Been busy road testing!
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003It"s been a busy few days, as I"ve been getting the system working well enough to actually try and use. Or rather for my fioncee Lisa to use. And if she has to mess about using it, she isn"t happy. And if she isn"t happy, then I won"t be happy!
I"ve also re-organised the website, so you can see the project progress more easiliy. The install is detailed under V2 in the new install section. I"ve also made a new plans section so you can get a better idea of my "dream". The re-build software section also details how the software is set up and where it"s going.
The best part of today"s diary section however is my Road Tests, as for the first time I have successfully tested the system for practical uses.
Media Road Test
Long journeys can get very boring, especially if you know the way and you"re just going on the motorway. Wouldn"t it be great if you could watch one of your favorite movies on the way to pass the time!!!?? Well, no because you"d end up causing a pile up, probably. But nothing"s wrong with listening to a movie while your passengers watch (or rather passenger in my two seater sports car!). I"ve decided that having a screen in the front can"t be illegal, as new cars all seem to have it and I"ve seen our local "CCTV" police cars with them in the front displaying video images. So after re-installing my PC last week in the car, my journey all the way down the M5, to Devon, UK was about to become a little more interesting.
Before I left I had to make a remote power button (more details in the install section) so I could switch on/off while driving, as stopping on the motorway to lift the bonnet to restart a PC is a bit much, so there will be more details on that soon.
Previous tests using the old case have been problematic, as it"s overheated, crashed, lost power, so I was worried what would happen with the new setup. The day before we left I drove to work and back, and checked the heat under the bonnet, and the computer was still cool. On the way down, we had a remote control problem, but that just turned out to be batteries being dead. The whole weekend it worked fine, apart from a few little issues, mainly with me not plugging leads in properly.
Verdict? It works 
Messy cabling at the moment, but it works. It was a squash however at 2am on the Saturaday night when 4 of us tried to sit in the car outside the holiday flat and watch "The Fast and the Furious" though, but that"s down to the size of the car. And there were a lot of jealous stares on the M5 as we sat in traffic jams, relaxing to "Shrek"….
GPS Road Test
I"m househunting at the moment, so I"m doing a fair bit of driving to places I don"t know. Last night, nuneaton was my target. The GPS system just shows the map of where I am, and I haven"t programmed zoom features or any other control just yet. And to cut a long story short, it works. In as much as it shows where I am, but that doesnt help me get where I want to go. It just tells me where to turn round next when I realise I"ve went the wrong way. And I look twice as stupid asking people where places are when there"s a screen on my dashboard showing where I am on a map!!! But then again, it"s still in development. We"ll get there in the end!!!
Next road test, I"ll bring the camera out, so you can see what actually happened!
In the meantime, I"m going to be getting to work with the ON-digital remote using Girder files from the Vauxhall Vectra Car PC Project
