On Mon, 29 Jun 2015 08:47:09 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 28 Jun 2015 08:58:44 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
...
Air dream: I'd love to build a small electric car or motorcycle
for
kicks.


I had my fun with those, building prototypes at Segway. The machine

You realize how jealous all of us are for your employment there,
don't
you, Jim? you sucked

They hired me as a temporary, PTOC contractor while their lab tech was
out for medical reasons. Like all R&D they struggled to keep engineers
occupied after the product had been finalized, so it wasn't -that-
great a place to work, especially for a temp. It went downhill once
the principal designers left for Apple etc.
https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/...DEA_2015/Field

Yabbut, working inside a Big Boy's Toy Factory...


itself wasn't as big a challenge as monitoring, logging and
analyzing
its performance and changing the controller parameters as needed.
That's what set me looking to buy or build my own low cost, high
resolution portable datalogger, first a microcontroller-based one
with
a troublesome common ground and then separate optically isolated
DVMs.

Was that just to get performance data on them during design and
testing, or for continued input?

Just to match the motor controller to vehicle dynamics, such as
acceptable motor speed ramp-up and ramp-down rates. I've had the new
front and rear tires of a bike break loose in a corner on asphalt when
I forgot about the mold release. I could handle it from dirt bike
experience but still I almost banged into the far curb.

Mold release? I expect to hear that during an injection molding
discussion, but not in an electrics/electronics discussion. What
meaneth thou?


A compact Campbell Scientific datalogger was hard enough to mount
securely on a motorcycle, a laptop would be quite a challenge.
Laptops
are a great solution on machines that carry a passenger, they were
the
original control and display terminals for prototypes of this:
http://www.freeflightsystems.com/products/ads-b

The new, smaller laptops with solid state disks would be easier now.
Bolt a bracket surrounding the gas tank (remove laptop, open gas
filler cap, fill with gas, replace), but even easier on an electric
car.

The "gas tank" was for appearance.

I forgot myself. Then it should have been a clamshell (or simply a
platform) for the laptop.


For engineering work I prefer older, larger (heavier), more capable
business-class laptops, which approach the expandability of desktops
but are portable on internal battery or external 12V.

I programmed a voice card/telephone tree database for a guy who gave
me a suitcase computer to work on. He sold classic hotrod refurb
services. That was interesting. http://tinyurl.com/at82m8s That was
a typical '80s business class "laptop". Your Latitude is a bit
smaller.


My Dell Latitude
Ds accept both a boot SSD and a Terabyte spinning HDD in the CD bay,
Cardbus plus ExpressCard plugins which I use for USB2 and USB3 or more
datalogging serial ports, and a DVD or another large HDD in a special
higher-power USB expansion bay.
http://www.amazon.com/Dell-PD01S-Ext.../dp/B001ULDYXI

Those are going for a song, wot?


I found that the built-in 15" screen was fine for detailing the CAD
drawing of the trolley wheels and axles and I don't need to plug in
the 22" monitor.

Yeah, just mount the 22" monitor to the windshield...


This IDE model made in 2005 is running XP from a SATA SSD in the CD
bay.

The IBM Thinkpads and Toshiba Satellites at work were similarly
capable. I happened to go with Dell at home because they are cheap and
plentiful, including the batteries and accessories.

How's the reliability? I hear the business models have been
considerably more reliable than the consumer crap Dell puts out.
I'd hope so, as they sold for $2-5k new.


USB adapters like these connect a laptop to automotive and smart
battery electronics:
http://www.amazon.com/USB-CAN-Conver.../dp/B00FFZ8L24

How so? Not familiar with CAN bus.

--
Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult,
whereas I am merely in disguise.
-- Margaret Atwood