5

Any chance you have the wiring diagram for the sdcard?

6

Very nice!

Where did you source the plugs that the K-type plugs into to?

THX

7

i got some from www.conrad.at and RS Components, they also have the wire and sensors.

the SD Card is wired up like shown in the playground, nothing special here :slight_smile:

8

wow, thats nice man.
thats something i want to put in my nitro rc car too ^^
nice work!

btw, ever thinked or adding accelerometer? that would be nice data too.
i was thinking of gps module, but its kinda expensice, but it would make great data like, speed, altitude and even path.

9

accelerometer would be interesting, but you need some good filtering to remove the vibration from the nitro engine and movements...

GPS would be no problem at all, there are lib´s what get the data sorted :slight_smile:

Log the path and then put it in google earth, would be a nice feature :sunglasses:

10

Have you thought about adding a "flying magnet" type RPM sensor?

also how are you graphing your data?

11

as you can hear the rpm quite well on the boat we never thought about measuring it.
space is also a problem, the engine sits outside and there is only place for the micro throttle servo. would be tricky i think :-?

the data is stored on the SD card as a CSV. Excel or OpenOffice can open that file directly and then its just a little bit drag and drop to get the graphs :slight_smile: