Contents

1. Quick Start for experts
2. Install Files
3. Configuration Files Overview
4. First Time Boot
5. Changing the Page File
6. Next Steps

The software runs a demo when it first boots up. See the configuration changes below to enable live data.

Quick Start for experts

• Format an SD Card to FAT32 so it’s completely blank with a single partition.
• Extract all of the files from the download onto the card, retaining directory structure
• Configure the WIFI
• Safely eject and insert the card into your Pi
• Connect an HDMI screen
• Boot the Pi and SDC will start in demo mode

Once you have got that done,

• Install the desktop tools to allow for screen editing

The pagesets shipped with SDC are ‘demo’ pagesets and when used will put SDC into a demo mode where it operates a carousel that changes the displayed page every few seconds. When in demo mode, there is no restriction on the number of pages that can be displayed. However, when demo mode is disabled (by loading a pageset that you created yourself) the number of pages you can have is dictated by your license. The free license allows for one page, which is combined with the always page.

When you connect SDC Tools’ Screen Editor to the device and it is running in demo mode, the carousel will stop. This allows you to examine how the pages are constructed and to run the tutorials that are shipped with the software.

Install Files

To install the software you will need a blank SD card formatted to FAT32.

If you format an SD Card under Windows, it might choose NTFS as the default file system. Make sure you use the FAT32 file system format otherwise the Raspberry Pi won’t recognise it.

Make sure you completely reformat the card i.e. remove all partitions and reformat it as FAT32 with a single partition. There are various ways to do this depending on whether you are on Windows or Linux. But a consistent method on both is to install the Pi Imager application from https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ and choose “Erase” as the operating system.

Take the zip file you downloaded (see the download section for links), and extract all of the files into the root of the SD card. Make sure you retain any folder structure that is present in the zip file.

The basic configuration is set up to enable the software to boot straight away in a demonstration mode, which cycles through several displays. However you may have to dive in to the configuration if you don’t see anything on the display. This is because some displays require custom settings to be applied to the Pi’s boot configuration. This is nothing to do with SDC; it’s a Raspberry Pi thing.

In any case, the first thing to do is to connect a display to your Pi and power it up. If no boot configuration changes are needed then after a couple of seconds you should see the SDC boot logo and then shortly after you will see the cluster screen appear. You may not see the boot logo if your screen takes a few seconds to initialise; booting a basic cluster is pretty quick.

If you get the ‘rainbow’ boot screen this is the Raspberry Pi firmware telling you something is wrong with your boot configuration.

Configuration Files Overview

There are several configuration files that may need to be altered depending upon what you are trying to achieve. These are as follows:

• cmdline.txt - this is found in the /kernel directory of the SD card. It contains some configuration specific to the boot configuration of the Raspberry Pi. However, there are also some SDC specific extensions that can be added. You would not normally need to edit this file.
• config.txt - this is found in the root directory of the SD card. It contains information for booting the Raspberry Pi. This is where you would enter details about your monitor configuration if it is not automatically recognised by the Pi.
• sdc.ini - this is the application configuration file, and is in the root directory of the SD card. It defines what the cluster configuration file is, what mode the software will run in, and whether any of the optional features are to be enabled such as GPS or data-logging. Plus a whole host of other settings
• an xml file (the name is your choice but the default is pages.xml). This file contains the page definitions for the application, which determine the layout of the cluster pages and the navigation between them (where an input device of some sort of is available).

The SDC.ini file and the config.txt files can be edited without removing the SD card if you have a device with onboard WIFI and install the SDC tools (you will need these to edit the displays anyway). If you do not have the tools installed yet then you will need to remove the SD card from the device and put it in your PC’s SD card slot in order to edit these files.

First Time Boot

The initial installation is configured to run a demonstration by playing back a previously recorded datalog. The demonstration is approximately 10 minutes long and will loop forever, until you remove the power or shut down the device using the console. You may be interested to see that during the demonstration, if datalogging is enabled the software will actually produce datalogs of the datalog it is replaying! Each time the software restarts the demonstration, a new log file will be started. Datalogging is disabled by default as it requires a controlled shutdown module to be included in your installation.

To change the installation from demonstration mode to a mode where you can get data from a real ECU, there are two approaches:

1. Use the SDC Tools to edit the file. This has an inbuilt editor which will allow you to edit the ini file without removing the SD card from your device.
2. Make edits to the sdc.ini by removing the SD card from the device and plugging it into your PC.

In both cases, the changes are the same with the exception of the page file configuration which can be set from a pick list in the screen editor in the SDC tools application.

To get data from a real ECU, find the [datasource] section in the sdc.ini file. You will see a line that looks like this;

[datasource]
datamode=playback

Change it so that it reads

[dataource]
datamode=serial

There will be other lines in this section. You can just leave those alone.

You can add comments to the ini file using a semicolon like this:

[datasource]
;datamode=playback
;the datamode that will be used is serial because the playback one is commented out.
datamode=serial

This enables you to swap between configuration lines without having to retype everything.

Once you have changed the datamode to serial, reboot the device. This time there will be no data showing until you connect an ECU to your Pi using the instructions in the Hardware Installation section.

Changing the Page File

The best way to change the page file is to use the Screen Editor but if you do not have WIFI access then you will need to use the manual process below.

The demonstration ships with multiple page files. The included files are intended to demonstrate how pages are constructed and to cover a couple of different screen sizes. You will likely want to design pages that suit your own needs once you get the screen editor up and running.

To change the page file manually:

1. Turn off the Pi
2. Remove the SD card and put it back into your PC
3. Edit the file sdc.ini in a text editor
4. Look for the [pages] section and you will see a line like this:

   [pages]
   pagefile=c:\pagesxml\demo1.xml
   ;pagefile=c:\pagesxml\widecluster.xml
   ;pagefile=c:\pagesxml\tutorial.xml
   

5. Change it so it looks like this:

   [pages]
   ;pagefile=c:\pagesxml\demo1.xml
   pagefile=c:\pagesxml\widecluster.xml
   ;pagefile=c:\pagesxml\tutorial.xml
   

   i.e. move the semicolon from one line the other. You have now made “widecluster.xml” the current page configuration.

6. Eject the SD card safely, put it back into the pi, apply the power, and you should now see a completely different page. If you want to see data on this page but don’t yet have a data feed connected, then you can set the datamode back to playback.

Next Steps

Once you have a basic system up and running, you can start to look at configuring your display using the screen editor. To do this you will need to set up WIFI first (or connect your Pi to a Wired network if it supports that). See the links in the quick start section at the beginning of this page.