innovative electronics

[Mi_Ko]

Hi

We will have a presentation about innovative use of electronics in FSAE. We want to let the mechatronic students know, which systems can or were made to make us drive faster and score better.
I've found out that (semi)automatic shifting, traction and launch control and data logers are very common in FSAE teams.

Can you tell me what you have made in the field of electronics and mechatronics, so I can put them into the presentation. ESP anyone?? Active suspension??
Do you know any other system?

[Mi_Ko]

Hi

We will have a presentation about innovative use of electronics in FSAE. We want to let the mechatronic students know, which systems can or were made to make us drive faster and score better.
I've found out that (semi)automatic shifting, traction and launch control and data logers are very common in FSAE teams.

Can you tell me what you have made in the field of electronics and mechatronics, so I can put them into the presentation. ESP anyone?? Active suspension??
Do you know any other system?

[Igor]

Lulea had active damping
Cornell had an electronic waste gate control

There have been homemade dataloggers, engine managament systems and transmission control units.

Igor

[Denny Trimble]

ETS had a variable-runner-length intake this year

Wollongong had a custom dash / DAQ integrated into the steering wheel with a large display, that also allowed the driver to play mariokart when he was bored...

[Eddie Martin]

There are so many things that you can do electronically on these cars.

Like Denny said our steering wheel can play mariokart and our driver was playing mariokart in the line for the acceleration event in OZ 03. My favourite is tony hawk though. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Our 03 car has been fully kitted out with sensors. It has strain gauges on all the a-arms, pull rods, steering arms, steering column. Wheel speed sensors, a steering angle sensor, g sensor, linear pots on the dampers, brake pressure sensors front and rear, dynamic brake temps, dynamic tyre temps front and rear plus all the normal engine sensors. Hopefully we can soft sense slip angles at the end of it.

Things you can get elec / mechatronics guys to work on are the engine management systems, sensors on everything, traction and launch control, pneumatic shifter or shift without lift, data loggers, producing shock speed histograms and roll rates, cool dash displays, custom timing equipment. I'm sure there is more stuff and most of it can be done very cheaply, we got shock speed histograms produced for $10 OZ total.
I'd hate to have a team with no EE's in it.

[alfordda]

Eddie-

You guys hacked into a gameboy to make your steering wheel right? Did you guys find a webpage where someone else had already hacked in and figured out alot? I ask because we have a guy working on an honors project, that is pretty similar, but I don't think he has found a display yet.

[Chase]

what kind of sensors did you guys use for your brake pressure? I'm just curious because I am looking into getting some.

[Eddie Martin]

Daniel,

I don't know a huge amount about electronics or how they did the dash but i'm pretty sure they did all the programing for it, but i may be wrong.

Chase,

Don't know but i'll see if i can find out.

[BStoney]

Eddie,
Did you ever find out anything about the steering wheel/programming, etc?

B.J.
bearcatmotorsports

[Dan Dofours]

Hi Eddie

Where did Wollongong get your display on the old (I think 03) steering wheel? Did you make it or buy it?

Dan

PS Congratulations on winning in Australia!


Like Denny said our steering wheel can play mariokart and our driver was playing mariokart in the line for the acceleration event in OZ 03.

[Chris Boyden]

I believe it was a gameboy advanced pulling in engine serial data from the motec and displaying that.

But don't quote me on that

[Ash]

Chris has got it right, it's a GBA receiving serial data from the MoTeC.

The programming for the '04 wheel was done by myself, and without giving too much away, I made use of some existing libraries, but pretty much wrote the code from scratch.

[Tony K]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Eddie Martin:
I'd hate to have a team with no EE's in it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yea.. it does quite suck. I've been trying to convince our advisor that he needs to get some EE's involved in the project, but every time I bring it up he shoots me down. I'm pretty sure he has some sort of personal grudge against the EE department. So until then, I guess I'll just have to be happy with our dysfunctional electronic shifter that can never find neutral.

[Agent4573]

Our team currently runs a fully electronic paddle shifter with engine kill for shift without lift. We also run a completely wireless datalogging system that is transmitted via wireless serial port to a laptop on the sidelines. This year we're going to start running a traction control system and we're going looking into full onboard data logging so we can bump up the sample rate for data logging. Our dash is also a full custom PCB board with on board PIK chips. Next year we're going to a LCD display and we're throwing in some little extra's just for the fun of it.

[B Lewis @ PE Engine Management]

Agent4573,

Are you from Rutgers? If so, are you integrating all of these features with our ECU? Thanks.

[Tony K]

Wireless serial port eh? Is that using a bluetooth adapter that just plugs into each port of the serial device?

[Dan Deussen @ Weber Motor]

Agent-

I would be intersted in the wireless serial port as well. Is it a complete "cable replacement solution"? Would you mind sharing who makes it and how much it costs?

Thanks!

[B Lewis @ PE Engine Management]

We have used wireless serial modems from Freewave in the past with our systems (http://www.freewave.com/). Works pretty slick, however, they are costly.

[Agent4573]

Yes I am from rutgers and to answer your question I'm not sure exactly how much is integrated with the ECU unit. I know there is quite a bit of data transfer to and from the dash to the ECU and vice versa, but I haven't dealved in the code from last year yet to figure out exactly what is going where. I know the main feature on the ECU we use is the engine kill option for our shifter. Basically when you hit the upshift paddle it uses the ECU to kill the engine for a set amount of microseconds, while engaging our electronic shifter for a different set amount of microseconds, depending on what gear your in and if you have to skip over neutral or not.

For the wireless serial we use the transmitter and reciever from Freewave, and it costs just under 1500 dollars for both I believe. The transmitter is basically an antenna that wires up just like a regular serial connection and the reciver runs on 12 volts dc and has a serial cable output, so all you have to do is wire up the transmitter and then connect the reciever to any standard serial port on a pc. We actually wrote our own code last year that displays all different engine variables(temp, rpm, a/f ratio, speed, TPS, etc) along with accelerameter readings and steering angles, numerically and graphically.

[Big D]

does this mean that you can watch the telemetry from the sidelines in real time as well? Do any teams change settings on the car from an active team member on the sidelines who has all this information in front of them? I suppose you could even inform a driver of his lap time on the display.... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif

[GTmule]

The laptime thing is a pretty easy, and common place, no need for telemetry. A beacon trackside and an IR phototransistor onboard, EVERYBODY sells those types of systems.

I'm in the school of thought that says the less information the driver has the better, because it's less crap to distract him, especially with data aquisition, there's really no need for the driver to EVER know EGT's, or even water tems (other than an idiot light).

[EgyptianMagician]

Just a thought...

would be interresting to see if someone could pull the specs on a 2.5Ghz cordless phone and have a 50$ wireless solution ...

I think I'll stick that in "projects for the summer" at least the initial investigation.