My arduino gauge project

[Jubjub]

Just started tinkering and though a good first project would be to get more instrumentation for my 91' e350 based RV.

First thing was fuel pressure. I was going to do pre and post filter to see when it needed to be changed, but i'll only have 5 inputs with this design so i think i'll just do a post filter measurement.

Next will be transmission temp for the E4OD. Someone installed a remote cooler in front of the radiator, so it will be easy to tap into that. Id like to take the temp before the cooler, but don't know which direction the fluid travels. Does anyone know how it flows to the radiator? I can always remove a pipe and start it, but would like a less messy method.

I'd like to have a tach too. Do the vans have a tach sensor anywhere or was that removed with the tachometer? I can always add a hall effect sensor for that

Anything else I should try to add? The instrument cluster seems to be good enough for water and oil.

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[onetonjohn]

You writing code to monitor sensors and produce the LED output? If so, pretty cool project.

 

[BeastMaster]

You have a tach sensor for the E4OD.

You need an LM1815

www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm1815.pdf

To interface to the VR sensor.

Probably want to feed it to an interrupt.

Upon interrupt, increment. C++ unsigned int and return.

Main program have 5Hz or so timing loop.

Keep reading tach count in loop, looking for difference new-old. Take advantage of 2s complement math, as it removes the rollover condition.

I can't do much code on this phone...autocorrect is driving me nuts.

 

[dgr]

Water and oil on the dash are crap. Just so you know.

 

[Jubjub]

You writing code to monitor sensors and produce the LED output? If so, pretty cool project.

Yes, right now it is just a simple 16 character 2 line LCD display, but i'd like to use a higher resolution touchscreen lcd later so it can have graphs and gauges

You have a tach sensor for the E4OD.

You need an LM1815

www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm1815.pdf

To interface to the VR sensor.

Probably want to feed it to an interrupt.

Upon interrupt, increment. C++ unsigned int and return.

Main program have 5Hz or so timing loop.

Keep reading tach count in loop, looking for difference new-old. Take advantage of 2s complement math, as it removes the rollover condition.

I can't do much code on this phone...autocorrect is driving me nuts.

Woosh, that went over my head. Gotta lot more reading and learning to do. So looks like a variable reluctance sensor is similar to hall effect? The E4OD uses that signal to? determine when to shift?

Water and oil on the dash are crap. Just so you know.

Well, good to know. I'm new to the idi so i don't know all of its quirks. The sensor at the back of the engine by the bell housing pointing straight up looks to be oil pressure?

 

[dgr]

Ford sensors are crap. LoL. I'd hazard most oem sensors are similar. I had an infinity that I blew the head gasket on. One minute it was normal temp. Next it was pegged. Turns out it's also more of a switch. But to be clear, my statement is about the Ford

To be fair, my issue is with the temp gauge. I have an aftermarket temp above the oil cooler header. Probably the warmest spot on the engine. I can watch it go from 190 to 210 while driving. The factory gauge just sort of hangs out around the RM.

Read the resistance on that factory pressure sensor cold and hot, low revs and high. Older Ford's used an actual pressure sensor and not a multistep switch.

 

[Christian9112]

if you make an 8 channel egt gauge, ill buy the code from you

 

[BeastMaster]

The VR sensor is little more than a coil of wire on a magnetic rod, biased by a permanent magnet on one end, the other end looks at things like passing gear teeth. It's a very robust and simple sensor. Think of it as just the secondary winding of a transformer.

It's only sensitive to things changing while the hall effect, also a magnetic sensor, works all the way down to DC.

A VR sensor makes a great speed sensor, but makes a lousy compass, that is unless you wanna get crafty and use magnetic bias and saturation nonlinearities.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

The sensor at the back of the engine by the bell housing pointing straight up looks to be oil pressure?

Yes it is oil pressure.

 

[ifrythings]

Im doing the same thing your trying to do though I’m going to be monitoring a lot more things and I’m working on getting a layout figured out for a 3.5” lcd as the character display is just to blah for my liking. I may use 9 separate oled displays instead of the lcd for better daylight viewing.

This is using ford sensors,

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Version 1 still on the 3D printer

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Version 2 made out of abs on the 3D printer

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Oled display that I may use

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Look up the chip below, it’s a 8 channel in to 1 channel output analog switch, these are cheap and allow you to expand your ADC inputs.
MC74HC4851A

 

[bbjordan]

Subscribed.

 

[onetonjohn]

Yes, right now it is just a simple 16 character 2 line LCD display, but i'd like to use a higher resolution touchscreen lcd later so it can have graphs and gauges



Woosh, that went over my head. Gotta lot more reading and learning to do. So looks like a variable reluctance sensor is similar to hall effect? The E4OD uses that signal to? determine when to shift?



Well, good to know. I'm new to the idi so i don't know all of its quirks. The sensor at the back of the engine by the bell housing pointing straight up looks to be oil pressure?

I think the LM1815 just helps put the output from the tach sensor (on the timing cover) usable to your micro controller. This solution is pretty clever. You could use a ADC, and look for min/max, but this device does it for you. You may need to count the number of teeth and do some math to translate between the number of pulses at the sensor and engine RPM.

I like the idea of virtual gauges on a touch screen. I"ve got a bull nose and not a lot of space to put all the gauges I want into/around the dash and make it look clean. I could start one more project... Or if someone else came up with something that fit that was robust and good quality- I could just buy it.

 

[Therkhan7_3Turbo]

Im doing the same thing your trying to do though I’m going to be monitoring a lot more things and I’m working on getting a layout figured out for a 3.5” lcd as the character display is just to blah for my liking. I may use 9 separate oled displays instead of the lcd for better daylight viewing.

This is using ford sensors,

You must be registered for see images attach

Version 1 still on the 3D printer

You must be registered for see images attach

Version 2 made out of abs on the 3D printer

You must be registered for see images attach

Oled display that I may use

You must be registered for see images attach

Look up the chip below, it’s a 8 channel in to 1 channel output analog switch, these are cheap and allow you to expand your ADC inputs.
MC74HC4851A

You sir have probably started a sequence of me being put in the dog house for a couple days... I'm extremely interested in making something similar, I always used Torque Pro on my Dodge because it worked so well, and the sensors actually read correctly, the gauges are just dummy, so it worked perfectly for me. I've got lots of reading and stuff to do now.

I'm curious what you're using for IAT? GM sensor? Figure it's probably the cheapest.

 

[Macrobb]

As someone who used a LM1815 - see here: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1246137-complete-guide-accurate-custom-digital-tach.html

I think I would put a digital divider after it and before the arduino - a divide by 64 or so would work. Something to reduce the frequency of the pulses to make it less work on the interrupt so it can do more.
I also found that I had to average the last 10 samples or so together to get a smooth enough signal out.

Another idea would be to get a frequency to voltage converter chip, then use the ADC to get instantaneous speed when you want to poll it.
You could also add a capacitor for smoothing here.

 

[ifrythings]

You sir have probably started a sequence of me being put in the dog house for a couple days... I'm extremely interested in making something similar, I always used Torque Pro on my Dodge because it worked so well, and the sensors actually read correctly, the gauges are just dummy, so it worked perfectly for me. I've got lots of reading and stuff to do now.

I'm curious what you're using for IAT? GM sensor? Figure it's probably the cheapest.

I’m using all ford sensors expect for the oil pressure sensor, reason for using the ford sensors is they haven’t changed the sensor element since they started using it, this comes in very handy as one can just tap off the E4OD tot line and get the trans temp right at the solenoid body and read any of the other ford temp sensors exactly the same.

The temp sensors are all 3/8” npt, I use one lookup table for all the temp sensors and another one for the egt sensor, pressure sensors are all exhaust back pressure sensors off of 7.3, 6.0, 6.4, and 6.7 trucks, they are absolute pressure sensors and read vacuum to 54 psi. The oil pressure sensor is off a 2011 Chevy truck as it goes up to 120psi and is the only one with 1/4” npt thread as all the other ones are metric orb.

Here’s the EGT sensor graph form a 6.4L

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And the temp sensors graph

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