Sorry for the long post, but first, here is some background. I own a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado, which has an intermittent speedometer problem. This is a known issue with this model of Silverado and spanned many of the model years. The problem seems to be a bad stepper motor, but I don’t really know.
Anyway, inspired by the Building a Digital Speedometer tutorial (http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/123), I am looking into building a secondary, GPS based speedometer. Though the tutorial’s parts list would provide all of the features necessary, it’s a big pricy and bulkier than I’m looking for. Instead, I would like experiment with the Arduino system, but need some help with my parts list.
Being that I’ve never worked with embedded hardware before, I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for, but the flexibility of the Arduino is very exciting. I’m a Linux Sys Admin with minor programming and electronic skills, so I have some of the basic knowledge that is necessary. What I would like to put together is an Arduino board, a GPS module, and a simple LCD display (text only is fine). The hardware will likely be hidden inside of the dash, so the size of that doesn’t matter, but I would like the display to be pretty small. I’m also looking to keep cost to a minimum.
My parts list so far includes an Arduino Uno, Venus GPS with SMA Connector or 66 Channel LS20031 GPS 10Hz Receiver, and a Basic 16x2 Character LCD. As far as I can tell, this can somehow be put together to do what I want, but I have a lot of questions.
First off, will the Arduino Uno be able to do what I want? Which smaller or more basic Arduinos would also be able to do it?
Second, will I be able to interface either of these GPS modules with the Arduino directly, or do I need the GPS Shield? What does the GPS Shield provide that I can’t do by interfacing them directly?
Third, can I interface the 16x2 LCD directly with the Arduino, or should I get the serial enabled model? Is there an advantage to getting the serial enabled model? Also, I like the Graphic LCD 84x48 - Nokia 5110 or Color LCD 128x128 Nokia Knock-Off, but I don’t know if they can be easily interfaced or require additional hardware.
Again, sorry for the long post, I’m an beginner.