My latest electronic project

[alexturner]

Hey Guys,

To those who follow the stupid things I do and take an interest in them - here's my latest update.

So for the last 200litres of fuel I've been chugging around town on straight vegetable oil and I'm loving the freedom. The ability to drive up to a restaurant and take used cooking oil from them (free of charge) and run my car on that is an amazing feeling.

So in that department all is well and good. On the other hand I am truly amazed as to how Lucas were allowed to develop the electrics to so many english cars (Left Us Cold And Stranded). On my last trip in the span of two days I lost dash electrics, brake lights, indicators, and windscreen wipers. And of course new fuses didn't rectify the issue so I've decided to pull every wire from the car and start from scratch.

Now that I have given myself the opportunity to start from scratch I thought I'd do things right, the way a german manufacturer would do it. So I'm developing a computer system, that will monitor and control various components of the car and I am oh-so-excited about it.

Overhead the drivers-side will mount a console (in an attempt to make my dash-board a cockpit) with many switches and a 4" touch screen display. The touch screen will be driven by a programmable IC (Arudino Powered) that will run my own software. From this touch screen I will be able to monitor my: Speed (GPS), Air Temp, Co-Ords, Heading, 4 Veggy Temp readings, Veggy-oil valve states (my landing gear indicators), Flow rates (l/100 as well), engine oil temp, engine oil pressure, gearbox temp, differential temps (f and r), T-box temp, veggy-oil filter pressures, tank contents and temperatures will be displayed on their very own backlit display, and there will be a very pretty screen that will display both battery's voltage current draw and remaining power (in hours based on instantaneous current draw).

I'm really quite excited about this one and I had to share it somewhere with someone. At the moment I'm all ready to go - the only thing holding me back is the cash (which is coming :) )

I'll keep you guys posted and hopefully I'll have something impressive in my car in the next few weeks.

Alex

[superquag]

Now that I have given myself the opportunity to start from scratch I thought I'd do things right, the way a german manufacturer would do it...........

So I'm developing a computer system, that will monitor and control various components of the car and I am oh-so-excited about it.



If you're running straight WVO, then why not stick with that level of technology and re-wire your car properly, with each circuit totally independant of every other one.... NOT the way Germans do it, with incredible complexity and its attendant unreliability. - My experience with German "Uber-Techno" printing/pre-press equipment.....

But like the overkill monitoring ! :p:p:p - Should look pretty good.

Cheers and Good Luck !

[alittlebitconcerned]

Good luck with the project. eBay have some larger but pretty cheap flip down touch screens that would work with what you want to do. If you decide to add gps or reverse camera latter you could use the same screen.
If dollars are no option the ducks are the touch screens from xenarc.

Much respect on the vege oil!

[Basil135]

Oh, now THIS I gotta see :D

I LOVE electronic overkill.... SWMBO doesn't. :mad:

To give you some idea, evidently setting up the lounge room to resemble the flight deck of the USS Enterprise is NOT an option... :eek:

[Bigbjorn]

And to think I bought a County-Isuzu to get away from excessive automotive electronics, their attendant unreliability, and propensity for instantaneous catastrophic failure, usually at the worst possible time and place.

[isuzutoo-eh]

And to think I bought a County-Isuzu to get away from excessive automotive electronics, their attendant unreliability, and propensity for instantaneous catastrophic failure, usually at the worst possible time and place.

I was thinking the same, but more power to your arm Alex! Just make sure every system can be made redundant/bypassed in case of failures and you'll be peachy!

[alexturner]

Well said Mark. Every critical function will have an override hiding somewhere. The computer system will act as an aid to display temperatures but also to alert me when something is up (pending gearbox failures). It'll mainly be there for the cool-factor which I believe will be off the charts :P

[superquag]

To give you some idea, evidently setting up the lounge room to resemble the flight deck of the USS Enterprise is NOT an option... :eek:

Why not ? :eek::eek:

[superquag]

Kool - Factor is the best reason to do something like this.... as long as you have total, hard-wired control....
Go for it !!!:p

[wrinklearthur]

but also to alert me when something is up (pending gearbox failures).

There are sensors available to monitor wear residue in gearboxes.

[rockyroad]

Oh, now THIS I gotta see :D

I LOVE electronic overkill.... SWMBO doesn't. :mad:

To give you some idea, evidently setting up the lounge room to resemble the flight deck of the USS Enterprise is NOT an option... :eek:

How awesome would it be to have one of those clear screens that illuminate with positions of incoming aircraft etc.

[goingbush]

How awesome would it be to have one of those clear screens that illuminate with positions of incoming aircraft etc.

Yeah, like this

ADD HUD OBD MPH head up display DASH CLUSTER gauge | eBay (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ADD-HUD-OBD-MPH-head-up-display-DASH-CLUSTER-gauge-/110789184301)

Plugs into your OBD socket, How long till somone gets their Nanocom reading out on the HUD

[Blknight.aus]

And to think I bought a County-Isuzu to get away from excessive automotive electronics, their attendant unreliability, and propensity for instantaneous catastrophic failure, usually at the worst possible time and place.

lets be fair about this one...

the electronics hes adding dont actually control anything, they just report on whats happening, in the event of a total electrical failure the cranks still going to turn under power he just wont have all the info on hand.

[Bigbjorn]

lets be fair about this one...

the electronics hes adding dont actually control anything, they just report on whats happening, in the event of a total electrical failure the cranks still going to turn under power he just wont have all the info on hand.

I do wonder about how these electronic things interact with each other. A mate has a Discovery that had the three amigos and as usual nothing could be found wrong with the three items. He just taped the lights over and kept operating. A couple of years later his brake lights stopped working and the problem was found to be a faulty switch. This was replaced, the stop lights resumed operation, and the three amigos went away. My Falcon ute refused to start one morning. The problem was a blown fuse in the interior light circuit.

[austastar]

My Falcon ute refused to start one morning. The problem was a blown fuse in the interior light circuit.

Hi,
Now that is just being really silly.

cheers

[seano87]

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/showthread.php?p=1588349)
My Falcon ute refused to start one morning. The problem was a blown fuse in the interior light circuit.

Hi,
Now that is just being really silly.

cheers

Holden cruze. If a brakelight blows and its an auto, you can kiss goodbye getting it out of park!

[rovercare]

Hi,
Now that is just being really silly.

cheers

Nope, that's the smartlock circuit, Brian is correct, falcon no go without interior light circuit

[wrinklearthur]

I do wonder about how these electronic things interact with each other. My Falcon ute refused to start one morning. The problem was a blown fuse in the interior light circuit.

A lack of continuity! meter reveals open circuit!

Yesterdays job for me was to make a EFI 3.9 V8 Auto Disco run for Graham. The budget allowed for five hours work, armed with the multimeter, faults found were.

Loose non-standard wiring inside the dash, that had been powering something since removed, had shorted out, removed this wire altogether.

Blown 60amp link in fuse box under bonnet, found using the voltage reading mode on the multimeter, the fusible link was robbed from Fred ( Fred is a disco that's now the laughing point of friends of wrinklearthur, :Rolling: but that is another story. )

Tried to start, the auto selector is way out of whack,( lots of adjustment required, ) found the spot to use is between R and N. :eek:

Starter motor now turns over, but the engine won't start, checked for spark using the coil lead to the engine, no spark, so moved to the coil. ;)

Using the trusty multimeter again, looked for voltage at the coil - none except when the fuel pump first ran. So why was there no voltage getting from the ignition switch to the coil? :confused:

The coil on this car is mounted along side the radiator with the terminals face downwards, so fiddling around, a wire seemed to be loose underneath but out of sight, the coil was unbolted and ---- here was a wire not pushed onto its terminal. :p

Wire on, coil bolted back in place, selector in the wrong spot and tried the key.
Oh my! The engine fired, The smoke! The noise! Bits flew out from under the bonnet! and I jumped a Toyota, ( but I didn't use the meter to measure this. )

So engine runs. :thumbsup:
The bits were the failure of Graham's attempt to repair the fan blade successfully. The smoke was oil in the manifold that was left over from the donor car's demise and the noise!!!! was the unmuffled exhaust from the engine pipes.

Time spent less than a hour, using a meter. :beer:

[alexturner]

Thought I'd update this one with my progress on my 'electronic project', check out these videos :)

Arduino GPS on OziExplorer - YouTube
Diy WVO Computer - YouTube

[alexturner]

And she's coming along real nice :)

[gavinwibrow]

So - do you have time for an update on our LED bars?

[clintox]

good work mate, I just posted in the computer and IT section on needing advice on how to get my RAVE cd to work on my mac, then head to the defender section to discover you making a bloody computer for yours. Don't I feel dumb:D

I watched the green way up boys on foxtel if I didn't spend so much time on the tdi maintenance i'd look more into veggie fuel.

how do you plan on mounting this into defender

clint