My K.A.R.R. Project

[Electrons-R-Fun]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on January 28th, 2014, 01:55 AM by jknightandkarr

K.A.R.R.: Knight Automated Roving Robot.

This is my KARR before going to the 2003 Knight Registries: Knight Nationals. It's an 89 Pontiac TransAm with 305 TBI.


This is KARR the 2004 Knight Nationals


This is my KARR now. We are in the process of redoing the engine compartment.



My season 1/2 Knight nose & scanner when I got them home. Both made by Advance Designs in Automotive Technologies. Don Colie REALLY makes good stuff!



This was a junker I was trying to redo. That's the first time I bolted my nose & scanner on.


This pic is the same car just spray can painted silver with a yellow lens in. BTW..... In the country at night, that yellow lens is a HECK of alot brighter then it looks..... TRUST ME! 8-55w Halogen Driving lights. Need I say more?


This is me and a 2nd junker I tried to redo, body was twisted and I couldn't repair it.


This is KARR's dash. It's from Louisell Enterprises, and is a season 2 Dash, supposed to have 2 tv's but I have a 7 Inch LCD screen, and I modified the dash to accept my screen. I couldn't find 2 color 5" tv's to use.


Tests of what my interior colors looked like togeather. Lt Sand Gray plastic panels and black carpet & fabric.





My wife Brandi came up with replacing the lower silver paint with something darker, like Gun Metal Gray. We've decided to take that onto my interior fiberglass conversion parts. I'm waiting for my lower console and switch pods, other then those parts, All I need is the gullwing steering wheel. I'm going to build my own dash electronics as well as replacing the scanner controller unit with stuff I'll build with the Propeller, maybe the Basic Stamp 1/2 chip. I'll post some designs of my dash electronics designs when I get the displays finalized.

Joe

[Electrons-R-Fun]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on February 19th, 2014, 06:38 PM by ElectronsRfun

That's to awesome. A lot of work, but awesome. I know all about working on car parts in the house during the snow, never ideal but necessary.

Are the LED capable of orange and red? or are they different LED sets?


Jason.

[jknightandkarr]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on February 19th, 2014, 07:10 PM by jknightandkarr

Thanks I hope it will be awesome when it's done.
On the scanner or the dash stuff? If it's the scanner it's just colored plexiglass over halogen driving light bulbs. On the Dash, everything is one color, but i CAN get dual color bargraph LED's to make a color & pattern changing KITT or KARR voice if someone wanted one.

If you've seen my signature on my posts, the TITANIC Electronics & Games part of it, planning on designing & sell KR conversion stuff, auto gauges for whoever wants em, maybe some other auto & decorative computer cases & accessories & HOW they want em, absoulutly NO here's my designs, that's what you got to choose from. You have a design you've love to have in your whatever you drive, I'll do it! As for the games I'm going to make RPG's n some 2d/3d games to sell on the side as well as the electronics stuff, but back to my project. MY KARR is going to be my KR conversion stuff prototype.

I found a object someone wrote for the propeller to give voice command, so I'm going to try and do that instead of a computer in my car and use the propeller's video cap to add some video effects on my screen. One of which is the Turbo Boost Trajectory Guideance System they used occasionally in the show. Let me tell what's planned for my engine & drivetrain.

305 TBI:
3.48 to 3.75 lightweight stroker crank
Stock bore unless cyl walls are needing redone.
Aftermarket intake & going to do what I can on making heads flow better otherwise head change.
Going to use a 454 Chevy TBI, 350 if bolt pattern won't work, and 350 injectors.
Going for a 300+ on HP & TQ, or as near it as I can get. If my math is correct breaking 300 on HP & TQ SHOULD let me keep up with/out run any stock 4th generation Camaro or Firebird, though this DON'T include the ram air optioned cars.

Upgrading my 700R4 Auto Trans & add disk brakes in back & around 3.27/3.23 ratio.

I think that mixing the 2 factory interior colors will work togeather & painting my fiberglass int parts should help bring the 2 colors togeather.

Joe

[jknightandkarr]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on February 21st, 2014, 03:13 PM by jknightandkarr

I'm having a hard time deciding on my electronics designs, but I DID find out if I make my own PCB's I'll save a HECK OF ALOT of $$$ I can make a 7"x4.5" PCB for about $6.50 if I make it on a CNC machine. Which is another of my projects. LOL

Joe

[jknightandkarr]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on March 2nd, 2014, 04:17 AM by jknightandkarr

Well here's a rough idea on what I have for my KARR's dashboard. Left to Right ordered:

The speedometer: Houses compass modual, 0-150 Mph bargraph speedo (though display says 0-300), 3 digit numerical speed readout, 10 digit Blue Alpha-numeric Odometer/Message Center, and 9 Red when off/Green when on Misc indicator lights(R Turn, L Turn, Bright Lights Ect) I'm going to replace the compass shown to just a 3 digit Alpha-numeric 16 cardinal direction compass readout. Ex: NNW, SES, WSW, NE, S Ect. The System Ready will only scale over and stay on as dash first lights up.


KARR's voice display: Probably adding a 5th LED on each side, Yellow voice display in the shown pattern & the Normal, Auto & Pursuit driving modes. Auto being for Cruise Ctrl & Pursuit Nitrous Oxide or other power adder or nothing at all.


Tachometer: 0-6000 RPM bargraph & 3 digit numeric Tach, also houses Fuel, Oil, Water Temp, Volts & Misc gauges.


Power/Misc Board: All misc gauges and/or just scanning displays, plus Eject L/R front seat displays. This is just one example and most likely will change.


There's 2 lower holes in my dash for 2 more display boards, NO plans yet for these as I wasn't expecting my 1/2 season dash, expected Rob Louisell's original style dashboard which resembles the 1 monitor 3/4 season dash, but with different sided dash openings, but the lower 3rd hole, closest to TV, will have my PNAP buttons or Power, Normal Cruise, Auto Cruise & Pursuit Mode Buttons.

As a side note on all my display boards & PNAP buttons. I'm going to blackout everything & have white LEDs back lighting the Text/Numbers on everything. The colors on the LEDs are just examples and may or may not include yellow in the Fuel, Oil, Temp Volts & misc gauges/displays, but will include yellow in the speedo/tach bargraph sections, and of course KARR's voice display.

My switch pods will resemble these pics, but I'll be changing functions around to suit my own liking. They will all basically do nothing except for a random DTMF & light up using either Momentary or On/Off function, but will have outputs available if I decide to use them in the future.


Joe

[Electrons-R-Fun]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on March 2nd, 2014, 06:33 PM by ElectronsRfun

Joe,

Your plans are great and look so much like the TV series, makes me smile.

Were do you get something like that custom built?

I saw in one of your pictures a readout for boost/vacuum. Do you plan on supercharging or turbo charging the engine?

Jason

[jknightandkarr]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on March 3rd, 2014, 04:13 AM by jknightandkarr

Originally Posted by ElectronsRfun
Joe,

Your plans are great and look so much like the TV series, makes me smile.

Were do you get something like that custom built?

I saw in one of your pictures a readout for boost/vacuum. Do you plan on supercharging or turbo charging the engine?

Jason

Thanks for the kind words Jason, but mine is little going to be somewhat different from the show. Mainly in dash electronics & int/ext paint. I want a custom KARR. lol The fiberglass parts can be bought, there are several venders, but my nose and scanner are from Advanced Designs in Automotive Technologies, my dash board & upper console (still waiting on my switch pods & lower console) are from Louisell Enterprises. As for my electronics I could get them made from Lectric Enterprises or Jupiter Electronics, as they both make Knight Rider electronics & accessories, but mine I will be making myself using DipTrace design software & the Propeller microcontroller.

I thought I put it in another thread here someplace, but I'm going to be starting to make n sell Knight Rider electronics & accessories myself someday, as well as for anyone who wants custom gauges & accessories for their own cars, maybe some decorative pc cases n accessories and making video games.

On the Boost/Vac gauge. I've thought about it, but wanna push my Chevy 305 TBI engine to its limits w/o a turbo or supercharger first, besides I installed a functional 82-84 TransAm cowl induction hood, and plan on trying that first. Those designs I did about 3 years ago right after I received my dashboard, I'm rethinking my options and probly going to replace stuff on those designs with stuff that just randomly scans different places on the displays, but my goal on my engine is to atleast try and see if I can keep up with the factory 98'-02' Camaro/Firebird LS1 built cars at the drag strip. The reason for this is, on some of the Knight Rider forums, some people have trash talked the performance of my car's engine, and just wish to show them, that my engine is just as good as a 305/350 Tune Port Inj engine, one major issue is the factory rear-axle, it's geared for econ, NOT balance of econ/performance. If my math is right, if I break 300 HP & TQ on my engine, I can keep up with a factory LS1, anything over 325 on them and I 'Should' beat them.

Joe

[jknightandkarr]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on March 11th, 2014, 04:20 AM by jknightandkarr

On DTMF I remember Chris saying something on how to do it on the propeller, namely making the random command give me 1 of 16 random numbers. I think it was bitmasking he mentioned, but I can't remember what it was. I need it for my DTMF tones on KARR and need 4-bit data for only 16 combinations, and 8-bit is too much. Making it play the tones is already done I just need to know how is it again I can get only numbers in the 0 to 15 range again? I was trying to look it up on the Propeller Manual & Potatoehead's Assembly guide for the absolute beginner, but not sure if I found it. I tried previously to use the Limit Min & Limit Max on the random # variable, but that FAR from worked, just got the same result & VARY rairly was it actually random. lol

Joe

[jknightandkarr]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on March 11th, 2014, 03:00 PM by jknightandkarr

I think I figured it out. Could I do it like this?

Byte DTMFVariable '%00000000

?%DTMFVariable 'Random 8-bit Binary number
DTMFOut:=DTMFVariable & %00001111 'AND DTMFVariable & lower 4-bits of data leaving only results in the range of 0 to 15

Would that work on my project?

Joe

[Savage///Circuits]

Originally posted on the Savage///Circuits Forums on March 13th, 2014, 02:25 PM by Chris Savage

I don't think so...I have some code after talking with Jeff Martin that should work. Let me wrap this project I am behind on and I will stop back and post what I have.