Just let me start off by saying I am new to the whole programming thing and would like some advice...
I work part time as a pc technician, so I have basic cmd line knowledge, I have reinstalled the operating system on my android phones before, I also have basic html knowledge(mostly copy and pasting tho).
That being said I would like to build something like this, I think with the right guidance I could do it but just give me the truth is this something I am going to crash and burn at or will I be able to work through it fairly easily?
If i built one it would only need to display distance traveled, it would need to be wireless tho, it would also be nice to have the option for a large display sign in the future...
Welcome! Can you educate us what a sled is? I read the description but cant't picture the actual device and what a pull is or what distance ranges and sensors are involved.
sorry, I always think everyone knows what i'm talking about
It is a weight transfer sled, designed for garden tractor pulling. I think we could use a hall effect sensor, the unit that I posted earlier is triggered off of a magnet on one of the sprockets in the mechanism that controls the box movement. I would have to calculate the movement of the sprocket tooth to the actual ground distance moved...
We would be ranging from 0-200ft, im sure it would never have to read more than that, it would be nice to read to at least within half a foot for sure...
thanks
Jser
I'm sure there are many gardeners and farmers that would immediately pick up what you were saying. Just for the sake of the rest of us I asked. So are you saying that you want this:
A distance sensing mechanism on the vehicle with hall sensor and magnet on a rotating part of the vehicle. It has a radio to send information to a control unit. The control unit displays distance on its on board LCD. This should be doable. I recommend doing something wired and on a smaller vehicle or non-motorized one first and then go full scale and later add wireless.
I assume this would be used for competition and so reliability would be important. Anything involving petrol engines is going to be an electrically noisy environment and you can't count on conventional wireless links being reliable. In that case you would want to ensure that the results of a run were recorded somewhere, even if some technical problem prevented them from being transmitted. I suspect you will also need to make sure that the sensors and processing unit are mechanically robust if they're going to be mounted on a moving sled.
The onboard part of the problem seems fairly feasible. I assume you can get a signal from a rotating/moving part that indicates how far you've moved, and the electrical/electronic/software part of that seems straight forward. I'm not sure if you intended to mount a display on the sled, but that doesn't strike me as very practical.
The sort of solution I'd envisage is a controller on the sled that determines distance moved and sends updates at regular intervals via a radio transceiver (there are various types available and I'm sure you will be able to get coverage over the sort of distance you're describing), a base unit consisting of a similar controller receives the updates, has control buttons to prime, reset etc and a local display for the operator. By sending updates at regular intervals, you could cope with brief radio outages or host spots. You might also want to provide some way to query the unit directly (such as including a local display) in case the radio side fails completely.
I would envisage the base station and remote unit being based on the same basic hardware.
I'm not sure what sort of technology you would consider for a public display panel but a dot matrix display would be one option. This is the part that is liable to involve significant hardware construction or expense. Making a tiny mockup of the display to prove the concept could be done quite easily; making a full size display would involve a large number of lamps and driver circuits - inexpensive individually, but the cost would soon add up when you make a matrix.
Bottom line - this seems like a feasible Arduino project.
Info on using hall sensors: http://bildr.org/2011/04/various-hall-effect-sensors/. They cost around $2/ea. These are kinda fragile little things so you'd want to encase them in epoxy or such so they don't get beat up. You can also get the same type of sensors in a more durable case but then you'll be paying more.
If you've never done any C programming (or any programming in general) you're going to find that the Arduino has a steep learning curve. You'll want to find a buddy with some programming experience.
