Fanaleds forum

I've read some posts about members wanting to use their Arduino for things like a wind simulator or a display which is what I want to use mine for. Is there any way this can be added in a future update?

It's on our to-do list, but it won't happen any time soon because it would require a LOT of work. And this is not yet worth it because there are only a handful of people that would use a feature like this, sorry.

I've actually been getting interest from several people, in particular those that want something good for a budget. This one cost me around $60 USD to build:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8xRHOtTjao[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8xRHOtTjao

A cheaper version could be made for $20 USD.

I was able to get arduino to work with processing by extracting integer sets from the data stream:

void loop() {
//Keep working as long as data is in the buffer
while (Serial.available() > 0)
{
rpm = Serial.parseInt(); //First valid integer
gear = Serial.parseInt(); //Second valid integer

if (Serial.read() == '\n') //Done transmitting
}

Arduino has a decent library for extracting data from COM, so rather than customize your output to our liking, could we have a way to high-jack an already existing COM stream? I would guess that writing a COM library would be a load of work (if no other hardware you support uses it anyway).

Processing works well for me, but requires downloaded libraries and know-how to setup for people I'm trying to help. Having fanaleds as the middleman would be well-received in the custom sim-racing community. Otherwise, it's all good if you don't (you're on donations anyways).

The reason this hasn't been built is twofold.

1. We don't have any arduino devices ourselves, so to test it would be difficult (not impossible because I'd built it with RS232 in mind anyway)

2. It would open the gates for any hardware vendor to create a display and have it "supported" by Fanaleds, without us even knowning. I encourage DIY (I'm a big DIY-er myself) but the problem could be people complaining to us about stuff that doesn't work about other companies displays.

In short this means the priority for this is right on the bottom of the todo list. Because we'd need some kind of legal plan for shielding of the issues with other companies.

Hey, I really understand the reason that you haven't do this. But I don't think it is worth to be worried about.

Arduino is expensive to make product. Although it has a low price as DIY-er's think, as a hardware vendor, it is waste to build a product with it. So only DIY-er will choose it.

You don't even need to "support" Arduino. You can just make the protocol open, we will complete the rest of the things. Otherwise we have to guess the data struct just like zeb_rally is doing.