Re: [NTLK] A programming question (Newton as a controller for an electric motor)

[Sending this again since I quoted too much text and didn't see the
ecartis rejection e-mail]

Chris,

Excellent project (one I've considered a number of times myself)! Are
you leaning towards a DC or AC drive system?

Most electric vehicle controllers out there (I'd suggest the Zilla --
http://cafeelectric.com/ -- for DC or a Siemens -- see http://
metricmind.com/ -- for AC) provide serial interfaces, so it's mainly
a matter of writing a library to communicate with the controller over
serial and then writing an app on top of that.

Keep us posted and please join the Electric Vehicle Discussion List
(http://evdl.org/), if you haven't already. They discussed building
your own smart cruise control nearly a hear ago (and probably before
that as well).

Like NTLK, you'll find a lot of brilliant minds on EVDL. :)

Oh, and do keep us posted!

Morgan Aldridge

--
morgant@makkintosshu.com
http://www.makkintosshu.com/
On Aug 11, 2006, at 5:47 PM, James Nichols wrote:
> A couple of thoughts:
>
> The newton has no parallel inputs, nor any Analog to Digital
> converters (audio-in could be rigged as such in a pinch I guess).
> You'd have to do the scutwork of converting analog inputs from car
> sensors into digital values, and taking digital output for the cruise
> control and generating the varying analog output to the throttle
> OUTSIDE the newton.
>
> You probably already realized this (you mentioned that techy friends
> could build a dongle for such a purpose), why not make this dongle
> intelligent in it's own case? The only way the dongle can communicate
> with the newton will be a serial protocol - so the dongle will have
> to have some sort of micro-controller (picaxe, atmega, basic stamp
> etc.) to communicate with the newton.
>
> I would wager that integrating the actual cruise control
> functionality directly into this micro-controller would be safer and
> more useful as I would trust a micro-controller to have much higher
> reliability than a newton for uptime / realtime response, and would
> always be in the car - allowing you to use cruise if the newton isn't
> available.
>
> This reduces the complexity of the Newton's tasks to polling /
> displaying / logging the status data coming from the micro-controller
> - giving you gauge readouts etc, but not controlling anything in the
> car itself.
>
> Yes, it would remove the nifty factor of having your car be Newton
> Controlled (Headline: Electric Bug Powered By Newton Technology!),
> but the safety / utility / ease of implementation is likely worth
> giving up the nifty.
>
> J. Tyler Nichols
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