|
|
|
Sept 17, 2011 15:28:54 GMT
|
Got a parcel last night with some electronic bits and pieces in and been playing around for about 2 hours this afternoon:  I like messing around with this sort of stuff, can be great fun. Only have one spare potentiometer at the moment though, so AFR and Oil T were sharing the same input channel Plan is to one day get round to putting it on the car. Screen will be 20x4 (instead of 16x2) and be mounted somewhere subtle where it won't be noticed when the ignition isn't on. Bosch temp sensors (with correct ohm vs degree curve), wideband lambda with a 0-5v analogue output- saves having a horrible tacky modern AFR gauge. etc etc Can also be used to control an Electric Waterpump, the heater fan, etc etc. Could even put a stepper motor on the carb on ditch the throttle cable! Best make sure the car is water tight first though 'ey....! |
| |
|
|
|
|
Lopez
East Midlands
Posts: 867
|
|
Sept 17, 2011 17:10:51 GMT
|
|
Is that a VFD or an LCD? Love to see a full writeup on something like this.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 17, 2011 17:16:37 GMT
|
|
It's an LCD. A very cheapo rubbish one at that.
The plan is to get a basic model working/get all the coding done and circuit design, before buying a bigger microprocessor and a better screen. The present screen is very cheap and as such, would not be any good for monitoring AFR/boost. It's way too slow but hopefully when I'm ready I can buy a semi-decent one (for not too much cash) and it will perform much better!
There's not much to write up yet, but I shall do eventually
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 17, 2011 21:03:58 GMT
|
|
If you're into this sort of thing then why not go for megasquirt. Then you can get a laptop connected to it when you want to see what's going on.
I've got something a bit like the megasquirt except it was professionally manufactured (and sold as such for the right price too)
I can't see the point in trying to reinvent the wheel.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 18, 2011 0:13:53 GMT
|
|
^ because sometimes it's fun to tinker with random stuff out of interest....
Certainly the reason I play with cars in general... I'm not the first person to put a straight 6 in a cav and I won't be the last; if I wanted to be original I'd try to get it to run on crisps or something daft but I am more than happy "reinventing the wheel" so to speak.
|
| |
- '80 Mk1 Vauxhall Cavalier Saloon, 3.0l 12v... in progress with some special plans ahead
- '94 106 Rallye, Endurance Rally Car
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 18, 2011 10:29:29 GMT
|
|
Plus they are two entirely different things. I.m not looking for fuel injection,i.m looking for a method of displaying important data on screen! For about one tenth of the cost too. Megasquirt involves no design, it's already done. For this i have to design and write the software myself, its not exactly reinventing the wheel, because not many hillman imps have lcd screens!
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 18, 2011 11:29:36 GMT
|
|
Can I ask what PIC and screen driver you are using? I'm looking at designing a digital dashboard for a university project.
ta
|
| |
I've got Rovers.
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 18, 2011 12:38:39 GMT
|
|
It's an arduino check em out, they're awesome
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 18, 2011 13:47:20 GMT
|
Cool, I'd not really looked at anything other than Microchip, cheers  |
| |
I've got Rovers.
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 18, 2011 14:01:59 GMT
|
It's an arduino check em out, they're awesome Word. They are a DEAD simple way into MC programming. Some people are snobbish, but truely for 95% of peoples use, they are GR8. When you get the thing designed with the arduino board and working as a prototype, you can then just buy £4 of parts to use in the final product, solder it all up and reuse the arduino board elsewhere. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 19, 2011 10:48:22 GMT
|
arduino is/are awesome  that is all |
| |
78 Kadett C 2.0 8 valve turbo, holset, rust&other stuff..
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 20, 2011 2:55:03 GMT
|
Made some more progress, Basically I've changed the way the screen selection works and instead of polling for a button press it now works on an interrupt. I've also changed the way the screens are referenced so that I can have more than 2! Finally, started exploring PWM outputs etc, so that I can get a big fat transistor and consider using it all as an electric waterpump controller, should I decide to ditch the mechanical one!  |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 25, 2011 10:53:07 GMT
|
which arduino are you using? Just a tip when you get going with PWM - there are 2 or 3 different PWM frequencies depending on which output pins you use. They are divided down from the 16mhz base clock, i think the fastest one is 32khz or something. I was driving a 4 amp motor though a transistor H-bridge, and the lower frequency outputs were making it sing like a CNC mill  , i though my arduino was broken! Anyway, hope it helps btw water pump controller is an amazing idea! just make sure the pump uses a brushless motor, because pwm can be hard on brushes apparently |
| |
78 Kadett C 2.0 8 valve turbo, holset, rust&other stuff..
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 26, 2011 14:33:46 GMT
|
|
Cheers for the heads up dude. To be honest, the controller was more just to familiarise myself with the concept of PWMs, I don't think I'm actually going to bother with an elec water pump in all honesty haha!
The arduino is a duemanilove (sp??) that i got from ebay... from hong kong, with screen, breadboard an a ton of components... £25 can't go wrong!
Once I've actually decided what I intend to do with it/once it's finished I might need a mega. Just depends how far I end up going with it really! For the time being I might just leave it as it is...
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 27, 2011 13:22:53 GMT
|
ahh, i think i bought that exact same kit too some months ago A mega is the way to go when you need more inputs/outputs, but then you start running out of processing power if you need that many! Well, I do because my code isn't amazing, lol I still don't get Interrupts. Sounds just like what I need! Can it break a loop instead of checking the state of an input each loop? Or is it something different? |
| |
78 Kadett C 2.0 8 valve turbo, holset, rust&other stuff..
|
|
, i though my arduino was broken!