I'm pretty sure they're using a Galaxy Tab. They have a really nice cnc machined holder for it when I saw the bike at the MotoGP. It sure would be nice to have that holder...

A challenger appears

Race Capture Pro - Data That Drives You | Indiegogo

Doesnt have a super pimpy dash, but it does tick a lot of the checkboxes that I was after. Having dedicated sensors for stuff is a great perk that I had considered passing on with the DIYPNP.

Edit: They are also planning a Bluetooth based interface. Hmmm...

Brent and crew at AutoSport Labs are good folks (and the NW Region SCCA Solo Sponsorer).

^^ Good to know.

Two of us here in Texas are seriously looking at the Race Capture Pro setup; we very well might pull the trigger. BTW they are working on a dash board setup that will use an Android tablet like the Nexus 7 and plug into their system. This is potentially very, very cool.

I just bought a Nexus 7 to play around with. It's really nice. Trackmaster is about 25% larger on the screen compared to a Galaxy SII, but does not fill the whole screen. I talked to Jeff at Trackmaster and asked if he could make it larger for the Nexus 7. He said he would put it on his to-do list.

Two problems. Temperature range on a tablet is commercial temp range not automotive/MIL. Phones and tablets auto shutdown at high temps that are easy to reach in a car. I also don't like a huge li cell in front of my face consistently exceeding its temp range as thermal runaway is no fun.

The second issue is gauge response time. OBD II is slow for one channel. Start logging a whole dash worth and the gauge response is notched at best and very poor compared to any standalone gauge. Newer high speed OBD II standards negate this but only for some 2004 or newer cars with capable readers.

My buddies Speed 3 runs on can bus and Torque runs a full screen of gauges in almost real time.

A full Android tablet based TunerStudio program for Megasquirt is what I'm waiting for and then I'll be looking into this further. TunerStudio/MP3/Pandora compatible head set. Awesome.

You sound like a huge pussy.

Well, that's a surprise.

Two solutions:

1. Stop being a pussy. Everything on the car is used outside of its engineering envelope. Id be much more concerned about hub failures and ball joint shearing.

2. Reading: Its fundamental.

How is the view from your padded room? Air a little stale maybe? :rofl:

Here--go cheap or go home gauge panel
 

Kindle Paperwhite $118

Android based, viewable in direct sunlight, viewable at night with backlit screen.

jailbreak: Jailbreaking the Kindle Paperwhite

add a wifi OBDII reader from Ebay for $27:

ELM327 WiFi OBD2 OBDII Wireless Car Diagnostic Reader Scanner Adapter for iPhone | eBay

Download Torque or whatever other OBDII Android software you can find. If you're sneaky, you might even be able to integrate a tethered GPS module.

Duct tape it to your dash, you cheap bastard. :)

Some say that he needs a tugboat to tug his wiener. And that if the water is deep enough it takes two tugboats. All we know is, he's called The Hustler.

Yeah, so the point is that many tablets stop working at automotive temps rendering them useless which makes the idea dumb for many situations. As in just park your car on a hot summer day in the south, come back 1 hour later and the display will be dead for an extended period of time not an oddball situation.

OBDII makes for a shit gauge cluster when passing multiple inputs over the old standard again rendering the gauge shit.

Nobody else brought up these relevant points either because they didn't know or were living in the wonderful world of delusion.

Some tablets are ok with higher temps and some cars do have high speed interfaces. In those specific cases, this is a great idea just do your homework. Otherwise it is like the wad of feces spewing from your face when you try to speak.

wouldn't worry about heat
 

I wouldn't worry about heat unless your tablet was in direct sunlight...a shade is a must, or removal when not in use is a good idea. It would also be easy to mount the tablet so air could circulate behind it.

OBDII is another matter. There are high and low speed channels for OBDII, and older models don't have as much bandwidth as newer vehicles. Certainly data that's not time critical would be fine--oil and water temp, voltage, manifold pressure, etceteras. I'm not aware of any off the shelf programs that would allow you to choose the OBDII data rates per selected data, 1Hz for low level data and 10/100Hz for rpm, speed, etceteras.

However, a tablet could be set up for all the secondary (low data rate) gauges, while a nice big Autometer with shift light could show the important stuff.

Apparently you missed the part where this is a race only car.

Remember kids, reading is fundamental.
Apparently you missed the part where this isnt happening over OBD-II.

Remember again kids, reading is fundamental.
Thats because everyone else can read and comprehend at something more than a kindergarten level.
Ive pretty clearly already done my homework. Thats why theres a Nexus sitting on my desk now, and the DIYPNP with BT adapter will go back in the car after it comes back from paint. Thats why its also been tested with the current tablet I have, including the response time issues, which are non-existent.

I've already done this,

Using the Serial to BT adapter from DIY.

There's too much lag between the guages and whats actually happening for it to be a realistic option.

Might be ok for guages that are relatively static, CLT etc, But it couldn't keep up with a simple rev, Let alone boost or anything like that.

edit: uploading video now.

To start, I think the original idea is good. Response times always exist, it is just a matter of of whether it is human perceptible and whether your setup works reliably. If this setup works for you great, I'm happy for you and the people who can follow the same path.

I was only talking about OBDII as mentioned each time, not about your application specifically. Not every post is about your application specifically. Mine was a general post to help people considering this option with OBDII. The reading comprehension point is ironic as I am only referring to OBDII low speed and never referred to your application.

To simplify my point, if anyone uses low speed OBDII they will likely end up with a gauge running at 1-2hz making it a poor gauge.

On the issue of thermal shutdown and thermal runaway in lion cells (not the same thing), racecar or not doesn't make it better. Many tablets will shutdown at temps easily seen in a passenger or racecar interior with direct light on the screen. Some of the cars I run in have 130F+ ambient temps and far higher dash temps so we use coolshirts. A closed racer or passenger car, parked on asphalt with a black interior can easily reach 130F with dash temps that easily exceed 160F which, if exposed long enough goes beyond the limit of many phones and tablets. Again, this is a general point and not specific to you just a warning to people considering a consumer tablet in automotive. You could be constructive and tell us where your thermal limit is before shutdown on your Nexus 7 to address this point specifically (remember to reach saturation temperature, not transient exposure).

Thermal runaway (a cell rapidly rising in temperature that can catch on fire and explode) can happen in high temps, due to a rapid discharge rate, due to cell inclusions (drive a nail in a lion cell), during a wreck and for other reasons. The only point I am making here is that you should treat a high power density tablet like a fuel cell right in front of your face that will pump out poisonous gas on failure. It is a needless risk in this situation as the tablet can come on with vehicle power. I'd recommend removing the battery for this application.

To be clear for you specifically, thermal runaway and thermal shutdown are relevant to your application and low speed OBDII is not.

On the argument about thermal issues in race car applications... You have a point, but consider that several, including myself, have been running real time race telemetry apps on consumer Android and IPad devices in their race cars for a few years now.

In my case I am doing this in South Texas, clearly a thermally challenging environment in the summer time. I have not personally had any issues with my devices, nor am I aware of anyone directly or indirectly that has had any issue. Personally, I have had my devices mounted high on the center of the dash, and at the top edge of the windshield in place of the sun visor. Both have worked.

So, thermal ruggedness is a good point, and it is possible it could be an issue, but empirical evidence would suggest that it is a low risk failure mode. Personally I would not spend hundreds more on a ruggedized tablet (if they exist, I have not bothered to look), or assume that using a consumer phone or tablet in a race car is a non-starter.

NASA 2013:

Sooooooo....... Anyone want a Nexus 7 and Bluetooth adapter?:jerkit: