The first iPad test

My original plan was to use a Windows PC with a touch-screen monitor to run ZillaView (written by Claudio Natoli down under). The motherboard I got my hands on has four serial ports, and the Link10 and PakTrakr both have serial ports that spew useful data, so my thought was to gather all of this data and make some kind of display for all of this. Exactly how I was going to do this was to be figured out later, as long as I had the PC hardware in the first place.

Well, I still have the Zilla, but it looks like the Link10 is going to be redundant, with its functionality replaced by the Lithium Ion battery EMS display from Elite Power Solutions. And the PakTrakr was designed for lead acid batteries which I am no longer going to use now that I have the LiOns. The whole PC thing started to get unnattractive, especially since there are so many pieces involved. I was impressed by the size, simplicity, and power of my wife's iPad so I wondered if there was a way to use one of those instead. I did some research and found a serial port app that didn't require jailbreaking the iPad, so I bought an iPad, the serial to docking port cable, and the "Get Console" app.

When I installed the wiring harnesses I included a data cable that runs from the Hairball serial port to a DB9 connector behind the dashboard. Last night I decided to power up the Hairball with one of my laptops connected to the serial port to see if I could get it to talk. Although I do have a serial port cable that goes directly from the Hairball to a laptop, I decided to just skip that step and see if my harness serial cable would work. It did! The Zilla configuration menus popped up in HyperTerm. My cable worked fine.

I then went and got my iPad and brought it out to the workbench in the garage. The Get Console cable has an RJ45 connector that is designed for Cisco Router consoles, so a quick google search gave me the pinout. I created an RJ45 to DB9 adapter (with a little help from the oscilloscope), stuck it on the cable, and hooked the iPad up to the car. I fired up the Hairball and - success! Zilla configuration menus on the iPad.

So for now I can at least monitor the controller status with the iPad while driving the car. I'll put the Hairball into DAQ mode, which spits out ten lines per second of hex values, so I'll have to get used to deciphering that, but hey, I'm a nerd. Then maybe I can talk real nice to my wife and convince her to write an app for the iPad that makes a prettier and more friendly display...

Still no sign of Mr. Rat, BTW.