iPhone app

[24c]

Just seen this http://www.tuaw.com/2010/11/04/first-rs ... apple-cont

Basically, it's an RS232/dock connector adapter/dongle that connects to the iPhone which has been approved by Apple to control a telescope and ships in December 2010.

[DaveW]

I'm pretty sure that is the Redpark cable previously discussed. They're not allowed to sell the cable as a generic RS232 cable but, instead, it gets shipped as a bundle with the app that it is keyed into. For iPod the app and cable have to be approved as a bundle and it's a separate process to getting the app approved for the app store.

The more I think about it, the less feasible a direct serial cable link seems. For the moment I'm just concentrating on getting the WiFi version working

[megaS1]

would the app be both wifi and hard wire compatible? i cant wait to see the outcome of this.

[DaveW]

I think WiFi will continue to be the priority. I've not compiled all the figures but from what I've seen so far the serial option is no cheaper than WiFi and won't work on anything other than MS1. I'm not ruling it out by any means but I'd prefer to put off worrying about the "transport" mechanism for now.

As an update on where the app is at the moment...
I've had a change of MS circumstances in that I finally relented and installed MS2-Extra on one of my vehicles. This has focussed my mind a bit more on the issues around supporting different versions. I've started making changes to the data layer to better support and adapt to different MS versions and I now think it's both feasible and of benefit to include support for multiple versions in the initial test release.

I'm a fair way through the changes now and, once completed, the initial test app will support MS1, MS1-Extra, MS2, MS2-Extra (2.x.x and 3.0.3).

I expect to ship the test app before mid December unless work commitments stamp all over my spare time !

[onslack]

Keep up the good work Dave!looking forward to this!

[myk777]

Dave,

Very cool work here, one question, I don't have an iPhone but I do have an iPod Touch 2nd gen would you expect this app would work the same on it?

Mike

[DaveW]

Although i have no means of testing it myself it should work fine on an iPod touch.

[24c]

...

I'm a fair way through the changes now and, once completed, the initial test app will support MS1, MS1-Extra, MS2, MS2-Extra (2.x.x and 3.0.3)....

Great news, +1 keep up the good work.

[djandruczyk]

I haven't found any reasonably priced wifi to serial adapters less than $150.00 (ready to go), i.e. the wisnap from serialio.com is $169 and looks like the most promising. Have you come across anything reasonably priced? for the apple route I was tempted to use the iphone dock hack board that gives you serial access and make my app for jailbroken phones only (since apple would block me anyways ).

[24c]

Dave, some I have bookmarked.

http://www.gridconnect.com/wiflygsxkit. ... odal=false
but check out rovingnetworks.com and a RN-134 module
http://www.avisaro.com/tl/wlan-logger-module.html
http://www.eztcp.com/en/products/csw-h80.php

I have some others, just gotta trawl through the folders.

http://www.quatech.com/products/airborn ... odules.php
http://www.atc-converters.eu/atc-2000wf-p-4667.html
http://www.lantronix.com/device-network ... e-servers/
http://www.connectone.com/products.asp?did=73&pid=84

[DaveW]

I think the best value is the RN-134, it may not be 100% ready to go "out of the box" but it only needs a suitable serial cable making up and at $99 (Digikey) and with distributors in the US and Europe it's hard to beat. The header on the module is the same as that used on lots of PC motherboards so the simplest way to do it is to buy one of those cables and adapt it as needed. I did have one small issue with it on the MS2 but that was resolved by RN tech support within 24 hours.

The WiSnap is an RN-134 with a box and a cable, you can even use the WiSnap iphone app to configure an RN-134. For the $70 price difference I'll supply my own box and cable

[Mario]

Dang-o, I need to surf the MS1 forum more often! I have been waiting for something like this for some time, nice job

[24c]

Another Wifi serial interface for you guys stateside is at
http://www.airrunnerdirect.com/proddeta ... prod=RW100
and it's $99, but there is an embedded version (uncased) called a WS-120M, detail here http://www.zcomax.com/embedded/WS-120M/dsrw120M.pdf but I can't find a price for it.

[SordFish]

I don't know if its what you're looking for but I've been using a modified fonera wireless router to try some serial to wifi comms
and had some sort of success with a remote serial port and had some php code connect to the ecu and pull version data.

my idea was to run a web server on the router and display the data via HTML5 as then it supports normal iphones and android and anything else that has a web browser.

[24c]

...my idea was to run a web server on the router and display the data via HTML5 as then it supports normal iphones and android and anything else that has a web browser.

Yep, that's the other way, and avoids an app approach. I think they call it Web Apps, because they mix HTML, CSS, Javascript and AJAX and create an interface very similar to an app, but it doesn't have to be distributed/submitted to Apple. Apple have some quite good gauges/sliders/buttons etc ready made that can be easily modded, but I am not able to go any further until I get my RMA sorted. For a play, the other day, I got my MacBook to query the cased MicroSquirt, but that's as far as I got. Looking at the MSExtra docs on RS232, and still gotta get my head round it, but it keeps me amused.

Some of the WLAN embedded stuff have web server capability, and you'd be able to communicate with your desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet if you went this route, although I don't know what the latency would be, but I guess it'd be more than adeqaute for a tacho, AFR meter etc.

[djandruczyk]

I ran into a dead end with my new bluetooth serial adapter, it just plain DOES NOT WORK, I managed to pair to it, setup a rfcomm serial port, get about 3 bytes through it before it decides to go out to lunch. I spent several hours messing around only to decide its not worth the trouble and requested and RMA to return this POS. (aircable serial 5 NOT recommended...)

[24c]

djandruczyk, I have a spare WiFly RN-370M I could lend you...

Check it out... http://www.rovingnetworks.com/WiFi-Serial.php

[djandruczyk]

djandruczyk, I have a spare WiFly RN-370M I could lend you...

Check it out... http://www.rovingnetworks.com/WiFi-Serial.php

It looks great, but you've donated and helped out a LOT already and I've yet to deliver properly on that promise. Let me try and get further progress on the iTunix side of things first. For now I can probably simulate it by hacking "interceptty"


Interceptty: http://www.suspectclass.com/sgifford/interceptty/

[WestfieldMX5]

I've had a change of MS circumstances in that I finally relented and installed MS2-Extra on one of my vehicles. This has focussed my mind a bit more on the issues around supporting different versions. I've started making changes to the data layer to better support and adapt to different MS versions and I now think it's both feasible and of benefit to include support for multiple versions in the initial test release.

I you need someone testing the MS2E version on Iphone 3GS, let me now.

[DaveW]

This project has reached somewhat of a milestone now. The first version of the app has passed the review process and is available to download now from the app store. This version has been tested pretty thoroughly with MS1-Extra firmware versions and has had some limited testing against MS1 firmware versions. The next test and then release versions will target MS2-Extra firmware versions.

The app can be found on the app store by searching for megasquirt or mobisquirt.

More details, support, feedback and the user manual are available at the project web site - http://mobisquirt.org/

The user manual is a revision behind at the moment but I'll bring it up to date over the next few days - the App store approval happened much quicker that I expected so caught me napping a bit.