pyXede

pyXede is a programming tool for Xede piggyback engine computer available from ChipTorque in Australia and Vishnu Performance Systems in the USA. pyXede is written in python and provides access to the high-speed datalogging facilities of the Xede unit. As a result pyXede should allow one to datalog from a variety of hardware platforms and software environments including Linux and Mac which are not supported by ChipTorque's official software.

Requirements:

1. An Xede unit and cabling
2. Python 2.x or greater
3. pySerial
4. Gnuplot

License:

Pyxede is available under the GNU General Public License.

Downloads: Source

Installation Instructions:

• Windows (weaklings!)
• MacOSX

Documentation:

Updates:

• 8-12-2005: Version 1.5 is about ready to roll. First things first, this is a DEVELOPMENT release. Don't expect everything to work the way it is supposed to yet. There's a bunch of buttons/checkboxes that don't do anything yet. There's options enabled when they shouldn't be. It's not difficult to make this release of the software behave erratically. So, changelog...oh boy.
  • Most prominant is the new support for Vishnu's "SMART" information. If the hardware is available, then information like knock and wideband AFR can be viewed and logged. If not, then you just get boring flat lines.
  • There's an integrated debugging and scripting console, aptly named the "Master Control Program". Yes, the MCP has returned. What am I talking about, you ask. Go watch Tron you young whipper-snapper.
  • The Road dynomameter is vastly improved. First, there is now a central list of all currently loaded runs. This list also has an integrated plot of the currently selected run -- not just power/torque either. The plot displays AFR, knock, and timing info as well. Cool huh? In addition the dyno list will let you do all kind of swank analysis on your run. You can Save/Load. Import from basically any imaginable type of CSV file. You can trim data off the ends of the run. You can trim above a user-definable threshold. You can smooth power plot using a variety of different methods: SavGol, Moving window, Box, Nearest Neighbor. You can even superimpose plots, although this still requires the use of an external program, GNUPlot.
  • When using the RoadDyno menu option, the generated run now gets placed in the dyno list after the run is complete rather than pop up in a new managment window. In addition to power/torque the RoadDyno dialog will now allow the user (you!) to choose other information you want logged such as AFR and knock. Here's the kicker. This information is plotted real-time when the run is in progress.
• 6-22-2005: Version 1.0 has been marked stable. Use and enjoy. Development of the 2.x series has begun but is not usable currently. Added win32 py2exe build.
• 6-14-2005: I have a second prerelease of 1.0 available.
  • Added support for logging TPS in/out which somehow got left out when creating the logging dialogs.
  • Fixed bug that caused FreqMAFIn not to be logged.
  • Removed shell reference to /usr/local/bin/env. This was part of my arcane unix configuration and is not needed.
  • Highspeed logging marker code is better which should facilitate much better logging and communication errors.
  • Highspeed logging now writes labels to logs.
• 6-9-2005: Posted is the first prerelease of pyXede 1.0. For the next little while, I will work only on fixing bugs found in this series of releases in order to get the code ready to mark stable. Obviously, this is the one that everybody should be using. Changes:
  • Fixed a major threading bug that caused the GUI elements to become corrupted. On slower machines this would causes the application to hang.
  • Application now "remembers" settings (such as comm port) in the file pyxede.cfg. You're welcome david. :)
  • Former releases removed, from dyno runs, samples that had identical RPM values. The theory was that these samples contained no addition information that couldn't be implied from the samples around them. This is statistically invalid. No samples are dropped now.
• 6-8-2005: Whew doggies, two releases in a single day. 0.9 is above and here's my reasoning for releasing a new version so quickly. After releasing 0.8 this morning, I started working on implementing a different logging mechanism that allows for much faster logging. To my utter surprise, the code worked first time out. I was expecting 5+ hours of coding, and it was all ready within an hour. So enjoy. Changes:
  • HighSpeedLog function added to the pyXede API. It allows sampling 3-4 values at 100hz and 8-10 at 50hz. Obviously this is much faster than the previous method of logging. However the old method is still available because it has some advantages and may be preferrable in some cases.
  • Miscellaneous clean ups and dead code removal
  • High speed logging has been enabled from the GUI
• 6-8-2005: 0.8. First and most importantly, the timing function has been replaced on windows with the more accurate clock() function. This, I believe, was a major source of grief for people using pyXede on windows. those pesky divide-by-zero and sample dropping errors should be gone. On all other system, the old time() function will still be used -- it is way better anyway. Other notables:
  • Saving and loading from places you shouldn't now displays an error dialog rather than just throwing an exception in the console.
  • A couple of releases back, I broke the feature that displays the active bank in the status bar. Fixed.
  • Samplerate is now displayed during data logging.
  • The menu's are a tad (a metric tad) prettier.
  • The new "High Speed" logging support API has been added, but it doesn't work yet.
• 6-6-2005: 0.7 is here, apologizing for 0.6. 0.6 Has some crazy bugs that cause it to be unreliable. Most importantly, the dyno measurements you get are wrong (thanks David). The RPM levels are based off timing info, not real RPM. Notable changes include the following:
  • Dyno data collection is now fully threaded. The crazy locking up errors should be alleviated.
  • Update to the main screen from the engine monitor has been reworked to be 'thread proper'. This was causing the GUI to hang in what seemed to be unrelated locations.
  • Doc strings are available for gnuplot.py and the directory docs Plotting should work on windows 2000, although it remains untested
• 6-4-2005: Added pydoc generated API doc webpages.
• 6-3-2005: 0.6 is ready. First and foremost, the road dyno system is much improved. It's threaded and a dialog is added that lets you monitor time and rpm level. Next, plotting is cleaned and prettier, not significantly better, but prettier. Plotting is also more configurable in the settigs menu. Enjoy.
• 6-1-2005: 0.5 just landed. Hey, we're halfway to 1.0 -- on the number line anyway. Quite a few changes and cleanups. Some things that didn't work before work now. :) I'm so vague. To clarify, all plotting is still done with GNUPlot, although fully native wxWindows plotting is planned.
• 5-31-2005: 0.4 released. Support added for saving, loading, and interpolating dyno plots. Lots of cleanups. DynoRun object added.
• 5-20-2005: Release 0.3 available. wxWindows graphical user interface built and workable. Datalogging to a file supported.
• 5-17-2005: Release 0.2 available. Road dyno code is pretty much workable. I've written interfaces to allow outputting through gnuplot as well as dyno plot smoothing/interpolating/curve fitting. There's also a wxWindows widget, RPMPlot, that should allow for pretty good realtime plotting. Notice that the wxWindows GUI is not working yet.
• 5-11-2005: Release 0.1 added.

Screens:

A typical dyno plot
Preliminary datalogging screenshot
Road Dyno screenshot (version 0.6)
It works on windows too, here's proof.

Thanks: