Outside temperature weirdness

[steve_earwig]

<loads rich tea biscuit into DVD player>

[mjb]

I suppose whether a using Linux or other OS will depend depend on what hardware you use.

Indeed. The hard but fun way will be to use the LPC chip as originally intended and handle everything myself at low level in ARM assembly (used to write loads of it as a kid so it shouldn't be too hard to get back into... maybe). I'm thinking finite-state machine or (more likely) primitive co-operative multitasking.

If you can find displays with appropriate drivers for the OS, it'll probably a good move. v2 with MP3 decode and audio it will probably make your life a lot easier, should just be able to download an open source app and tweak it to work with the controls your providing.

Nah I'll be working directly with serial/parallel signals for i/o, the display controllers really aren't that sophisticated. MP3 support is a tricky one I may completely ditch the idea of. For one ARM chips are terrible at floating-point operations so i'd more than likely have to find some way of offloading to a hardware decoder or worse still using an x86/ppc core which I don't want to do for power, heat and space reasons. Then there's having to read FAT32 to deal with. Not impossible to do though

I'd guess there not much price difference between a low end controller (e.g. ARM7) and something you can run Linux on (e.g. ARM926) and on a project like the effort saving will far out way the extra cost. Unless you really do like a challenge that is....

Why would i want to make just another car pc? It's not about getting there, it's all about the journey

If I do go with a netbsd/linux kernel, I'll be making my own OS to go on it. I mean OS not 'distro'.

[steve_earwig]

Just think, if someone said we'd be driving around with computers in our cars when I was a kid they'd have been burned at the stake.

[DeDragonSlayer]

Features are easy. It's getting a working base setup (with VAN decoding) that's going to be the killer. I'm still half considering taking the easy way out and getting a more powerful microcontroller I can run a netbsd/linux kernel on.

Good luck in your quest! I wish someone would finally decode the thing once and for all.

Some links you probably already know, but which might be useful to others:
http://rt3wiki.free.fr/ The page 'software' here at the moment contains rubbish (probably some evil internet robot doing), but if look at the history you'll see links to VAN Monitor source code for a PIC microcontroller and schematics.
http://fafou.ben.free.fr/van/Van_main.html

[teamster1975]

Well, it was the thermistor after all! I had a spare wing mirror carcass & pilfered the sensor off it

[steve_earwig]

Speaking of outside temperature wierdness, it was 16 degrees here today, sixteen degrees!!! It's still February ffs! I've been out and dug up the stump from a peach tree I cut down last year - and now my bluddy back's killing me I think I've spent too long sitting on my arse

[teamster1975]

Bimey you're a bit keen Steve! One of my least favourite jobs getting a tree stump out, you always get that one tapping root that you can't quite get too & excavate a bloody great hole to get to it!

[steve_earwig]

Pah, it was only a peach tree, not a mighty oak!

[teamster1975]

These were bastard great leyland firs in my parents garden
Made a damn good bonfire though!

[steve_earwig]

The peach tree was only central heating & hot water for an afternoon. Smelled nice tho, much better than the old rotten beech that's in there now.

[mav]

Bimey you're a bit keen Steve! One of my least favourite jobs getting a tree stump out, you always get that one tapping root that you can't quite get too & excavate a bloody great hole to get to it!

i just used a bit of blue nylon rope and an XUD9 powered d8 estate
nearly pulled the drive up with it too

[steve_earwig]

Back in the uk I have a mechanical stump puller (think riculously powerful winch) as well as a couple of chain saws. Unfortunatly I'd have to pay duty on them if I tried to bring 'em here

I once took down a couple of old plum trees in a mate's garden. They were real bastards, it didn't help they were close to a wall. In fact, they were so close I used a scissor jack against the wall to push them down, job done but jack destroyed. About a year later, after my mate had sold up & moved on, the wall collapsed and flattened someone's car.

[teamster1975]

I once took down a couple of old plum trees in a mate's garden. They were real bastards, it didn't help they were close to a wall. In fact, they were so close I used a scissor jack against the wall to push them down, job done but jack destroyed. About a year later, after my mate had sold up & moved on, the wall collapsed and flattened someone's car.

Oh the things we do!

[Smelliot]

Looks like my temp sensor is playing up too. When I got the car a year a go the outside temp didn't work. Before I could investigate it started one day and was almost bob on (+1deg) untill today. This morning it went up to 32deg and on the motorway on the back home it went up to 70deg then blanked off. Also, I think becuase of this, the auto button on the climate puts the fans on one or two levels higher then it used to, so I've had to manually turn them down all the way home. Is this just the thermistor, or have I got a bit more of a underlying problem here?
Also, I couldn't find any thermistors on fleabay and that link earlyer on in the post requires an account, so what thermistor am I looking for when I go to the stealers.... and how do I fit it?

Gotta love french electronics
Thanks in advance guys