invested in a microcontroller board - part 1

I am tired of sitting on the fence of which microcontroller to buy. I have been wanting a Raspberry Pi but upon some research I decided to start with a Arduino Uno as it is a better choice with hardware controls. I made a big $3.99 investment at less than 1/2 the cost on Amazon. It is a bare bone Uno but I should have everything else I need at home to get started.

It has been a very long time since I did any programming and I am looking forward to do some playing. Looking ahead as to what projects I would tackle first. I want something that I can use, but not exceedingly difficult. One of them is to add a oil pressure gauge for Isolde.

I do not want to have a ghetto of gauges created by a number of aftermarket gauges. Although I prefer individual analog gauges, for the short term, this is the only one I want. With the recent installation of a toolbar track in Isolde that support the cup holder function, adding a multifunction display onto the track is very easy. One approach is to utilize one of my surplus iPhones. To do that the telemetries would be sent via Bluetooth from the Arduino to the iPhone. The degree of difficult is quite steep for a project like that for someone that has very rusty hands at programming, at least initially. The difficulty is the need to create an app for the iPhone. The Arduino side is much easier.

a google search (on "vanagon gauges") returns of many, though not all are "vanagon gauge ghettos"

My thought is to do this project in stages, and allow the flexibility for changing the scope. I can initially use a simple LCD or OLED display in place of the iPhone. There is a down side with using any smartphone as a multifunction gauge display. It is the need to switch it on and off each time you want to use the display. Additionally the telemetry interface via Bluetooth is also susceptible to all sorts of glitches.

Another project that can be extremely useful is a data logger. Data logger test equipment typically is extremely overpriced. They are the easiest instrument to build with slow moving parameters.

Update:
Not wanting to waste time, I also went ahead and order this mother of all sensor kit. OK, I know. They are a collection of low cost devices which only few I likely to use. They should however serve well for my getting up to speed with the Arduino architecture as well as the tribal know hows. So far the financial damage is under $40.

mother of sensors kit

breadboard, jumpers, and a power supply board

Waiting for these various pieces to arriving from China is getting harder by the day. The more I spend time to read up on all the available shields, the more I am itching to dive into a few of these fun projects. I want to implement a data logger. It is one of the most useful instrument for everyday use. I have been wanting to build a accelerometer which is very useful for debugging vibrations on a vehicle.

the data logger shield has a RTC, coin cell battery, and a SD card connector

the accelerometer shield has a Invensense MPU6050 6-axis gyro/accelerometer

this little two color OLED display would make a nice gauge like an oil pressure and temperature; I need to make sure the two colors can be set on the entire display though

The bi-color OLED above turned out to be fixed in their zones, with yellow region and blue region. Clearly it is a display made for dumb phone. There is a white only version for that same price. Still, the bi-color one can made for a great gadget if one take advantage of it, in a suitable application.

Alternately this great looking miniature 64x48 pixel OLED display available from one of the US Arduino hobby online store cost a whopping $39.95. No thanks. You can buy a complete oil pressure gauge for less. In fairness, it is a smart module with a built-in ATmega328P uC.