vitafortis

Really appr3ciate it! I'm just using what I do as my job a d what I learned in college, and learning more as I go. It's a whole big learning project for fun. I get to toy around with cutting and shapong acrylic foe the housing.

s2kdrifter

I need to pick up some of the hw. Where do you suggest?

vitafortis

You can get a $20 USB Bluetooth adapter from bestbuy. As far as an OBDII reader, if you want to start working on that, you can order one from Amazon. I ordered a $100 one, the OBDLink MX, but you don't need one that expensive if you do want to get one.

What other hardware would you need?

vitafortis

Does anyone have any idea on ways to route wires to the inside of the center console? I'm building an acrylic enclosure to hold the Pi, Relay board, backup battery, fuse boxes for the relay board, and other wires as necessary. I'd like to put it inside the center console with a hatch (door w/ hinge) on top so I can easily access everything.

I ask because I've never pulled it apart, and don't want to if I know in advance it won't work.

Kris Graci

hey man, do you have any idea how i could do this with a 16 channel relay and maybe even 2 16 channel relays?

vitafortis

I'm using an 8 Channel Relay, because I'm only using up to 8 Lights, any reason you'd need 16 to 32?

Regardless, yes, you can do this with 16 channel Relay's or 2 16 Channel Relays, you just need to toggle the pin for each light. That's easily configurable in my software via a config file.

As far as being able to control more than 8 lights, I can work on adding more pages if you want to have 8 buttons per page, or it auto resizes to fit 4 buttons per row. However, this causes a problem with showing the words as it's a certain size.

I guess I'll need to write up how to use this software/hardware to match your setup so anyone can use this.

Kris Graci

Thanks man. Yea I want to have 32 just because my truck is always going to be changing and I want to build this with the opportunity to add and never have to worry

vitafortis

Adding lights should never be a problem, it's just a matter of changing the pin layouts and changing/adding relays. I'll start working on a way to have a clean UI with any number of lights.

Do you have a screen size you'd like to use? Meaning would it be a tablet, a custom touchscreen, etc. If it's a tablet, it's a mobile app with no UI coming from the Pi.

Speaking of which, I'm going to have to add a headless mode so no screen is required.

Kris Graci

I want to use the 7 inch touchscreen that they offer on raspberry pi website. I'd like to talk to you about some things with this system so if you would like to contact me other than on f150 forum that would be awesome

vitafortis

I'd be happy to talk more. Feel free to either PM me here, post on the thread, or email me at nathan@nmkoester.com.