skotx

I wrote a utility that allows you to load a log file, select which columns you care about, and save out to a new tab-delimited text file. IMO, it's quicker than doing the same in Excel.

It should work on most systems. If not, post up about which dlls or ocxs it complains about. Sorry Mac guys, it's PC only.

Log-O-Matic

-Scott

jeff48

Thank you very much!

Can you think about adding an option for the column for AFRs (AN1-AN2 wideband)

skotx

I'm not quite sure I understand your question. When you load a log file, every column in it is displayed as a choice (unless I have a bug in there that I missed).

Btw, to everyone else, I'm open to suggestions if you guys find this useful.

-Scott

jeff48

Scott

So very sorry. No bug in the program, just one in my brain. For the test, I loaded a random log. It turns out to be a very old log before I had the wideband. Your utility works perfectly.

The only suggestion would be a "memory" feature that allows the user to choose a default directory for loading files. (Boy talk about lazy)!!

Thanks again
Jeff

Wargasm

skotx, thanks for the proggie! What did you program it in? VB? This is ridiculously off topic, but if I know Perl, can I pick up "windows" type stuff pretty fast? Or is it totally different?

I have some little utilities I wrote but they run in perl so you need to have "active perl" (perl for windows) on your box for them to work.

Brian

skotx

Wargasm,

Yes, I wrote this in VB. I've found that if you know one langauge really well, it's relatively easy to learn another. Once you know the basics: variables, loops, conditional logic, it's just like "Ok, I want to accomplish xyz, how do I do it in this langauge?" The only difference with windows programming is that it's event driven and not procedural, i.e., you have to react to user events like clicking a button, or selecting an item from a dropdown. If you've done any HTML/Javascript, VB will be even easier for you, as it's the same concept.

-Scott

TailHappy

Hey, thanks for sharing your app, Scott! I only received my datalogit yesterday, but I can already see where this will be very helpful. I'm a VB programmer myself, so I'm excited to see that the datalogit itself is VB. Would be pretty cool if this could turn into an open sharing community of supporting apps.....hopefully you've started that trend. One of the things I was wanting to see if I could accomplish ultimately is to replace the monitoring screen with a more attractive customizable "digital dashboard" like what AEM has. I was hoping the datalogit would use DLLs that we might be able to tap into, but it doesn't look like that's the case.....may have to just take the toughguy approach now that the actual communication protocol has been posted....

nakasaki

That's exactly what I'm working on right now. I have a fully customisable digital dashboard very similar to the Nismo one that is factory-fitted to the Skyline R34 that I've written in VB.NET (GDI+). The display is a 7" widescreen touchscreen that fits nicely in the double-DIN stereo slot.

The problem I'm having is getting the data from the Datalogit. I can send 1 request to the Datalogit and it sends me back 1 data packet with all the info in.. but it won't respond again after that. Not sure what I'm missing but its pissing me off and I desperately need to get this running for a mate's totally stripped out FD - he has no dashboard at all now and this will be his replacement!

I just need to keep hammering at it. I know its obviously possible as the Datalogit software is just using MSCOMM component. As you say, its a shame we can't just use any of the DLLs/OCXs that come with the Datalogit software itself

> Chaz <

skotx

nakasaki,

Your project sounds awesome. I'm doing the same thing but for a laptop screen instead of a 7" screen (wanted to do that, but don't have the hardware). I'm not sure what the problem is with your interface. I'm using the MSCOMM control in VB6 and I can request any of the monitoring parameters (Advanced, Map Indices, Basic, etc) and get responses all day long.

TailHappy,

That's exactly what I wanted to accomplish... a nicer UI for monitoring, with some creature comforts built in that are currently lacking. I've considered wrapping up my comm protocol into a DLL or maybe an OCX (monitoring messages only! as I don't want to be responsible for blowing up someone's car)

-Scott

nakasaki

Yeah, its really getting on my nerves now. What are your COM port settings? 57600, 8, n, 1?

I've spent so, so many hours cramped in the passenger seat of my FD trying to get this working. I've been trying in .NET because it's faster to code in (IMO) - but I'm willing to drop back to VB6 if it gets me a DLL that works!!

> Chaz <

TailHappy

You guys rock! I had no idea others were doing this in the shadows....

On a side note, and this is way out on a limb, but I wonder how responsive Glen and Steve would be to getting some help? I know they must be swamped as it is, but I'd be willing to donate some of my time to help code something like this. They might help with the protocols if we promised to send them the source and donate the results to the group or something. I'm not looking for profit anyway, just want our stuff to have all the features (and be cooler looking) than AEM's.....

Maybe we should post a message to the datalogit group.

nakasaki

If someone wants to post on the group that's cool with me. I can't get on the group as my Datalogit is only borrowed at the moment as I've got one on order.

I'm willing release all my fully-commented .NET code for my interface once it's working. That way you'll just be able to add a reference to it in a project and instantly access any data from the PFC.

I don't know how forthcoming the Datalogit guys will be - it depends how clever their little box is. If, as some suspect it is little more than a pass-through for the PFC->Commander data, then they won't want their business screwed over by people knocking up their own Datalogit clones..

> Chaz <

skotx

Sorry, I've been in West Virginia riding the rapids. But I don't want this thread to die.

I'm not too keen on developing cooler interfaces for the datalogit and then letting the guys in New Zealand get $300 a pop for my work. I'd develop a standalone freeware app before I'd do that.

As Chaz said, I don't think they'd be too forthcoming about their work anyway. Take a look inside your datalogit box. You'll notice that they have filed off the model number of the IC chips they're using (I read somewhere that they're PIC chips). Surely they did that so someone can't look up a spec sheet and determine pinouts, etc.

I don't believe the protocol is a pure pass-through. I did some serial port monitoring of messages from the commander to the power fc and never got anything that looked familiar. I tested all sorts of comm port settings. Granted, my tests were pretty crude, and it's possible that it's not even RS232.

I've put my project on the back burner lately. If I can help you Chaz, let me know, though I have no .net experience.

-Scott

nakasaki

Basically I'm just stuck with the RS232 communications. I have no idea why I can send one command to the Datalogit and get the right reply, but any further commands I send return nothing. In fact, the Datalogit won't respond to FC-Edit until I "reboot" it by turning the electrics on/off at the key

I've got my Superbit copy of Fast and Furious to watch tonight.. but I'll be out later trying again to see if I can get anywhere. This is really frustrating as I have the rest of the system almost complete (really fancy looking dials, bar gauges etc) and I just need the data from the Datalogit to make the gauges move!!

> Chaz <

TailHappy

Yeah, I don't want this thread to die just yet either....

Well, it'd just be a patch until you can get the communications worked out, but keep in mind you could subclass the datalogit window to grab the data from there so that you could use it in your app. However, obviously it's not ideal and I would imagine there'd be a slight delay. Plus I also don't like having to log in order to monitor or watch in the datalogit. Unfortunately I don't have any RS232 experience, although I do have VB sourcecode for a passthrough listener, if it would help.

But at least that would get your pretty gauges working in the meantime!

And I sense a slight discontent in the price, scotx.... Yeah, it may just be a passthrough box, but I figure their work in hacking the PFC is worth something. I know that's a headache I wouldn't have wanted to bother with on my own (plus risk blowing engines). But I can see where you're coming from about donating work and then having them sell it.....freeware sounds good enough to me!

skylinegtr

It wouldn't be the one from Xenarc? I have one myself and I'm installing it in the place of stereo and the stock boost/temp gauges (R32 GT-R). Moving the AC unit down one slot.

I'm hoping the guys from FC Datalogit would listen to us and provide us with an API (DLL) to do our own interface. Doing it in VB does bring problems on the table if you don't know how to handle them. To me it seems that error trapping is somewhat, if not completely, forgotten in FCDatalogit. Since VB is so loose in datatypes, this can bring your program down very easily if you don't build error trapping on every function.

My choice of Windows development environment would definately be Visual C++ 6.0. I've yet to evaluate the new C# environment but it is my understanding it is more for the web programming, not so much new for us that work on hardware as well. Am I wrong?

skotx

C#, like VB.NET, is not a compiled language, but an intermediate language that requires the user to have the .NET framework installed (think of it as a virtual machine). So yes, you will get your best performance with C++. I would have chosen C++, but I know VB very well, so it made sense for me to at least prototype in VB.

So you have a PFC in your Skyline? I'd imagine you'd have some messages that are specific to your setup. Have you tried communicating to your PFC using the spec posted here as a guide?

If I had more of this done I'd show it to you guys. Right now it's just a few gauges and a different screen layout. I haven't started on the logging code.

-Scott

skylinegtr

VB is fine as long as you use OnError frequently. Performance isn't really that much of an issue.

I haven't had a chance to play with it that much. I'll propably end up doing all the logging with bunch of AD-converters and custom software, use the FCDatalogit just to tune the engine.

nakasaki

I chose VB.NET because its so quick to get anything up and running. I use to be a hardcore C++ coder for about 10 years, but I'm a changed man now - it's just not worth the hassle. VB.NET is much faster to code in and more stable than VB6. Performance isn't much of an issue in terms of data-grabbing from the PFC as you don't get too many samples-per-second anyway. The performance issues I'm hitting are on the drawing of the gauges but that just requires some time for me to optimize the routines down.

Yes, it is the 7" Xenarc touch-screen. I've built a whole media system which uses it, and now I'm adding on the gauges

> Chaz <

skylinegtr

VCPP 6.0 has been my tool for the last 6 years, before that ANSI C in VAX and Unix environments, and before that Visual Basic, I believe the version was 4.0 back then. I've played with the latest VB versions and VBA but it just doesn't seem right after being used to C/C++. Good for quick-and-dirty code and UI development but for serious stuff it is not for me anymore. Believe it or not, C++ is actually easier and less time consuming to program with. (Note that this isn't an attack against VB, just my personal preference and experience).

I don't bring work to home so I haven't played around with the latest software tools. I heard we are in (very) slow transition to Linux anyway so hopefully Windows programming becomes obsolete somewhere in the future...

It's a very nice unit, I was suprised how well it showed GPS map and FCDatalogit windows.

TailHappy

Oh wow! I hadn't seen the Xenarc unit when I was searching for touchscreens before. I'm going to have to seriously consider getting one of those!!!

skylinegtr

I'm going to have some time on my hands next week so I might try to play around with the interface. Where could I find the spec? Didn't know what to search for...

skotx

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=147597

nakasaki

Finally got my data reading fine tonight. I suspect it was DTR or RTS lines that were causing the problem.

Logged myself 10 minutes of driving - now going to pump the data into my gauges to see how they go! Then I need to wire it up in the live data in the car.

The Xenarc screens are nice because they almost exactly fit in the double-DIN socket for the stereo. I've not thought up a good way to mount it in there yet though (except epoxy hehe).

> Chaz <

TailHappy

Nice going Chaz!!!!! Keep us updated on how those gauges work out for you.