Accelerometers/data logging

[KenH]

One of my Engineers has been working on a project at home that incorporates a 2-axis accelerometer and embedded processor. The basic functionality is similar to a Gtech Pro unit. With car weight input and knowing rate of acceleration over time, it can calculate HP, 1/4 mile times, etc. I own a GTech and they are handy, but limited.

It seems like it would be fairly easy to patch into some of the other sensors and create data log files during a run that could be uploaded to the home PC and create some useful performance data and graphs or display them in-car on a small LCD screen. Anyone have thoughts on which parameters would be the most useful to capture? I would think that tach info would be the most useful as HP could be plotted against RPM, but what about parameters such as TPS, O2 sensors or ?

Anyone know of similar products on the market?

--- Ken
'01 GTS

[Tony Cantafio]

Stay tuned: G-Tech is coming out next year with a performance meter with four accelerometers built-in. It will provide acceleration times to 1/100 sec, G's, HP & Torque graphs, RPM sensing, shift light, traction cornering light. This unit is a low-cost, full-blown data acquisition system with the ability to download data onto your computer. Great for road courses. Talked with techs at SEMA and unit should be available early next year. Visit them at www.gtechpro.com Hope this helps.

[Boxer12]

Anybody have any suggestions for state of the art data systems under $500? GtechPro hasn't updated since 04.

[Jack B]

KenH:

you are describing the Innovate LM3.

[KenH]

Wow, there's a post from the past! That project went nowhere fast. A lot of new stuff has come out in the last 5 years, including the LM3. I currently run the VEC2 for logging and I just installed the D-PIC for basic performance measurements, but for the price, I think the Innovate stuff is about as good as you can get.