I like to think of myself as thrifty (some may say cheap). I ordered the iduino to build the mpguino project. I must say that putting the board together was a breeze. I like the fact that it's usb because my laptop doesn't have a serial port and it'll make for easy updates to the code without pulling everything out of the car.
It's set up to be friendly with a breadboard, but I'm gonna go ahead and use it for my in-car mpguino. I haven't wired it up to the car yet, but I have the mpguino circuit for the buttons and inputs as well as an LCD hooked up to it. I guess the true test will come when I wire it up this weekend.
The only thing that I think might give me trouble is that the board doesn't have input for power outside of the USB. What I'm thinking of doing is finding the 5v and ground pins of the USB and adding power input after some diodes. The diodes would be there to prevent power from flowing back into the USB port when it's hooked up to the computer. The diodes probably aren't necessary if I only upload with the car off (ie no power going to the board other than from the computer through the USB.
Does this sound like a viable solution? I've built a lot of simple circuits before, but haven't really done much more than just following a schematic.
I've been wanting to toy around with both the arduino and some c++ for a while and I'm all about fuel economy/efficiency. I love this project!
I haven't had a lot of time to go through the code, but is the mpguino supposed to cycle through all of the screens automatically? I've uploaded a youtube video here
Please let me know if this appears to be working properly so far.
Thanks,
Matt