Guide
Using the configurator
Connect a board, design what it shows, upload fonts and images, and save the result to the device.
The configurator is the desktop half of SimCore. It talks to a board over the same serial link that carries telemetry, so only one program can hold the port at a time: close SimHub before you connect, and disconnect before you drive.
Connecting
- 1Install the application from the download page and open it.
- 2Connect the board over USB and pick its port. The configurator reads the board identity and its read-only display descriptor.
- 3The current configuration is loaded from the device and previewed as the board would draw it.
Designing a dashboard
A dashboard holds up to four screens. Each screen carries widgets — text, bars, arcs, needles, graphs, images and shape containers that group other widgets. Widgets read telemetry through bindings, and conditions restyle them as values cross thresholds.
- Place widgets on the canvas, or start from one of the bundled example configurations.
- Bind a widget to a telemetry field and pick a transform: a number format, a time format or plain text.
- Add conditions to change colour, visibility or text when a value crosses a threshold.
- Set the transition between screens, and the smoothing that decides how a value moves between packets.
Fonts and images
Fonts and images are uploaded as packages into their own flash partitions and then referenced by name. Pick Google fonts from the built-in catalogue, and give a widget a fallback family when it mixes icon glyphs with numbers.
Saving to the board
Configuration is three documents — dashboard, modules and protocol — stored and validated separately. Saving writes only what changed. A dashboard or module change is applied to the running device immediately; a protocol change asks for a reboot, because it decides how the board is reached at all.
| Document | Holds | Applied |
|---|---|---|
| dashboard | Screens, widgets, bindings, conditions, assets | Immediately |
| modules | Enabled modules such as the lap timer and the LED outputs | Immediately |
| protocol | Transport selection, baud rate, telemetry protocol | After a reboot |
Firmware updates
A board that already runs SimCore is updated over the same cable: upload the update image for its board from the download page, and the new image takes over at the next restart. If it cannot finish starting up, the bootloader returns to the image it replaced.