Richard's Back Burner Projects

It is, I think, the bane of my life that I will never have the (infinite) time necessary to do all of the things that I want to do. Occasionally I get all fired up about a new project idea, only to find after pursuing it for a few weeeks or months, that I simply do not have the available time to continue the project, as there are more urgent and important things waiting.

Here are some details on several projects that have been put on the "back burner". I hope to someday push some of these projects through to completion.

OBD-II HUD This project is an offshoot of the RaceGuage digital dash display. The HUD project involves installing a heads-up-display in a late model car and designing a computer to interface with the OBD-II (On Board Diagnostic) computer found in all 1998+ cars. An interface with this car computer will allow the HUD to be customized to display many different engine parameters, including fuel injector duty cycle, percent power, throttle position, and more.

Jet Powered Go-Kart I recently became interested in jet engines, and researched information and projects on the web related to jets for about a week. I discovered that surplus jet engines may be purchased for around $2000-$4000 that can provide around 100 lbs thrust or 80 shaft horsepower with a power-weight ratio of 1hp/1lb weight. So I thought, why not strap one of these on a go-kart? That would be fun.

LED Lamp The idea behind this project is to build an array of red, green, and blue high intensity LEDs. Theoretically it would be possible to build controls to individually vary the intensity of each color bank of LEDs, so that you could completely control the color produced by the lamp. It seems like a good idea to use a Fresnel lens to spread the light from the highly directional LEDs. I have almost all of the parts for this project, but it's going to take a long time to solder an array of 300 LEDs.

OBD-II HUD	This project is an offshoot of the RaceGuage digital dash display. The HUD project involves installing a heads-up-display in a late model car and designing a computer to interface with the OBD-II (On Board Diagnostic) computer found in all 1998+ cars. An interface with this car computer will allow the HUD to be customized to display many different engine parameters, including fuel injector duty cycle, percent power, throttle position, and more.
Jet Powered Go-Kart	I recently became interested in jet engines, and researched information and projects on the web related to jets for about a week. I discovered that surplus jet engines may be purchased for around $2000-$4000 that can provide around 100 lbs thrust or 80 shaft horsepower with a power-weight ratio of 1hp/1lb weight. So I thought, why not strap one of these on a go-kart? That would be fun.
LED Lamp	The idea behind this project is to build an array of red, green, and blue high intensity LEDs. Theoretically it would be possible to build controls to individually vary the intensity of each color bank of LEDs, so that you could completely control the color produced by the lamp. It seems like a good idea to use a Fresnel lens to spread the light from the highly directional LEDs. I have almost all of the parts for this project, but it's going to take a long time to solder an array of 300 LEDs.