where do we go ???

[Steve Kerswell]

Just been chatting/welding with the hill billies down the lane. Their hot rods are coming on a treat . They were commenting on all things "modified" and where do we go next. Even Zetec engines are now long in the tooth, Type 9 gearboxes are getting in short supply so pull a good price. Bike engined kits are great but fragile in the transmission area. Mazda MX5 wont last forever. BMW look like they will keep with RWD, but finding a cheap breaker for reliable use is hard. Electrics are a bit of a minefield nowadays and attract a premium price. How long before we get attacked on emissions? They say the IVA is written in stone, but already I have seen it modified. Historic vehicle stuff is under attack from various quangos. Do we hope to maintain a status quo ???

[James Doulton]

The trouble with the Raspberry Pi is that it runs Linux and takes 15-20 seconds to boot. That is about as long as you get when the lights go green, so it would be a bit of a nuisance to stall at traffic lights. I don't know whether the Pi is rated for operation below 0C. The ARM based Arduino Due (~£60) is into action in less than a second. Also Texas Instruments and STM both do cheaper ARM based boards (~£13).

My latest electronics project was to produce stabilised video and it used a Raspberry Pi 2 and a couple of arduinos. The arduinos were used to interface with a simple display, buttons, a gyro and a GPS receiver. The Pi had a video camera and was processing the video but mostly that was done off-line because even using 4 cores it was nowhere near fast enough to do it in real-time.

[Paul Sheridan]

The concept of building an ECU from scratch is rather a tall order. Of course it can be done by those who have an inkling for electronics along with a substantial idea of the complexity of engine management, along with the relevant equipment for the testing and refinement of the unit during the build, IE a perfect test engine and a Dyno .................   If any one here has all these valuable commodities, please let me know and I will let you do the final mapping on my engine  :-))))))    I fear that the reality of the subject is that the overall cost to produce an ECU will be a lot greater than units already available on the market. 

If you take the Megasquirt concept of a self build ECU which has been around for years, it is still being refined and is still not 100% relible. 

.   

[James Doulton]

So what you are saying is that it is only to be embarked on by the foolish or the arrogant. Got me on both counts!

[Steve Kerswell]

Someone invented the wheel once. Sometimes someone ( Dave and James) has to push the boundaries, good luck to them.

[Dave Adams]

when you look at the mechanical systems and how they cope building an ecu to a basic standard doesn't look too hard. the early K jetronic systems were largely mechanical with a electronic overlay. i am not looking for an ecu to compete with the latest standards or to give better than standard performance or even look after the environment, just provide a 14.7 -1 fuel air measurement and sparks at about 5 -15 degrees advance... it would amuse me to have a go.

[Paul Sheridan]

Dont get me wrong boy's, as you all know I'm all for making things bespoke like, that's part and parcel of the fun of it.  James ...... foolish, arrogant and just plain crazy, isn't that us lot to a T    ;-0

[rob saul]

you can buy both mk1 an mk2 pedal boxes off the shelf with hydraulic clutch

several sellers/makes lot to choose from so no problem there

[Steve Kerswell]

well that's me confused  :-))))

[Adrian Southgate]

Whats confused you Steve?

[Steve Kerswell]

Orange, then Apple, now raspberry. Mine would be a "cabbage" and run on turnips :-))

Ade, I need to try and understand how and why. I used to work for a guy who could control anything, he tried to teach me but I was always busy at the other end of the workshop building the machine that he would control. 1 and 0 and all that stuff. Then the brain tumour wiped out the retentive part, well, that's my excuse. Maybe I'll get a electronics set for Christmas :-))

Sorry, used the C word!

[Steve Kerswell]

Also, when I went to school and college there were no calculators, in fact at my ONC exam it was stated no clever stuff allowed to be used.  So I never had the electronic beginnings that many now have.

[James Doulton]

I got my first calculator, a Texas Instruments SR-50, just before I went to University to do Mechanical Engineering. I never could understand transistors, so electronics was out of the question, besides I loved cars and engines.

My first contact with a computer was at University and I fell in love with them there. It is a bit like doing puzzles - it is a very artificial idealistic world without friction. Modern electronics is very much more like computing because most of it is done with logic chips. Mostly you just have to connect the right pins on one thing to the corresponding ones on another, rarely do you need to know any equations, like V = I.R (now I'm showing off!).