Before pulling the trigger... CAN/Dashware

RowanH · Post by **RowanH** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 11:09 pm

Hi there,

Introductions - I'm based in New Zealand and have this :

A "Fraser" Supercharged Honda 2L machine. Quite fun - turn the sound up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq3x9VtIdrI

Currently been using RaceChrono + GarminGlo to do some logging; the car has ridiculous limits so trying to get up to speed with it and using analysis to improve quicker than without. Want to use RCP to get more information out of the current setup with better accuracy and put into videos on a desktop.

Given I've got some dev skills the open source nature of RCP it's further prodding things along...

I have some questions before I purchase, all mostly pivoting around how to get data out from the ECU (http://www.linkecu.com/G4PlusStorm) and then how to get it into a Video for later viewing... The LINK range of ECU's are hugely popular downunder - I'm guessing I'm probably one of the first to look at RCP with this ECU.

CAN Integration

- Wiring: Does RCP have terminating resistors on the CAN bus ? Right now I have my LINK Storm G4+ ECU > CAN Cable > AIM MXL DASH, I would want to splice the RCP into the current CAN Cable which I assume is what I need to do, not sure if this will work if the RCP has terminating resistor in it - (OR) do I need the CANx cable?

- Config: The LINK ecu in my case is configured to output over CAN Channel 1 "Generic Dash" which works with the AIM MXL Strada. Do I need to forge a brave new world and do anything special inside RCP to get it pulling all CAN information- judging by the documentation it looks like I need to investigate and write a specific LUA script to do this ? Just hoping that because the AIM MXL can read it then maybe that's a bit more of a standard and there's a particular configuration I can use ?

Video rendering

- I want to use Dashware to render final video files; is there a sample log file or two somewhere I can play with to see what I can do with it?. I could find reference to "it's harder than Race Render" but then looking through Dashware it looks pretty simple - import file, select Autosport Labs (or Racecapture) and go.... or is there something I'm missing?. Would like to try for myself before ordering. I tried a logfile from the RCP to GEMS repo and that didn't work... "Error location required column(s) you must map a data column to the "Required. Data Running Time, Seconds" so it loooks like there needs to be some further processing on a RCP file before Dashware is happy with it ?

- MPH vs KPH GPS speed.. I saw reference to the speed units being MPH only in the forums, dug through the source and it looks like loggerSample is calling getGpsSpeedInMph() and the underlying getGpsSpeed() is natively in KPH. Sooooo.... I assume if I were to use it as-is I'd need to parse logfile output and convert mph to kph. Seems like a configuration thing that could be put in the system ? I'm not sure I could personally provide a pull request for this, and I looked in the issues log didn't see this mentioned...

- I saw a dev ticket for video recording, I didn't know if it was worth my while to add some notes somewhere; each of the various track day analysis apps have varying degrees of video overlay functionality some nicer than others. Is this something ASL is considering adding to RCP, if so being open source what's the theory on code contribution ? I would love if the the framework was in place to be able to play with/tweak code in this area.

Many thanks
Rowan[/img]

momostallion · Post by **momostallion** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 11:40 pm

Hey Rowan, I saw you commented on my YouTube video so I figure I would chime in here:

Here is a link to my RCP MK2 .LOG file in the zip file, I believe same one as my session from that video.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B32khi ... sp=sharing

The RCP data profile in DashWare won't work out of the box because the configuration of your specific RCP unit effects what columns appear in your log, units, rate. Here is a screenshot from my setup (Notice i have AFR, Boost, etc.)

Basically everything in the RCP needs to be hit with the linear interpolator. Beyond that, you have to change the time format for Dashware and if you want track map, give it GPSX, GPSY using the degree to cartesian position converter. Then in the bottom right window you need to map the columns to DashWare which makes the values work in DashWare's widgets. Luckily all that stuff is really easy IMO.

RowanH · Post by **RowanH** » Tue Nov 10, 2015 2:17 am

Awesome thanks Mo; I'll give that a try. That sorts out the video rendering side. Very much appreciated.

Get the CAN integration side sorted and looks like we have a winner ....

RowanH · Post by **RowanH** » Sat Nov 28, 2015 4:09 am

Hi Mo,

Hmm so I went round n round circles trying to get your sample file to work. With no joy; sent ya a PM - can you post up the actual data profile xml file you were using?. Some of the calculators are hiding details in the screenshot above. What is super weird is my "synchronization map" is just a complete mess of lines and/or perhaps I've got a problem with timing.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipO ... Q1LURiWGZR

Will write up a "how to get this working with Dashware" tutorial for the masses once I figure this out!

Many thanks
Rowan

RowanH · Post by **RowanH** » Sat Nov 28, 2015 11:04 pm

Update: Got the basics of it working but well ugly to get there. I've already started poking around in the Racecapture App code on github to see if there's a way to export a better data file (looking at the basic_analysis branch).

What I found is that due to the format of the headers, and the time is absolute time not relative you have to do quite a bit of manipulation to get Dashware to be happy with the format, along with the interpolation/averaging.

What's critical and I missed out from the above screen shot (unless I was doing it wrong)

- You need to get a relative time in seconds mapped to the running time field
- Thus had to take the UTC time, deduct the first entry in the log file from it (maths add function, input value = utc time, parameter = -(first time entry)
- Take that time in ms and /1000 to get seconds
- point it to the running time column

Sometimes I noted I had to re-add the log file to dashware to get the correct interpolations to show up etc. So all round bumbling around

What would be better is to preprocess the file

- Make the time relative from the start of recording in seconds
- Reformat the headers
- Potentially average/interpolate numbers

This looks essentially what the RCP2GEMS script is doing as well, just needs a few modifications to work.

I get my car back in a few days with the RCP installed.... will do a test and see if I can modify the RCP2GEMS file to make the Dashware experience a bit less painful.

Cheers
Rowan

Zefy · Post by **Zefy** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:02 am

I know this is old. But I'm wondering if you ended up streamlining this a little better? I tried following a few tutorials but so far this is well above my head.

Do you have any example datalog files that show the correct formatting for dashware to be happy? It keeps rejecting my time stamp even... I clearly just don't get it and I can't find any good examples.

Thanks!