Fly-by-wire RVF

[Timmeh]

Hello BCF'ers

My turn.

Apologies to Nowhere and Blade for jumping on the DIY dash bandwagon, although this is a long time in the making.

So I spent most of my time programming computers and messing with embedded control systems. My cousin designs flight simulators, my dad teaches people to fly Airbus A340s, I think you can see this going. Hopefully over the next couple of months (or years) I will be adding some aeronautical-grade engineering to one of my bikes.

So I've taken my stock RVF and done away with most of the front end. Replaced with 8" touchscreen LCD which will hopefully do some funky stuff when it's all done and I've built the software.

I too will be using an arduino for some parts, to eventually drive the shift light, gear indicator and provide sensors so the system will know what the bike is doing.

So first off all, here's a picture of the screen. I'm using an eBox embedded PC running Windows XP Embedded, it's a nifty little box that only draws 1A @ 5V and comes with 512Mb of RAM and storage is a shake-proof SDHC card. Boot time is a little over 10 seconds, which isn't at all bad. I did consider using a RasPi but I've been writing software for PCs since I was 13 and frankly I can't code as fast on a linux box, and I know the Windows API backwards.

https://www.bikechatforums.com/download.php?id=87948

Please excuse the tattyness of the bike... once the project is completed I'll strip it down and and give it a good clean and attach shiny bits to it.

More to follow...
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[gfrancisdev]

...windows...wow...do you want to kill yourself?

i'd say it's worth learning how to code without the windows APIs, or at least use something like boost and the stl so it's relatively portable should you decide to switch the hardware someday

[Timmeh]

lol

I have thought about that, or even coding it in Java or something portable. The honest truth is I'm impatient when it comes to programming, especially projects that use a GUI. I have a Pi and can write software with GNU/C, but that's strictly dos-based as I haven't actually attempted to write anything graphical with Linux.
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[gfrancisdev]

[Timmeh]

It's got a 1Ghz processor so is fast enough, and comes with an onboard GPU that will support DirectX and D3D, but sadly not OpenGL.

WinAPI is native to the OS, and the calls are all built with assembler, so will be faster than using kits or interpreted code.

Windows is just as stable as anything else, Embedded especially so, the thing that makes PCs less stable than their mac or linux counterparts is buggy drivers and the other useless rubbish oems weigh their systems down with. Once all that is removed, XP will run just as well as OSX or Linux.
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[colin1]

fly by wire ? I hope you are joking.

If you aren't and you literally mean giving control to a computer and hoping it does what its supposed to, I hope you conduct your experiments away from anyone else.

1 bug in the program, 1 lose wire and there could be problems.

Fortunately, I doubt you could replace the hand operated controls with actuators to pull control cables, so steering, throttle, brakes, clutch, gears etc will still be under your direct control.

If you do manage to get the actuators working and take it on the road, someone should really inform the police before someone else gets hurt.

There is no chance you would be able to develop the control software to control the actuators successfully.
____________________
colin1 is officially faster than god

[gfrancisdev]

[colin1]

[gfrancisdev]

[LordShaftesbu...]

[Timmeh]

Building a bike that can ride itself would be a huge task, although feasible it would require a monumental amount of R&D and a ton of time and money, which I haven't got; and I admit I certainly wouldn't want to be sat on it for the trial run.

Francis is correct; my plan is to give the computer semi-automatic control of just the throttle to begin with, but by using steppers rather than servos, as their gearboxes aren't usually suited to being turned by hand. There will be a provision for dual-channel monitoring which will give the system a decent level of redundancy and error-checking.

I won't be cutting any linkages (yet anyway)
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[LordShaftesbu...]

That documentary about the self-driving vehicle race DARPA sponsored a few years ago had a self-driving bike in it. It almost wasn't complete shit too.

[Timmeh]

I would love to have a go at that, although I'd most likely start on a ped as there's no gears involved.

I just haven't got the money.
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[gfrancisdev]

[CaNsA]

Looks cool as fuck.
Deffo follow this thread

inb4
Cause of RTA?
https://i.imgur.com/Mud8xzC.png

[Timmeh]

Hmmmm... TTL eh? Sounds interesting.

I like steppers because they offer 1:1 movement and they offer absolutely no resistance when they are off.

I will be using opto encoders coupled with the stepper's position relative to zero, which is a mechanical stop.
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[gfrancisdev]

well steppers should work, assuming they have the torque, all depends what's needed, could program them to open the throttle stupidly fast at the touch of a button i bet

[Timmeh]

Yup, I've used ones that have 90 degrees/sec turn rate and can apply obscene amounts of torque.
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[colin1]

This thread reminds me of the one with the guy jumping onto the cactus. You wonder why he thought it would be a good idea, why he thought it wouldn't hurt, and why did he need attention so badly.
____________________
colin1 is officially faster than god

[Timmeh]

hmm.
____________________
GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[Spudly]

I think it sounds brilliant Timmeh. I'm dead keen to see what you come up with.
____________________
The Old Apprentice

[Xenocide]

[Timmeh]

[P.]

[virus]

Colin, just because its not a commonly done idea doesn't mean its a bad one. Turbo'd bikes are a bad idea... Nos is a bad idea, people still do it and survive.

So long as there is a mechanical backup in place in the event of the computer crashing then it will be fine, even if its just a standalone killswitch.


Timmeh, good luck, sounds like a very interesting project.

Cheers
John
____________________
own: 81 xs1100g...
owned: 85 rat CG (sold), 91 GS500e (stolen), 84 gsx400f (scrapped), 81 z250 (siezed, siezed, scrapped), 83 cb250rs (sold), 84 gpz750r ratfighter (killed) 84gpz400 (sold), '80 cb650 ratfighter (wrote off) 95gsx6/12f ratfighter (killed) 91 xj900 (sold)
stinkwheel Well I just had my hands up a pigs fanny. Which makes your concerns pale into insignificance.