Ping: PrettyboyTim
- Thread starter magnatom
- Start date
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PrettyboyTim
New Member
- Location
- Brighton
Okay - another update!
I've updated the software and now rather stupidly put it on the bike. Stupidly because it's probably going to be raining when I ride in tomorrow, and it's not water resistant!
Anyway, here are a few pictures:
The sensor is attached to the rear mudguard - one of the few places where I could be sure of it not getting obscured:
The cable winds back underneath the rack and winds around the seatpost:
None of my project boxes would fit it, so until I get something better, the circuit board and battery are currently stuffed in with my Smart headlight lead acid battery:
Finally, here's the display, held in place with an elastic band:
Basically it displays the closest distance it's detected in the last few seconds.
I'll report on it's performance tomorrow!
I've updated the software and now rather stupidly put it on the bike. Stupidly because it's probably going to be raining when I ride in tomorrow, and it's not water resistant!
Anyway, here are a few pictures:
The sensor is attached to the rear mudguard - one of the few places where I could be sure of it not getting obscured:
The cable winds back underneath the rack and winds around the seatpost:
None of my project boxes would fit it, so until I get something better, the circuit board and battery are currently stuffed in with my Smart headlight lead acid battery:
Finally, here's the display, held in place with an elastic band:
Basically it displays the closest distance it's detected in the last few seconds.
I'll report on it's performance tomorrow!
Rhythm Thief
Legendary Member
- Location
- Ross on Wye
Very neat, looks like an interesting tool.
Amanda P
Legendary Member
- Location
- York. Well, York-ish...
If I were using this gadget, I'd want it to record in some way all the distances it records, with a time stamp on each one. I'd use it with a camera, and the video would also have a time stamp.
When a close pass occurs, I'm going to be too busy to look at the display.
But when I get home, after I've cleaned up the grazes on my right elbow, drunk some hot sweet tea and had a little sob, I'd like to be able to look through the video and match up the vehicle that scraped my elbow on the video with the proximity data from the PBT gadget.
Just a thought....
When a close pass occurs, I'm going to be too busy to look at the display.
But when I get home, after I've cleaned up the grazes on my right elbow, drunk some hot sweet tea and had a little sob, I'd like to be able to look through the video and match up the vehicle that scraped my elbow on the video with the proximity data from the PBT gadget.
Just a thought....
PrettyboyTim
New Member
- Location
- Brighton
I think the ideal solution would be to have the distance reading overlaid on the camera output. Not sure how I'd go about doing that, though.
The other option I was thinking about was to write the data to an SD card. Storing it all in memory isn't all that feasible as the microcontroller only has 8K to play with. The problem with the SD card idea though is that I'd then have to write my own FAT16 driver that would also fit into 8K...
The other option I was thinking about was to write the data to an SD card. Storing it all in memory isn't all that feasible as the microcontroller only has 8K to play with. The problem with the SD card idea though is that I'd then have to write my own FAT16 driver that would also fit into 8K...
BentMikey
Rider of Seolferwulf
- Location
- South London
Remember the BBC model B? You wouldn't be complaining about 8K then. LOLOL!
PrettyboyTim
New Member
- Location
- Brighton
BentMikey said:
Yes I would! It had 32K! (Although up to 20K of that would be lost to the screen memory and you tended to lose a K or two to the Operating System, especially if you had a disk drive)
PrettyboyTim
New Member
- Location
- Brighton
Oooh - I thought of another solution, which would solve two problems at once: a speech synthesiser.
I'd have an amplified speaker so that I can hear how close things pass without looking at the LCD, and a small speaker clamped to the side of my handlebarcam, so that the camera gets to hear the readouts as well.
Now I just need to get my hands on a SpeakJet chip, or possibly an SP0256.
I'd have an amplified speaker so that I can hear how close things pass without looking at the LCD, and a small speaker clamped to the side of my handlebarcam, so that the camera gets to hear the readouts as well.
Now I just need to get my hands on a SpeakJet chip, or possibly an SP0256.
PrettyboyTim
New Member
- Location
- Brighton
Well, the SpeakJet chip arrived on Tuesday, and last night I got the basic self-diagnosis mode going with a small speaker. I need to amplify the output somewhat for it to be useful, so today I went out and bought this: 
PrettyboyTim said:Well, the SpeakJet chip arrived on Tuesday, and last night I got the basic self-diagnosis mode going with a small speaker. I need to amplify the output somewhat for it to be useful, so today I went out and bought this:
Excellent! When it's all done, you will have to produce a 'how to build your own....' type post. That's unless of course you are going to go down the patent route and end up on dragons den.
PrettyboyTim
New Member
- Location
- Brighton
Hmm
Gotta say I've let this project slip a bit. Partly because I rarely get close passes nowadays, and partly because the whole speech sythesis thing is less useful now my camera has stopped working.
Gotta say I've let this project slip a bit. Partly because I rarely get close passes nowadays, and partly because the whole speech sythesis thing is less useful now my camera has stopped working.