Well for those of you who want it here is the code for the shifter here it is.
Its not the most efficient way to do it but it works. Eventually Ill get around to putting up better commented version and maybe the pin diagrams for the 16F876. If you want them sooner then just bug me about it.
All the parts of the shifter are finally working together. While it still needs some cosmetic changes and the top to be glued down its basically done. Well and that little part where I don’t have a wheel to test it with… but that worked before the wheel broke so I feel that it wont be a problem. For those of you who want to see it in all its glory there are pictures and a video demonstration after the break. Continue reading ‘It Works!!’
The shifter is just a few steps away from completion. I successfully moved the PIC off of the Dev board and onto perfboard.
I also wired all three components of the shifter together (Display, PIC, Wheell Interface)
Now all thats left is to mount this and wire it up to the contacts on the frame and get a wheel that works.
So there is some good news and some bad news. The good new is that the shifter hardware is really close to being finished and I have started to move the electronics of the bread board and on to pref board. The bad new is that the wheel had decided that it wants to die, so unless I can magically fix it my fried will have to get a new one… Hopefully I just missed something. So I leave you with these pictures of the new shifter construction.
The H-Shifter is finally really starting to come together. I would say that today was rather productive seeing that I got the shift lever mounted to the frame finally. I also added a voltage regulator to the steering wheel to provide the shifter with the 5 volts that it will need. The jack that connects the wheel to the shifter was finally mounted too. Hope you enjoy the new pictures.
Finally the electronics for the shifter are complete and the firmware for the PIC is in its “final” version. Now all that is left to do is finish up the shifter hardware and connect the PIC to the steering wheel. After the jump a short video shows the shifter going through gears and converting these to sequential shifts.
The gear display module is finally finished. After about an hour of drilling holes and some soldering its all assembled. It actually turned out much better than I assumed it would. Now that thats out of the way I can focus on the functionality of the firmware for the shifter.
Hopefully I can get a new digital camera soon because this one just doesn’t cut it.
Feeling like I should build off of the template that I made in turbo cad for the shifter guide I decided to work on it a little. With a little bit of editing and mucking about in turbo cad I present this 3D model of the shifter frame.
I got some time to design a PCB layout for the gear display module for the H-Shifter today. I decided on using the 4511 IC to drive the display because it saves me some programming. Here is the layout that I came up with…
Currently the PCB is currently sitting in a bath of Ferric Chloride and hopefully I will be able to finish the whole module tonight. If I do there will definitely be pictures.
Update:
The PCB finally finished etching and didn’t turn out half bad. There are a few traces that might need some fixing up but hopefully it will work with all the components on it. Disappointingly I didn’t have any drill bits small enough to drill the holes. I should be able to pick up a pin vise on the way home from work and then finish it up tomorrow.
When I originally started this project I had thought that I would be able to use a high level language like C to program the 16 series PIC chips I purchased. Well I was wrong all the c compilers for PIC that I could find were either limited in some way or cost way more than I even want to say. So with no other choice I started to use assembly. Surprisingly its not as bad as I had originally thought. So looking at a few tutorials I managed to get the 7-segment display up and working. It even increases the number displayed when you press the button on the Dev board. So hopefully tomorrow I can add a good chunk of functionality to the firmware. Now that I think about I might just code the numbers in and skip the 4511 chip all together (This would mean less wires and a simpler PCB). Sorry I dont have more pictures but my camera died 
