As promised in my previous post, this is the almost finished product. I think it would look perfect with a coat of Plastidip over the bezel. But pretty much this is ready to be installed on the car. From my previous post I have made a couple of changes, now I have added 2 USB ports. One of the ports will be used as a data logger to monitor the parameters of the engine which I can analyze later.
I am happy to say that whilst I haven't written much over here for the past month or so, things were kicking in the background with the Raspberry PI project. After my previous post, seeing that everything is working as expected, it is time to integrate everything nicely in the E90 dashboard. Below are some pics with the 3D printed board, at the moment this is still a rough draft, the finished product will have no hard or uneven edges. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks :)
It finally works as expected after a few tweaks here and there :) The next part of the project will be finding a nice place to fit this in the car.
So far, I was thinking of the following places:
I've started to play around with a little device called a Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is essentially a card sized computer with the following specifications:
900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU
1GB RAM
4 USB ports
40 GPIO pins (the GPIO pin are to control various things like displays, servomotors, LEDs, relays, etc).
Full HDMI port
Ethernet port
Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite video
Camera interface (CSI), the camera interface allows you to plug-in a camera board (this would be very useful if you would like to implement a dash camera or a security camera for your application, in my case this will be for the car surveillance system)
Display interface (DSI)
Micro SD card slot
VideoCore IV 3D graphics core
This little computer board will allow you to install and use an operating system, In my case I am using Raspbian, other operating systems that are available at this time are:
NOOBs
Ubuntu Mate
Snappy Ubuntu Core
Windows 10 IOT Core
OSMC
OpenELEC
PiNet
RiscOS
Kodi
and other variations
For the BMW E90 I will be using this PC to implement various additional features, the first feature will be that of an onboard OBD2 scanner. This will allow me to monitor live data from the OBD2 port. Below I have listed some parameters that are available over the OBD2 port:
Fuel system status
Calculated engine load value
Engine coolant temperature (this is very important especially to E90 owners since most of the versions don't have an engine coolant temperature indicator)
Fuel pressure
Intake manifold absolute pressure
Engine RPM
Vehicle speed
Timing advance
Intake air temperature
MAF air flow rate
Throttle position
Commanded secondary air status
Oxygen sensors present
Oxygen sensor voltage
Auxiliary input status
Run time since engine start
Distance traveled with malfunction indicator lamp (MIL) on
EGR Error
Fuel Level Input
Distance traveled since codes cleared
Evap. System Vapor Pressure
Barometric pressure
Ambient air temperature
Relative throttle position
Fuel/Air commanded equivalence ratio
Absolute load value
Fuel Type
Engine oil temperature
Fuel injection timing
Engine fuel rate
Driver's demand engine - percent torque
Actual engine - percent torque
Engine reference torque
Engine percent torque data
Turbocharger RPM
Turbocharger temperature
Boost pressure control
Manifold surface temperature
NOx sensor
Particulate matter (PM) sensor
Besides monitoring these parameters the on-board car computer will also allow you to clear out fault codes. The Raspberry PI car computer will be fitted in the ashtray compartment.The plan is to 3D print a nice bezel for the display so that it will look like it came out of the factory this way.
Please feel free to comment on this post if you would be interested to know more about this project. Until then I have posted some pictures with my ongoing car computer project.
Weather here has started to go bad, lots of rain so I've decided to upgrade my velour floor mats to the more rugged rubber mats I've received as a birthday present from my friends (thanks again for the wonderful present :) ) . To be honest, these actually look very nice. Also a nice added feature is that the front ones have a velcro fastening system so these will stay still in your car, this is especially useful on the driver side, you wouldn't want your floor mats to get caught in between the pedals.
If you want to order a set for your 3 series sedan, these are the OEM codes with links to realOEM: 51472311024 - front floor mats 51472336599 - rear floor mats
First off lets start with a wishlist, I've put together a wishlist which hopefully I will be updating on an ongoing basis. The wishlist will list all the parts that I will/or have put into this project. Each mod or repair that I will making for my car in shaping it to be unique.
Now, ignore the order since some parts on the wishlist will take ages to implement due to budget constraints. The purpose of the wishlist is to spark ideas for everyone. Let me know if you would like to implement something on your 3 series BMW by placing a comment below and we can exchange ideas.
Most people would say just that...It's only a car. However for most us, this is our car. A car that drives our passion, that drives our dreams.
To me my dream came true when I first drove a BMW. The first car was a BMW 318i (e46), a car with a small and modest engine however it had something, something I couldn't find in other cars. As soon as I turned the ignition, it was like a spell was cast on me. It created a bond, a connection that I couldn't feel in other cars. To this day I don't know what it is but it fuels my passion for this brand and it's cars. A passion that has driven me in buying a BMW, a 320D (e90). I wanted to share my passion with you and the on-board journal I will be keeping with our time together :)
