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Post by crathes on Mar 17, 2018 16:47:54 GMT
Hi, this is my first posting.
I have assembled the echook board and have a fair understanding of how it should work.
Our team of drivers are young and I do not want to baffle them with lots of flashing data display. The data is mainly for analysis during testing and for driver advisory purposes during the race. We would like to have live data in the pits - but with the current set-up, the android phone needs to send data to a website via a mobile data link. This is good if there is a satisfactory signal at the race track. This is not the case in remote rural Scotland!
Is there a recommended way of boosting the Bluetooth range so that the live data can be monitored from the pits? I note that there is a curious 'square wave' on the plig-in telemetry module and assume that this is a form of antenna. Would connecting an antenna to this feature boost the Bluetooth range?
The furthest that the car will be from the pits is about 200m with direct line of sight.
Many thanks
Chris
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Post by Rowan on Mar 17, 2018 17:27:45 GMT
Hey Chris, I'm glad you've got it built and working! Requiring mobile signal is a limitation unfortunately! It was the cheapest way we could do it as longer range communication is more expensive - not impossible though. You're not going to be able to increase the Bluetooth range sufficiently - Bluetooth is designed for relatively short range communication, but the data we send to the Bluetooth module is simply serial data, compatible with lots of hobby communication systems. The most popular that would work for you is probably zigbee/xbee. There's a good introduction to them here: www.sparkfun.com/pages/xbee_guideMy only experience with them was an old telemetry setup the driven team used, and they struggled for range on large tracks without line of sight, but they should work for your track, and you can get longer range ones than we used. To interface it you can take 3.3v from the Arduino on the eChook for power, and connect it to the TX and RX from the Bluetooth module. You'll need to configure the xbee to a baud rate of 115200, or alter the Arduino baud rate in code. For the receiver you can connect the receiving xbee to the Bluetooth module (TX to RX, RX to TX) and connect the phone to it. You can get USB 3.3v and 5v power supplies that could power the receiving end from a power bank or laptop. I'm only on my phone at the moment so researching is awkward, but if it's something you want to try I'm happy to work out the details with you.
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