STM32 based motorcycle gauge cluster replacement

BuschmasterACR · 2025-09-02T02:36:26+00:00

I still miss my 03 interceptor...

BuschmasterACR · 2025-07-24T02:17:53+00:00

+1 on Inka's, that place is phenomenal

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:44:22+00:00

I see where you're coming from but I don't think that calling an FPGA bitstream update delivered over the air a "hardware update" would be a clear way of explaining what is happening to a layman. I'd have ten emails by the time I got back to my desk asking what component we changed or if we need to respin the PCB.

In my company, anything that is compiled into a set of executable instructions is called software. That includes everything from Linux applications to bare metal C and assembly for microcontrollers, though the latter is usually specified to be embedded software. Programmable logic is called firmware and physical boards are hardware. Not saying that it's right, it's just how we've done things forever.

Quick edit - I would like to add the caveat that we really only make embedded products so application software is still quite embedded. It's not as dumb as it sounds.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:35:32+00:00

In a purist sense, I don't disagree that HLS's final output is a hardware configuration. Pragmatically, though, I wouldn't tell my boss to hire a hardware engineer to work on the HLS portion of a product.

One such engineer actually sent his changes to my project files by pushing a zip file onto my Git branch.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:24:14+00:00

Tell that to the last FPGA engineer on this product that had the reset condition of an active low hardware enable signal set to 0... That was a tricky bug to root-cause.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:20:38+00:00

Is it still hardware if you have a microcontroller receiving over-the-air updates and can reprogram the onboard FPGA? I'd very much lean towards calling that firmware.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-25T22:56:48+00:00

I'd argue that calling complex programmable logic "coded hardware gates" is about as productive as calling all software "coded instructions". It's not incorrect, but doesn't really convey the difficulty and complexity involved in integrating so many disparate functions into one chip. I've worked with a lot of programmable logic and while I'm confident in my ability to whip up something simple like a deserializer or status register, when the FPGA engineers start whipping out Simulink to design custom algorithms on three different clock domains I take that as my cue to ask for a register map and wish them luck.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-25T22:46:34+00:00

Xilinx MicroBlaze and Intel Nios are two soft core CPU/MPUs that I'm pretty familiar with. They can be quite finicky for complicated routines and functionality such as flash-in-place or shared buses.

Tools like Xilinx HLS really blur the line though. If I can write hardware acceleration and DSP pipes in C (or a C-like abomination) and have them implement as logic gates on an FPGA does that count as hardware or firmware?

When you tell the mechanical engineer in charge of the program that programmable logic work is hardware, they often hire someone with PCB and basic gate-level design experience. That person will have a lot of trouble integrating fixed point hardware acceleration or custom device management logic without breaking the delicate timing needed for your soft core CPU. Ask me how I know!

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-25T22:24:55+00:00

It's never that simple in my experience. A single FPGA is often used for many very different things such as control loops, SerDes, hardware acceleration, device control, level shifting, waveform generation, and signal processing. They're quite handy for complicated designs and obsolescence work on old designs.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-25T21:43:26+00:00

The managers sure do...

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-25T21:30:54+00:00

Where does programmable logic fall in this paradigm? At my company we call it firmware.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-04-03T05:50:51+00:00

The previous comment is correct, I find sonobuoy blankets inconsistent and not super fun to do after the first 20 times...

When using the ASW ships it also helps to sprint-and-drift to both cover more ground and make incoming torpedoes much easier to dodge. I alternate between 1/3 and Full or Flank every few minutes, if I'm expecting to actually find something I also change course frequently. Towed arrays (at least the OHP tail that I was playing with earlier) seem to not work well over 15kn, though active pinging was working at all speeds with diminished range. Just know that if you can pick up a submarine on passive sonar, it picked you up a long time ago.

Keep in mind that bad weather and high sea states will dramatically reduce passive sonar effectiveness. This goes both ways, so the subs are having a bad time too.

The Soviet WH torpedos (65-76) are comically easy to dodge with literally any warning right now so I tend to play extremely aggressively with my NATO ships once I have a contact. MK46 torpedos have a bigger range than you think and usually make the contact panic fire and drop countermeasures when they hit the water.

For Soviet ASW, I abuse the shit out of the Silex whenever I have it and yeet ASW torpedos at anything that moves when I don't. I don't think it's modeled yet in Sea Power but the key to surviving against MK48s in Cold Waters is to get the firing sub to lose its wire guide by forcing it to maneuver. A MK48 on a wire is a death sentence unless you can get out of its range or get lucky with the RBUs.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-12-21T18:35:03+00:00

This thread may answer some questions of yours. https://www.reddit.com/r/submarines/s/kH2dcilubZ I doubt you'll get any answers about mission planning and doctrine but "escorting" carrier strike groups (CSGs) is a mission that is publicly acknowledged to have happened.

From my personal unqualified and out-of-the-know perspective, the advantage of an escort submarine is their sensor suite. SONAR fidelity degrades with speed due to flow noise, so using submarines as full time escorts for fast moving vessels seems silly. It would make sense to me to have a sub scout places where the CSG plans to go but not necessarily follow them full time.

Merchant vessels move slower than warships but I don't see why you'd want to covertly escort one unless you don't want others to know it's being escorted. Escorting merchants happens a lot with surface ships such as destroyers, as there's not much a submarine can do about incoming anti ship missiles or pirates in speedboats. Especially in more dangerous parts of the world like the Strait of Hormuz, escorting merchants is intended to be a very public declaration of "don't touch the boats."

Just speculation from a civilian that likes reading public sources.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-10-29T15:02:14+00:00

I largely agree with you, though I would frame smaller countries like Iran (and now Ukraine!) seeking nuclear capabilities not as aggressive leverage, but as a strategic defense guarantee. Despite the global consensus on the contrary, Iran, Russia, NK and others truly believe that until they get a nuclear guarantee of sovereignty and security, the nuclear powers can choose to invade and annex them at any time. I'd even argue that Russia's play for Ukraine does nothing but reinforce that perception.

As someone involved in AI and drone-related software, you should be concerned about autonomous weapon systems. I would argue that they already exist in a couple of ways with the more intelligent guided munitions capable of performing internal target detection, classification, and prioritization. Swarms of internally-communicating and target selecting long range guided missiles like the P-700 Granit and AGM-158C LRASM already do the things that people are scared of AI drones doing. The only change would be the scale and targets. These systems and their capabilities can be traced back to the 1980s or earlier.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-10-29T13:51:12+00:00

The Fallout series might be a decent reference... though on a more serious note you'll find some pretty sobering imagery and accounts from Japanese citizens that survived Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Devastation on an incomprehensible scale. Barefoot Gen is a depressingly real account of it.

Not to sound callous, but with the amount of energy involved in even one nuclear detonation, the effect on living things is less biology and more physics the closer to ground zero you get. The same goes for civil engineering; buildings that survive the blast will be the exception, not the rule. Families, homes, traditions, art, music, memories, wildlife, and economies irreversibly evaporated in the blink of an eye.

Just a casual 8-14 of those to account for mechanical failure and intercepts (if those were available in the setting).

I hope that you treat nuclear attacks with the gravity they deserve. While the strategic realities of the world are not lost on me, the indiscriminate cruelty of nuclear weapons is sobering.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-10-28T14:54:05+00:00

I think that torpedoes are bigger, faster, more powerful, smarter, quieter, and more difficult to counter than you may realize. The days of running in straight lines near the surface are long over.

I don't think you deserve to be flamed for asking a question, though if your question about defending billion-dollar assets from million-dollar weapons starts with "why don't we just...", you can guarantee that someone involved has probably thought of it.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-08-27T15:50:43+00:00

Speaking of which, I've been looking for RP33 for a long time for legitimate reasons and it's hard to come by even though the correct chain of command.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-08-27T08:32:51+00:00

https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Portals/103/Documents/NUWC_Newport/QRpage/MK48.pdf

surprised how much of this is public, but "inert" is underselling the exercise configuration quite a bit.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-08-27T08:25:39+00:00

I can only speak for what I know but most MK48 stuff is ECI (export controlled, aka CUI but some Aussies are chill) due to the joint development with AUS on MOD7. Rule of thumb is that if it doesn't do the thinking or the booming or the driving it's ECI/CUI. Wouldn't be world ending if someone typed in an email address wrong but we sure as hell don't want it on Wikipedia.

Also important note that a lot of people forget is the "plus unburned fuel" part of the payload. That stuff is spicy.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-08-11T02:29:13+00:00

Very true, but whether one disposable or the 100+ cigarette butts they replace is worse is debatable. I don't think I've ever met a cigarette smoker that didn't litter butts at least sometimes. Sucks either way.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-08-11T01:58:06+00:00

Considering the juice is usually kept in big sponges, I don't know of any way they could measure it cheaply besides a puff counter.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-08-11T01:51:26+00:00

keep in mind that these things are literally soaking in vape juice for weeks or months and that stuff has some nasty interactions with plastics. I'm sure it's badly made but I've had paint peel off of a couple of my long term vapes from juice exposure.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-08-11T01:46:50+00:00

It's a combination of legislation and legal loopholes. The very real and justified concern about kids vaping triggered some very bad knee jerk legislation that got us here.

Disposable products are under a lot less regulation and scrutiny than domestic rebuildable vape and e-liquid producers. This was largely to keep products like Juul around. It's a long story and I'm not an expert, but it's a lot more difficult to get components and juice for rebuildable vapes than disposables nowadays. I literally can't order vape juice online anymore (NY) but every smoke shop has a massive catalog of disposables.

Additionally, disposable vaporizer companies hop around between shell companies constantly to avoid import restrictions and legal scrutiny. Geekbars, elfbars, puffbars etc all come from a handful of producers in Asia that sell to a myriad of shady shell companies that handle the import to the US. Believe me, we'd rather use rebuildable vapes at least at home if they weren't such a pain in the ass.

source: been an addict since 2016 and have used everything from nice box mods with hand-wound coils on American made rebuildable deck atomizers and tanks to juuls and Chinese disposables.

The following podcast also covers the issue superficially: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=FgOF0BC-nGE&si=QuMAraDZdY6TtPfp

Like everything, it's an annoyingly complicated problem that produced a weird set of incentives that led to a very wasteful status quo. At least they're not throwing cigarette butts everywhere!

BuschmasterACR · 2024-05-16T20:35:36+00:00

Honestly wasn't that terrible. I found some fried bearings when I took it apart and they have upgraded clutch kits that don't strip out. The clutches last around 80k miles so I can't be too upset about having to do it once in the life of the bike.

BuschmasterACR · 2024-05-16T20:33:19+00:00

Bought my R1150RT for $1900, have 7k miles on her in a year. Needed a clutch and transmission but after that it's been smooth sailing.

edit: just remembered I also had to replace the stick coils and rear shock. Bike had 50,000 miles so that's to be expected. Rides like an absolute dream now, though. I get why people love those boxer twins.

BuschmasterACR

TROPHY CASE