Engine Data logger

[downeym]

A good friend of my father is making a land speed record attempt at the Bonneville salt flats and needed an Engine data collection system for tweaking the setup. He tried a few off the shelf commercial systems and was not happy with them, so I decided to roll my own.

He is competing in the 125cc streamlined motorcycle class in case anyone is interested and his target speed is 200mph.

The system collects GPS location, Exhaust Gas Temperature (for mixture tuning), Cylinder head temperature, engine RPM, and of course, speed. Each datapoint is stored in a MySQL database on the Raspberry Pi and all graphing and reporting are done using a web browser. In addition to simple graphing, data can be exported into KML format for easy importing into Google Earth.

Recording is enabled with a single switch. Each time the switch is moved from off to on position, the SQL database assigns a new dataset number to the data collected so the data can be grouped and displayed conveniently.

There is an Eagle Tree Power panel LCD that will be located in the cockpit. It displays the data in real time along with GPS lock status and recording status. Conveniently, this display is actually addressable over I2C.

Data collection source code is located here along with schematics and MySQL database structure:
https://github.com/mikedowney/Bonneville-Data-Logger

Apache web reporting documentation is located here:
https://github.com/mikedowney/Bonnevill ... -Reporting







Anyway, I thought this community would be a good place to share. I hope that you find this useful.

This is my first python based project, so I am sure there are things that could be done more elegantly, but it seems to be quite stable and functional, so I thought I would share.

[Tafkas]

What was the reason to use MySQL instead of SQLite as the database?

[downeym]

no real reason... do you have a preference, and why?

I have a lot of experience with MSSQL server, but none of the unix SQL implementations.

[aTao]

Nice project... Are we starting a RPi speed record???

Also, was there a mishap getting 3rd gear?

[downeym]

Ha! That's simulated data. We won't get live bonneville data for a few months. I just needed some representative data for setting up the graphing functions.

[OldGit]

Bear in mind that at 200mph your GPS will only record with a resolution of about 300 feet!

[downeym]

of course, the course has its own speed calculation devices (they time you through two traps). The GPS is mostly just for reference.

If things go well, the resolution of the GPS at 200mph will be our biggest issue!

[steve_xland]

AWESOME!!!
This is exactly what I am building for my Superkart, albeit with two EGT sensors.
Please tell me, where did you get the board sitting on top of the Pi box?
Or, what is it called?

[Jacob_kz]

Hi! Do you get a digital signal from the exhausttemprature so you dont have to use an adc for the signal? Where can i find sensors that are good for this application? Im working on something simular for a kart and starting with the exhaust temprature.

Thank you for a good post!

Regards

[AndrewB153]

Hi

How do you get the data to display in a browser window? If I run the code in IDLE or the terminal it prints to the screen.

Regards
Andrew

[flyonly]

Mike

Are you able to help if someone is interested in having a go at this project?

Regards

Don