still waiting for the haltech e6k version. do doo doo dooooo

 

i wouldnt mind testing either, im sure all of us want to.

 

Just a quick update.. very busy with work atm. Believe me, I'd love to spend my time working on FCWatch, but bills have to be payed..

Just a quick update on progress, since I'm falling behind schedule a bit..

I've implemented threading within the application. What this means is improved performance for logging (approx 30 samples per sec), while the display portion of the application has its own worker thread. It sometimes takes a few milliseconds to update the display, but I don't want to loose fidelity for logging data, which is one of the primary things FCWatch does.

I've been finishing off the default plugin set for distribution with the application. I'm taking a bit of time on this because I want things to look coherent and user friendly. I've also added a bit of polish to the default gauges, will post pics later..

At the same time, I've started work on some basic plugins to display real time graphing.. at the moment I'm just providing a plugin to display knock graph, however I might do some for other channels if there is demand. See screenshot below with basic knock graph..



Regarding e6k.. I don't have access to the hardware / software at the moment. If anybody feels like donating for development purposes I'll be quite happy to get started on work for this platform.. at the moment I'm concentrating on a release for the PFC..

 

That looks beautiful, i can't wait untill it comes out... Will you be able to add more gauges as a monitoring solution?

 

Peak hold halos for knock would be nice!

Keep up the exemplary work!
Looking forward to a release.

 

Will do. Like the sig..

 

Forget who.. but it was requested that gauges can be stretched, rather than locked aspect ratio, for use with in car LCD display / resolution issues.. This is now an option in settings for those who need it..

 

Nice... Give us the release date... I'm to anxious to try it out

 

This should make it possible to display a 800 x 600 resolution in what would appear to be a standard aspect ratio for a standard small LCD panel correct?

Is there a easy way to force the stretch into a decimal equivalent?

So if a standard aspect were to be 800 x 480 to work properly with a standard small LCD (7” 8” 10.5” lilliput/xenarc), but most resolutions limit users to 800 x 600 (without a decent graphics card which is a problem with the offerings presently)

So I think if a user could just plug in a decimal equivalent to stretch/compress (depending on how the user wants to do it) to the equivalent square viewable area would either be a stretch of 1.25 in the vertical direction, or a compression of 0.80 in the horizontal direction if I am thinking about this correctly.

This is not my area of expertise at all.

Just a thought, since there are not that many different std. Viewable areas to work with and this would provide a quick precise way to expand all or compress all equally, and should work for any change in displays.


Just a thought, I would be more than happy to fiddle with it till it was just right, but this may be a easy thing to implement since the stretching is obviously done.

Or perhaps this is the method you are using and I typed all^ that for not

Regardless this will make this much more usable for the carputer crowd with changeable aspect. great work big pat on the back from me at least.

 

Rotarypower101.. was you who requested the feature wasn't it. You're talking about applying a fixed ratio by which to adjust width and height? This aspect ratio would be locked - maintained during resize?

BoostinFD.. I'm anxious to release the software myself! I want to finish off a full set of plugins to ship with the application. Work was a damn nightmare last week and it really set me back.. then my free time on the weekend was taken up setting up a friends FD..

I also want to concentrate on improving logging sample rates as much as possible, because I want this application to be as useful as possible for logging data specifically.

 

That is not exactly what I was trying to convey, but this sounds like a good thing to implement as well upon reading your statement and considering what you are saying.


Perhaps I am leaving a vital piece of information out of my request (which you may or may not know, I cant tell from rereading this thread). When a screen such as a xenarc or lilliput is used, the viewable area as seen by the user is squeezed down because of the somewhat odd aspect ratio used on these devices.

For example if you where to take a standard 4:3 aspect ratio, and force all the pixels into a 16:9 ratio (no cropping) the picture would appear stretched horizontally. This is the effect that is seen on standard touch screens available at present, because native resolution is 800 x 480, while most on board graphics support 800 x 600.

This is an all to common problem with these screens and is overcome in various ways, but is an issue that some deal directly with as there is no option to make a user definable resolution of 5:3 in many “car PC” installs.

I believe the squeezing, however you accomplish this task, would be sufficient, I was just making the point that a decimal equivalent (say if a user could just plug a number into a options box) would accomplish this task very accurately for odd resolutions.

Am I explaining myself clearly enough?

The first pic is squares with 45deg lines, the second is a squeezed down version of it, as would be seen on available touch screens.

 

Hi Cathal,

It was me that requested it originally I think, but RP101 has done a much better job of explaining it than me!

Sorry I've not been in touch for a while, managed to pop a tip last month so my testing has ground to a halt. Hoping to pull the engine next weekend.

Steve

 

Steve, I'm really sorry to hear about your motor!! It's true what they say, the rotary is a vocation, not an engine! Best of luck with the rebuild...

Ok.. maybe I'm just dumb! Basically, what I think you are describing is that lets say the default resolution is 4:3 (as normal for most systems). The width/height ratio as it stands (4:3) is suitable. Now.. if you're using 16:9 ratio.. applets should display width/height in this ratio, by default? I suppose I could use the user selected display resolution in "Screen Settings" to decide what ratio to use for the applets when they are displayed.

Finally.. some new shots to keep you up to date..




The above illustrates map watch applet I'm working on and knock graph. The look and feel of the gauges has been revised for pending release. This is a screenshot of logged data from an actual run I did - in playback mode.

 

thanks Cathal, Ive decided to go single while it's out, a whole new world of pain awaits!

I must say FC Watch really is looking **** hot now! very impressed with how it's come on. The little red peak marker around the outside of the gauge is a really nice touch too

 

Wow, that's beautifull.. I just love gauges

 

Once the software is released, I will take actual photos of the screen running the application and I think it will be crystal clear what the issue is, if there is one at all.

I believe if there is an issue it can be resolved by the stretching function you posted about.



Just to reiterate, it is not your software that is the problem it is the fact that the resolution of 800x600 is forced to be displayed on a 800x480, herein lies the issue at hand.

The general fix to this is to make a 800x600 that is essentially stretched in the vertical direction, so when forced to display on a 800x480 it is compressed back to a “standard” viewing are.

Regardless, when released we will bug you about it when and if it is a issue at all, without the software in hand it is difficult to speculate exactly what is going to happen.

 

Also wanted to comment on the bottom second from the most right window, what is this?
It appears to be a small maptrace window, but cant really tell from the resolution?

And the knock window combined with a time trace is a much better approach than individual windows IMO.


Will there be a embedded option to resize and place windows in an organized logical manner to maximize usable space, or will this be left to the user to align corners and match sizes of windows?

Looks great!

 

So can you switch to standard units? I know that was asked earlier, but I don
t recall seeing an answer, sorry if it has been posted before. Also it would be pretty cool if you could have or set a warning of have the whole gauge turn red when it hits a certain point, like autometer nexus gauges.
I'd get a nice LCD panel and replace all my gauges with this setup. Is there anyway you could add not PFC related gauges to this as well? (EGT, Air/Fuel, etc...)

 

Thanks Steve.. I got a call from one of my FD mates, his car was hard at starting over the weekend and she blew a load of white smoke.. I hope she hasn't blown a water seal or something. She's stock twins so it will be fun troubleshooting. At least you wont have that sort of ordeal with your new single. Best of luck!

Not at the moment but will look into it. Because the gauges can be different individual sizes, the logic is a bit tricky so I'll have to use my brain.. :P You can tile / cascade applet windows but there is a chance they will be resized in the process.

Yep.. it's a map trace applet. Sorry, the images are compressed jpeg, quality is really shitty and doesn't do FCWatch justice..

Yes, you could convert KPH to Lightyears if you wanted or units for any other channel. This is done within the gauge applet. These applets will be open source and you can change / modify / create whatever you like. I may include this as an interactive option in the applets, rather than just having to set a few variables in the applet source code in future.

I'm working on an AFR gauge as we speak. Depending on what connecting supported connecting device you are using for the PFC (e.g. FC-Datalogit), you can use auxilliary channels for this. I'm using the Innovate WB02, and I have this wired to my box for logging. This means I can also display the AFR reading in FCWatch. If you had your EGT setup for logging, you could do the same with this.

On that topic.. I could swear I saw a guy posting that he was logging gear selection. I can't find it with search for the life of me. He was using a simple 0-5v to his datalogit, with switches (I think) hooked up to his gear selection.. that would be cool if somebody wants to help figure out a good / better way to do this. We could use this channel data in FCWatch for dynamically logging/displaying your gear selection, creating individual on-the-fly logs per gear (for doing runs etc), all sorts of mad stuff

 

This is great! I can't wait until it comes out, Keep up the good work

 

excellent work so far ! really looking forward to trying it in-car on my impreza

gears can be worked out by rpm & speed , which you have logged. you'll just need to make it configurable for different cars!

Steve

 

for example, in my car its something like this

speed * 1000 / rpm

<6 = 1st
<10 = 2nd
<14 = 3rd
<19 = 4th
<25 =5th

else its Neutral (or clutch in )


so 50 mph @ 3000rpm = 16.666 in that equation - so that falls into 4th gear
if it were 2500 it would be 5th.

not saying its perfect but its gota work

 

If somebody would care to work out this equation for the FD, I will happily make an applet for this.

ScoobyDuck.. I will have to test FCWatch for use with other PFC platforms. A non specific version of FCWatch for the FD will probably work no problem with the Scooby PFC, however some display values may be mixed up.. it will be made available for all PFC platforms however.

 

I think all you need is the final drive ratios etc per RPM and you should be able to work something out easily on an spreadsheet - thats all i did for the above in my program that monitored the orginal ECU on my car before i switched. i just manged to simplify it a bit.
i'm sure the same would work for the FD, you'll just have to put a logged range of values in and see what the lowest and highest are for each gear!

as for testing, you have a willing participant here if you need it.

cheers
Steve

 

I think most of the parameters will be exactly the same. IGL & IGT will obviously not exist in any other model, but it should be the same as your FINAL ignition ?

not sure what else you guys have but we dont !