I finally managed to get the core system installed to my Hopeanuoli. At the moment it only reads the RPM from tachometer and left and right blinkers.

Here is a shot from first test. The voltmeter moved so everything looks bright!

Here I have installed the circuit board to this lovely VHS case. Also I have wired the system such that you can operate the audio system from inside of the car.

Here is shot of my experimental setup. The car have been attached to Arduino lying on the floor. Arduino is then connected to my EEEPC. For some reason system misbehaves badly if in addition to Arduino, the volt meter isn’t attached.

This last shot is from the FMod-project that takes care of transforming the RPM data coming from the Arduino to artificial engine sound.

As I need to present the prototype tommorrow within 14 hours time begins to run out. But after fighting with the serial protocol I finally managed to control RPM parameter at the FMod with small trimmer attached to Arduino. Soon enough I hope to be able to replace the screwdriver with real tachometer. Also adding accelerometer should be fairly straight forward task from now on.

This image reveals my highly professional setup. Breadboard still contains some remains from older projects so it is a bit messier than it would need to be. I have FMod running on my EEEPC and if I would not been as lazy as I am I could have uploaded a video that would actually prove that turning the screwdriver actually puts pedal to the metal at FMod side.

I will hopefully upload some code also at some point. At the moment it is quite evil so you will have to wait a bit.

Once this project is hopefully in couple of days ready for testing I will aim also to test it on some other people than me. But Hopeanuoli is still a bit too bad shape for that. Although I’m used to drive with car’s that are bit cranky, I’m not sure if I know anyone (besides my little brother) who is able to do this without focusing to running of a car engine with each and every brain cell one has. There is also still some tension in the air as there is still change that I need to put this puppy to sleep if I find that he’s to sick to go on. Luckily the neighbourhood I live has an open garage where it is possible to do some reparations with decent tools. As I now had a street legal car I could drive it of my parents yard and continue the building with more professional environment.

After changing the oil and oil filter I adjusted the valves. It seems that at least one valve was adjusted incorrectly as exhaust and inhaust valves seemed to have opposite values they should have. More importantly I noticed that the small bar connecting accelerator pump to gas throttle was missing. This basically means that every time you hit the gas pedal, engine won’t get enough gas and coughs. This fits perfectly to symptoms. I’ll visit some junk yard tommorrow and try to get replacement part which would enable someone else also drive the car by this Thursday.

Here is a host of the carpurator showing suspicous looking mixture setting screw and accelerator pump at the bottom right.

I also did find interesting meter from the garage that can be used in metering rpm, richness of the gas/air mixture, spark timing etc. I’ll also try that tommorrow.

The most important part of my Fiesta Mk2.0 is the rpm data from the engine. That is basically an analog value that has to be forwarded to audio engine. There are couple of ways to detect the rpm easily. I chose to IC way. It would also been possible to hack a commercial rpm meter or count frequency straight with Arduino. Frequency to voltage converter IC costs only 3 euros so it is significantly cheaper than rpm meter. Pure Arduino solution suffers from lack of accuracy. In my solution I convert the rpm of the engine to voltage with LM2907 IC circuit and connect that to Arduino’s analog in.

In past I have tried to measure frequencies by counting pulses with Arduino. But usually I have had problems with the accuracy I have managed to get. I happened to find a datasheet of LM2907 which is small IC circuit doing the frequency to voltage conversion on its own.

The datasheet of the IC even has an example circuit that can be used in measuring the rpm of breaker pointed ignition system. So it should be quite straight forward to use this circuit and run the output to Arduino. Then you will only need to map the voltages to right rpms and send that value through USB to FMod engine. I also did find a recent discussion about similar problem at Arduino forum.

At the moment I still haven’t actually built the circuit and installed it to Hopeanuoli. I’ll update this as soon as this will be done.

Let me tell you some history of this project. It all started in year 2003 (probably) when I was driving in Norway with my friends older brother’s Ford Fiesta Mk1. Mk1 is actually quite sweet car and to me the only ‘real’ Fiesta. However after that trip we decided to do similar trip again and in following year I had this very Fiesta of my own that I’m using as a basis of this project with me. During that trip I started wondering, how in hell can people manage to drive with newer cars that are so quiet that it might be hard to hear whether your engine in malfunctioning, road is in bad shape, your blinker is on, or whatever. I realized that in not-so-distant future these sounds would be artificially made, which would mean that they can really be what ever sounds. Not necessarily anything car or motor related, but anything.

Later I borrowed my trusty Ford Fiesta that has been named as Hopeanuoli (named after Finnish translation of Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin) to my brother(s) for couple of years after which he got ill and just sat at my parents yard for last one and half year. At this point all the odds are that he would became one beautiful cube of metal soon. But I decided to give it one more chance.

What I knew at the moment, was that I needed to redo the ingition circuit of the car as it didn’t run that smoothly. The left front tire was also stuck. What I didn’t knew at the state of the car when I headed towards my parent’s house was that the interior of the car was covered in mold. Quite sweet view and smell too! Fixing up ignition system was quite straight forward thing to do. Changing and adjusting breaker contacts, cam, distributor cab, distributor capacitor, spark plugs and all leads did more or less do the trick. Motor started to live. The left tire was more tricky. The problem was that the disk brake on that wheel was stuck. I unattached the break system from the wheel, detached break cylinder, changed seals and redid everything in reverse order. Added some brake fluid, removed the air from the system and I did have a rotating wheel. Sweet. There where also couple smaller flaws, the wiper engine didn’t budge, fixed that with new ground cable from chassis to ground of the engine.

Engine room of Hopeanuoli looking good!

Then it was time to take Hopeanuoli to MOT test. I have never been as nervous is this time as it was obvious that it wouldn’t pass it. I haven’t even dared to look underneath of the car, and judged on the amount of rust on the wheels alone, it wouldn’t be that beautiful sight. Also there is still some problem with the engine, it doesn’t run as before.

Here is the view of the interiours of Hopeanuoli.

Surprisingly Hopeanuoli did pass the test! However, exhaust test did have some strange values indicating that I probably should adjust the valves soon. This might also be the reason for the problems of the engine. There also was hole at the bottom of the car! But it was so nicely shaped that the inspector thought that it was part of the design. Well it most likely wasn’t! But a pass is a pass!

Mold on the backseat looking good!

Some observation I made when driving the car from my parent’s place to my home. The rolling noise from the wheels totally covers to engine noise in highway speeds. Actually this is something folks at Ford did screw with Mk2 Fiesta. Mk1 Fiesta isolates the noise from outside much better. The noise is also so loud that it covers the quiet clicking of the blinker and even though I saw the indicator light on the dashboard, I wasn’t convinced that the blinkers would actually be blinking. Other observation was the steering. I have resently only driven my mom’s Mk3 Fiesta which have much more professional feel than Hopeanuoli, but the feel the Mk2 Fiesta has when you are steering is absolutely awesome. I might add that this car doesn’t have power steering - it doesn’t even have a break booster! Still you really have a feel of total control when dricing this beast.

This is thew first post of the most retarded project I may ever have started. The idea is to take a crappy car and update its soundscape with better sounds and improve the driving experience this way. Someone could want to change their car to sound like Ferrari. Someone would want to feel like Luke Skywalker riding his landspeeder. By using isolating headphones it is possible to isolate existing realworld soundscape more or less totally and replace it what ever you can imagine to. Also someone would want his/her vehicle to have more attention on the streets could feed artificial audiosignal to the car stereo, open the windows and pump up the volume.

So this is the plan. I have this old Ford Fiesta that is 25 years old and barely moves. First step - make it street legal. Second step - create couple audio themes using FMod Designer. Step three - insert the themes to the FMod audio engine running on my trusty EEE PC. Step four - connect Arduino to the Fiesta and track rpm, g-forces, blinkers etc with it, using this info to trigger event on FMod sound engine. This way my old Ford Fiesta Mk2 will become a Ford Fiesta Mk2.0!

I will document the progress of this project here every time some progress have been seen.

Openings is project by Axel Straschnoy that I have been working on. It is a book that reflects the intimate relationship of a reader with his/her books. As such the actual content of the book remains between the owner of the book and the book in it self, leaving mostly all technical details as a secret. We have however took some x-rays of the book to let you have a peek while considering whether you actually want to purchase it and reveal the secret. From x-rays you might recognize a Lilypad Arduino board. My task was to design and solder the electronics of the book.

The print sale of the project Opening is coming to an end. On July 2, at 11:30 Central European Time the drawing of the winning numbers will take place at the Musée Régional d’Art Contemporaine Languedoc-Roussillon in Sérignan. If you are interested in participating and buying your print these are the last three weeks …to do it.

Opening is a new kind of catalog, one that that is able to present the works themselves and does not refer to a previous exhibition situation. It is the result of two years of research.

It is funded, distributed and sold through an edition of prints. These are available for 55 euros each. With the money from the sale of the prints an edition of books is made. The book are then given out in a lottery to some of the buyers of the prints. The more prints are sold, the more books that get made and the bigger the chances for each participant.

Prints are available at the Museum, Galerie Xippas in Paris, Tijuana-Galeria Vermelho in São Paulo and online.

Opening has been featured at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Galerie Xippas, Salon Light/SP at Galeria Vermelho, Koh-i-noor and the catalog of Ange Leccia et Le Pavillon at Musée Bourdelle.

Images © 2008 Axel Straschnoy

For installation Super Ball my task was to implement a control unit for controlling a network of 49 1-Wire switches. Each switch is basically a programmable microcontroller though it was not necessary to actually program them, just alter value of one bit to switch a led connected to it on or off. In this article I’ll go through the design and building process on that very unit. Designing and building the light chain part of the installation (1-Wire network, led-units, balloon valves etc) was done by Martti Kalliala, Jenna Sutela and Jukka Rehu, not me, so I can’t cover them here.

First step in the process was to accomplish a hello world. I had one switch which I connected to the Arduino board and tried to make it blink. 1-Wire protocol is pretty straight forward but the command api of a switch was not. There is a ready made library for 1-Wire protocol. After some struggling I finally understood the order on 1-Wire commands to make the LED blink.

Next step was designing and building a box for Arduino. I bought sturdy Hammond Box for a case. We figured with Jenna that one potentiometer and couple of switches were enough for an interface. I also added connectors for power supply, fuse, USB (so there would not be any need to open the box for re-programming Arduino) and for light chain itself. Sadly I don’t have better images of the innards of the controller but the blurry pic above.

Testing the controller with the chain was a nightmare. It took hours of me to realise that innocent looking loops on a 150m light chain cable were actually blocking the dataflow inside the cable. The last switches in the chain were behaving badly and sometimes the whole chain could freeze. I added more code for error checking but when we finally did spread the cable more straight in Jenna’s studio, the chain started to behave. On the video above you see the before behaviour as two LEDs are on at the same moment. Belowe is the after behaviour. Although it can be hard to understand that it actually works as it should.

Video and images © 2008 Jenna Sutela

This is the first gadget from my Best Wishes line. It is basically a light organ circuit built from Kemo modules built inside a (Best Wishes) pencil case. It has one input for audio and a potentiometer to adjust the sensitivity. When plugged in mains it starts to flash lights connected to its output channels (one for low frequencies, one for high and one for silence). Or actually you can use it to drive any transformerless electric gadget running on 240V.

Light organ units usually do the dimming by chopping the sine waveform in such a nasty way that it might be easy to saturate a transformer connected to it. Though I don’t know what that actually means, it probably does not mean anything good, so don’t do it! Anyways, I find light organ units quite usable piece of electronics. Say, if you need to have a computer or a microcontroller flashing lights, you only need to figure out a simple way of making noise with them, and then just plug it in and you have a zero latency system. And they are cheap.

Here you see the case opened. It includes two ready made Kemo modules: the light organ unit and a noise filter unit. Noise filter takes care that the circuit doesn’t feed any noise to the mains voltage. Also remember the fuse. Putting one of these together is quite straight forward thing to do, but as we are making 240V connections, I advice you not to try this at home … ever!

This is second gadget from my Best Wishes line. It is used for controlling playback of different audio samples via USB on a computer. It has an USB Arduino inside that sends serial data back to the computer. The computer is running a simple program which is using FMod Music & Sound Effects System. This basically means that you are making sound banks using FMod Designer. As you can run FMod dlls in all major OSs (Linux, Windows, OSX…), the implementation is platform independent. I have used both EEEPC 701 and PowerPC G4 as host computer and they both run fine.

It works like this: The potentiometer is actually a rotating switch which you use for choosing right sample bank. Switches are then used to start and stop samples in that bank. Buttons are used for fireing samples in the bank. LEDs show whether the sample is playing or not. It also has an option for delaying the updating of the position of the switches: You can choose which samples are going to be stopped and which fired at the next switch which you are performing by the black button (or footswitch) at the right.

The reason in using FMod is that it offers a variety of options of how events should trigger different sounds. You can randomly pick samples from a pool, have multilayered events etc… Also after you have built the project with it, you can run it from a lightweight C-program from command line. I usually don’t need any GUI at the computer side. I have to say that I would welcome a truely open source solution as a computer end. FMod is free for non-commercial use anyways so it is a good option for now. At the moment I am not that proud of the source code of my tiny program so I won’t be releasing it yet, but hopefully soon.