This is my first project and I have taken an interest in using PIC microcontrollers. I have been doing alot of research and reading of texts and pdfs, currently reading 'Embedded Design with the PIC18F452 by John B. Peatman' which I am following really well.

The first goal in my project is to simply display the speed of the motorbike on an LCD (like on newer models motorbikes), though I am not sure how I should take my readings. Should I take the approach of putting those magnetic sensors on the forks and wheel to measure the rotational speed or would there already be a wire in the instrument panel powering the existing analog speedo that I could read voltage levels from that correspond to different speeds, if so is there an easy way to find it... I have a Honda VTR1000F '98 model and a Kawasaki GPX250R '91 model, so if anyone is familiar with the speedo electrics of these or similar bikes or could inform me of any links on the subject i would be grateful.

I first considered using a PIC16F877 which I first got familiar with reading its datasheets etc as it has a/d converter, and recently i have been reading books on the PIC18F452 (which I will probably use because it has a larger instruction set and i've become familiar with how it works, even though i probably won't make use of half its functionality at the moment.)

I will be coding in assembly language because I want to master the operations of the microcontroller, when I get more proficient I will consider using C or Basic.

I will keep you all posted on my progress.
Any advice, links, or whatever will be much appreciated.

 

EPE Magazine did a project for this, back in 1997, using a 16C84, you can download the software from ftp://ftp.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/pub/PICS/PICagoras/.

Here is the text file from the download.

I should have the magazine somewhere!.

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Thanks very much for that link, i am pleased to see it done in asm!
I'll be going through it over the next few days and i'll be checking that magazine out.
It will be interesting to see how i go, I'll keep you informed.

 

Im currently doing a project like yours now using a motorola microcontroller. The ASM is fairly easy, you shouldnt have a problem locating informatoin on the syntax.

Regarding where you will get your RPM data, you must first see if there is an electric speedometer or the old cable driven speedos. I ride street bikes and dont know too much about the innards of the dirt bike. In my project i am using the voltage from the AC generator of a cars transmission. As the transmission rotates, the AC voltage increases producing more voltage which inturn increases the speedo/Tach. Im tapping off that signal then sending it trough an A/D converter to use the binary for the micrcontroller. The rest is all in the programing..

Good Luck!!