Group Actions
Engagement
  • Author Author: plauer
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 1100 views
  • Likes 7 likes
  • Comments 8 comments
Related
Recommended

Motorcycle Winter Monitor

plauer

The kit is here, today came the sensor shield.

The wifi kit had an issue with the software support and is currently upgraded from the CC3100 to the CC3120. The 432 boards only support the newer CC3120. Code Composer is installed.

 

 

Current status: Still waiting for the kit. I will use my mac to create the code for the project..

 

From what I learned so far, I need to write the code on the 432 and use a WIFI shield to prepare the web page and send out the data. The 432 boards come with an RTOS. Hope thats not to complex to use.

 

 

Just as an overview here is my original response for the project:

 

Motorcycle Winter Monitor

 

The challenge

If you live in the northern part of the US you know the drill. Every fall you winterize your toys, Motorcycles, classic cars, convertibles, boats. Every spring you face the same issues, battery died, mice chewed through the charger wires, hoses busted.

 

The solution

Equip the battery charger, conditioner with an IOT monitor. Measure battery voltage, charging current temperature, humidity. Transmit it via bluetooth or wifi to smart phone. Anytime your worried about your toy in the corner of your garage, where you can't get to now? Just look at your phone and you get a great health status.

 

Implementation

Use one the wifi / bluetooth  chipsets with a build in processor and analog inputs. Connect the inputs to the sensing circuits for voltage, current, temperature and humidity. Processing requirements are low, so the build in processor can handle the load. For power supply of the circuit use the battery charger itself. No need to be super lower power.

Implement a simple bluethooth / wifi app for the smart phone. For wifi a small HTML script called from a browser should be fine. Make sure you can handle multiple devices, for every toy you have winterized.

  • Waiting for the CC3120 board now. That one integrates with the MSP432 launchpad. Did not have much luck with FreeRTOS either so far. Once I have the CC3120 I will try the TI RTOS. That comes with only one install instead of two (one from TI and one from FreeRTOS).

    Meanwhile I got a Honda Civic Hybrid, this car has two batteries, a 12V lead acid and a 144V NiH for the 15KW electric motor. More batteries to supervise...

  • in reply to plauer

    / Peter, have you looked at Energia?  http://energia.nu/

     

    I am looking at that over on my project as a way to tie in Arduino addon boards.

     

    "

    What is Energia?

    Energia is an open-source electronics prototyping platform developed by Robert Wessels with the goal to bring the Arduino and Wiring framework to the Texas Instruments MSP430Tm LaunchPad evaluation kit. Energia is based on Arduino and the Wiring framework and includes an integrated development environment (IDE) that is based on Processing. The foundation of Energia and Arduino is the Wiring framework that is developed by Hernando Barragan. Energia currently supports several Texas Instruments devices. TI LaunchPad evaluation kits are low-cost microcontroller-based development kits that are made by Texas Instruments."

  • Update

     

    so I got the kits, everything is there. To do my project I probably only need the MSP432 Launchpad plus the CC3100 board. Other solutions for wifi, like the ESP8266 have some IO on their own, that might be enough for the motor cycle monitor, no main processor needed at all, but not the CC3100, its serial communication only. Also there are no high level IOT commands available, like what as been added to Arduino, I need to put things together from scratch. All demos for this (lauchpad + CC3100) seem to need FreeRTOS.

    Ok, I did download the Launchpad support packages, and also the full install of the code composer studio.

     

    board connects and I can download compile and run software on the lauchpad, so far so good.

     

    Not so much luck with the FreeRTOS. Somehow the Launchpad demos that use FreeRTOS do not find the source of FreeRTOS itself, complaining about the 'FREERTOS_INSTALL_DIR' not set. I downloaded FreeRTOS from the freertos.org web page, installed it on the hard drive and set the variable. Still nothing, maybe I set the variable in the wrong directory.

     

    To my understanding all the demos that have interface software (SPI on the Lauchpad and code to run the CC3100 board) are using the FeeRTOS.

     

    That's as far as I got.

    Lucky they extended the deadline until June, that gives me another chance image

    Peter

  • in reply to DAB

    Yes, or your boat, or your classic car that needs to make it through the winter. I've heard that Porsches are notorious for killing their batteries, because their factor anti-theft systems deep discharge them.

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    thanks, I'll download it and check. Hope its not too complex. I did a project before using the electric imp, all the web functions were canned into language that the unit was using.

    Peter