[skaarj]First - I would like and need more likes than views or follows. This project involves hard work, so everybody please help me here. Thanks a lot.
Important project logs:
1. Concept design drawings and missing pictures
2. Plug and Play vehicles - unexpected consequences after mating season
3. Vacuum Tube Sound System (I)
5. Science time (I): Artificial Neural Network-based mechanical faults diagnosis (I)
7. Science time (II) Reducing exhaust pollution
11. Madhouse Reloaded - insane wiring
12. Wireless solar-powered liquid level sensor - ESP8266-based
13. Vacuum Tube Sound System (II) - final stage
14. Radiation Detection system
16. Rebuilding gauges and dials
18. Getting access to high performance equipment
19. Science time (III): Madhouse Revolution - rebuilding a Gas Chromatograph
20. Science Time (IV): Dacia 1310 Engine Exhaust Gas Analysis using TCD Gas Chromatography
21. Artificial Neural Network-based Mechanical Faults Diagnosis (II) - The Blonde Power
22. Artificial Neural Network-based Mechanical Faults Diagnosis (III) - Vibration Detection Test
23. Project halted: financial reserves below zero
24. Assistive Technologies - Let's improve night time driving
25. Assistive Technologies - Building cheap night-time vision goggles
27. Project status: awaiting scrapping for material recycle and recover of investment
Project Aimed features:
- Retro-style concept using both old and new technology in a (hopeful) beautiful design;
- Restoration of an old rusty trash dumpster, transforming it from a 4-wheeled chicken coop into its former glory;
- Illuminated scales and pointers on the original analog gauges;
- Intensity of light is adjusted with an Arduino and an Adafruit 24-Channel 12-bit PWM LED Driver - SPI Interface (TLC5947);
- Analog gauges controls made also with Arduino and an Adafruit 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver - I2C interface (PCA9685);
- Subminiature vacuum tube based sound system;
- Dashboard computer displays messages through an color 5" cathodic ray tube (no LCDs allowed);
- The dashboard computer also contains two oscilloscope vacuum electrostatic cathodic ray tubes to monitor the vibrations in all 4 wheels;
- Vibration monitoring is passed through a HM2007 Hardware Neural Network (a speech recognition integrated circuit) which will be "trained" to recognize different situations: broken bearings, flat tire, wear in bushes steering system, malfunctions inside engine block;
- Experimental exhaust pollution reduction system by means of injecting hydrogen-oxygen mixture (Brown gas extracted by electrolysis) in the air intake manifold. System powered up by big solar panel - this aspect strongly depends on the funds I manage to acquire;
- Experimental pollution reduction [tested with a rebuilt gas chromatograph] which proved there's a chance of lung cancer reduction if applied to commercial automobile engines;
- Mechanical fault diagnosis of wheel bearings - extendable to the entire car mechanics - using hardware Artificial Neural Network and training data recorded while deliberately installing faulty parts;
- Night time vision improvement Assistive Technology using image amplifiers vacuum tubes for safe drive in remote areas;
- Rear camera connected to the computer monitor [NO FUNDS];
- i2c Tv Tuner module (from an old PCI tv tuner) connected either to the computer monitor or to an additional black and white display from an old "Rovesnik" miniature russian television [ZERO FUNDS];
- Interface with the Arduino, Bluetooth, Multimedia Audio System (vacuum-tube based - to keep the retro style), WiFi and whatever modern features are possible - all done with a Raspberry PI backed by FreeBSD Unix [BELOW ZERO FUNDS];
- Two miniature oscilloscope boards needed for the subminiature CRT tubes [funds acquiring probability coefficient below zero].
A short history about the automobile industry in Romania
I'm not good at history and I will try to keep this section short.
In the Middle Ages there were rumors about Vampires and Witches using brooms or bat wings as a fast method of transport;
Usual transport consisted of animal powered rudimentary vehicles;
Before the Great War, businessmen in the western part of the country started to import chassis from factories like Ford to convert them to buses or to build automobiles. Also there was a factory called "Malaxa" which made some of the most confortable cars in Europe at that time.
After the War, things changed. We were under Russian occupation and they dismantled whatever automobile industry was left intact by the war, then moved it into Soviet Union. Melaxa factories were teared down and moved into Soviet Union and rebranded as "Ij" or "Jawa" (I'm not sure, details are on the internet). Then, in the 60s, the President at that time started negotiations with French authorities to buy some licenses for automobiles. The rest can be read in Wikipedia, but the results werethe first Romanian cars: Dacia 1100 (Renault 10?) and Dacia 1300 (Renault 12 clone).
Romania also made computer mainframes (first were also started under French licenses provided by Charles de Gaulle) and they were called "Felix". Some of this technology worked even better than the popular PDP11 in USA, so the Soviet Union forbid us to export them to other countries). These names come from "Dacia Felix" (the Happy Dacia country) named by the Roman conqueror Emperor Traianus after the year 106AD when he managed to conquer a small part of Dacia (and some historians say this conquest "forced all inhabitants of Dacia to forget their language and adopt Latin as official language, which later became Romanian language").
Anyway - the automobile was called Dacia and the early mainframes were called Felix.
Dacia are now a part of the Renault Group and they are building many popular cheap automobiles of today: Logan, Duster, Lodgy, Dokker and whatever they decide to make.
In this project the automobile to be "upgraded" is the popular Dacia 1310 - an "improvement" of the French Renault 12.
Dacia was manufactured from the end of the 60s up to the end of 2004 when the production line was closed. They all look like the Renault 12, but the latest version was improved up to EURO-2 emission standards, Bosch single-point injection system, pneumatic climate control inside the car. Unfortunately no cooling system.
During these years of production, a lot of improvements were made to this car and they managed to keep it simple, so you can repair most of the malfunctions (even dismantle the engine) in the field with little service assistance in order to reach back home. For this reason, even it is no longer manufactured since 2004, it is still popular in the rural side and many of the young learn to drive on this car.
In Romania we say that if you are able to drive an old Dacia and you use one for at least two years day by day, then you will be able to safely drive any modern state of the art car.