It is not. It's a relatively small heater for the volume of the shop. It's been inspected and signed off. I'm not looking to reengineer the heater, merely the control system.
My Pis don't have a long boot time, but it is greater than zero. You'd notice it in a car, but it's no worse than the OE infotainment stuff in the ND Miata. The Pi 4 seems to boot faster than the Zero simply due to processor. I do run all of mine headless so the OS is lighter.
I have an Arduino as well, but I like the Pi because I like Unix.
Gotcha. I think the exhaust from the unvented heater is putting a ton of moisture in the air. Just a thought.
Oh, no question. Water is a byproduct of combustion, it's high school chemistry. Venting it outside would solve the problem. But it's not designed to allow that, so I'm working with the constraints I have.
T.J.
MegaDork
2/6/20 9:11 a.m.
I ordered a Pi yesterday to set up a Pi hole. Thanks to Keith for making this thread and reminding me about the Pi hole.
In reply to codrus :
Check out Corse's Pi-powered gauge for his Lambo resto-mod. Even without too much tweaking it boots pretty quickly, certainly fast enough to get belted you or adjust the heat, etc that one does when they get into the car.
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/new-project-1987-lamborghini-jalpa-theres-no-easy-/102819/page66/
There are some tweaks you can do to speed up the boot time.
Off topic to the pi, but similar to what Keith did with the old radio enclosure, and this would also make a nice pi based music system. As it stands, it has a 60W 3886 chipamp and nice Audax speakers and crossover. Connects via bluetooth or via an old fashioned wire.
T.J. said:
I ordered a Pi yesterday to set up a Pi hole. Thanks to Keith for making this thread and reminding me about the Pi hole.
I did the same. I got it yesterday and got it set up. Now I'm looking for more projects to use them for.
My son just built his first computer, my wife was super impressed. On the shelf next to him is an Arduino kit that we need to start playing with, other than that just following along for inspiration.
tip
New Reader
2/7/20 7:36 a.m.
This thread is awesome, I had no idea this stuff existed!
bluej
UberDork
2/7/20 8:41 a.m.
So why would I choose an arduino over a pi zero, other than maybe boot time, to do stuff like this?
Basically, an Arduino is a microcontroller that can only do one thing at a time. The Pi is a general purpose computer.
I think Arduinos are a bit friendlier for beginners. They've also been around longer, so there are a bunch of people who have been playing with them for a while. They may be a little more fault-tolerant by nature because they're simpler, I don't know.
For my shop HVAC controller, if I just wanted to run the fan, an Arduino would do the job pretty easily. But since I also want it to write logs and report via a web server and run a display showing status, I need the Pi.
In reply to codrus :
So if i wanted to make a digital dash somewhat similar to what is available in the Torque app on android, would a setup like yours work or would i need to step up to a Pi and deal with the boot time? Assuming i have an ECU that will talk to both of them.
shagles said:
In reply to codrus :
So if i wanted to make a digital dash somewhat similar to what is available in the Torque app on android, would a setup like yours work or would i need to step up to a Pi and deal with the boot time? Assuming i have an ECU that will talk to both of them.
Keep in mind, you CAN keep the Pi running and just kill power to the screen. Just make sure to have a way to kill power to it if your battery voltage drops too low (they make smart UPS solutions that plug into the Pi). Also to be honest, the boot time is really not any worse than a modern Infotainment system, especially once tuned to what is only needed to run the dash.
You can also run Android on the Pi, which allows running off the shelf Android apps like Torque for example. Though for many, a cheap Android tablet can work just as well, especially since it has its own onboard battery solution. You just need to be able to get access to the root of the OS to customize it the way you need it.
In reply to Stefan :
Currently I have an old android phone running Torque as my dash with a bluetooth OBD2 reader. I am considering changing over to a microsquirt or megasquirt to be able to make adjustments for a supercharger. I was thinking it would be a better solution to have a dash setup that connected to the ECU directly instead of through my bluetooth thing that occasionally has issues. Also, I can't get the phone to root so i haven't been able to set it up like i want.
jwagner said:
Off topic to the pi, but similar to what Keith did with the old radio enclosure, and this would also make a nice pi based music system. As it stands, it has a 60W 3886 chipamp and nice Audax speakers and crossover. Connects via bluetooth or via an old fashioned wire.
What brand of radio is that? I've been looking for something that art deco for awhile.
In reply to shagles :
Yeah, then a Pi would be a good solution, you could even add a battery backup to it and some smart circuitry to allow it to stay running when the car is off.
Install Android and run Torque for now, I think there should be a way to connect directly to the CAN BUS to avoid bluetooth problems. Then if you move to another solution like MegaSquirt, you can change things around without signification alteration of the Pi install.
There are smaller screens available so you could likely find one that would fit your needs and it generally will drive almost any screen you want.
In reply to Stefan :
Cool, thanks. Time to figure out how to connect a pi to an E36...
The little HVAC control box is in the shop and running. I can view logs via a web browser, although I haven't added remote control yet. The box logs current readings every 5 minutes as well as any change in status (fan on, fan off, etc). I'm still feeling out where the humidity should be but now I have some data to work off. It may be best to have an outside sensor so the fan doesn't try to pull humidity down below ambient. Right now, for example, it's very humid for Grand Junction and my humidity target is lower than the current humidity in the area. When it was drier outside, the fan was running at a much decreased duty cycle. So, success for the time being but we're not done yet!
Keith Tanner said:
The little HVAC control box is in the shop and running. I can view logs via a web browser, although I haven't added remote control yet. The box logs current readings every 5 minutes as well as any change in status (fan on, fan off, etc). I'm still feeling out where the humidity should be but now I have some data to work off. It may be best to have an outside sensor so the fan doesn't try to pull humidity down below ambient. Right now, for example, it's very humid for Grand Junction and my humidity target is lower than the current humidity in the area. When it was drier outside, the fan was running at a much decreased duty cycle. So, success for the time being but we're not done yet!
Are you building in calculations for the difference in relative humidity for the outside make-up air as it warms up to ambient in the shop? If you bring in cold air at 50% rh and warm it up to ambient in your shop, you end up with the make-up air being lower than 50% rh at the new temp -- are you measuring water vapor or relative humidity to make the decision of "should I air-cycle"?
Relative humidity. And I'm not a weatherman, so I don't really know how this works :) I just don't want water running down the shop walls!
Stefan said:
Keep in mind, you CAN keep the Pi running and just kill power to the screen. Just make sure to have a way to kill power to it if your battery voltage drops too low (they make smart UPS solutions that plug into the Pi). Also to be honest, the boot time is really not any worse than a modern Infotainment system, especially once tuned to what is only needed to run the dash.
This. But beware, Pis don't handle power loss well. In my experience it only takes a low number of power cuts (<10) before the SD card is corrupted. There are some ways to help prevent this, but I don't know the specifics... something about write-locking the boot partitions.
ProDarwin said:
Stefan said:
Keep in mind, you CAN keep the Pi running and just kill power to the screen. Just make sure to have a way to kill power to it if your battery voltage drops too low (they make smart UPS solutions that plug into the Pi). Also to be honest, the boot time is really not any worse than a modern Infotainment system, especially once tuned to what is only needed to run the dash.
This. But beware, Pis don't handle power loss well. In my experience it only takes a low number of power cuts (<10) before the SD card is corrupted. There are some ways to help prevent this, but I don't know the specifics... something about write-locking the boot partitions.
Add a UPS style solution to safely shutdown/reboot the system whenever power cuts out.
Something like this:
https://mausberry-circuits.myshopify.com/collections/car-power-supply-switches/products/4amp-car-supply-switch
Stefan said:
ProDarwin said:
Stefan said:
Keep in mind, you CAN keep the Pi running and just kill power to the screen. Just make sure to have a way to kill power to it if your battery voltage drops too low (they make smart UPS solutions that plug into the Pi). Also to be honest, the boot time is really not any worse than a modern Infotainment system, especially once tuned to what is only needed to run the dash.
This. But beware, Pis don't handle power loss well. In my experience it only takes a low number of power cuts (<10) before the SD card is corrupted. There are some ways to help prevent this, but I don't know the specifics... something about write-locking the boot partitions.
Add a UPS style solution to safely shutdown/reboot the system whenever power cuts out.
Something like this:
https://mausberry-circuits.myshopify.com/collections/car-power-supply-switches/products/4amp-car-supply-switch
Yeah. The issue is once you get to that point its often cheaper to move to a non-Pi platform (depending what you want to do). The cost of a UPS for the Pi is greater than the Pi itself.
Some solutions:
1. Rig the Pi to shut down when 12v is removed from one of the pins, but take power from B+. This will require a reboot when you turn the ignition on again but is really easy to implement.
2. Rig the Pi to be always on, but have a separate power supply for it that can power it long enough to shut down. Then just wire it to shut down when power is removed from a pin, but make that pin B+. This power supply doesn't have to be much, a supercap or two will do the job. There are some circuits out there. It may cost more than the Pi when you're done, but that's a pretty low bar.
3. A different version that's used in OE units - have it go into a clean shutdown when the car's been turned off for a while. This means no boot time when the car is driven frequently, but a bit of boot time the first time you power up after a rest. This is basically solution 1 with a timer. Add a shutdown button for when you know you're going to be disconnecting the battery. Also easy to implement.
