Calling on all teams with custom built ecu's

[Hiten]

I am still in the research phase of my masters project in developing an ecu for the FSAE car. I am currently researching on which microprocessor would be best suited. I would like to find out from the teams that developed thier own ecus on what microprocessor they used? I understand that this may be considered confidential but feel free to private message me or email me s20202215@nmmu.ac.za Thanks in advance!

[Kurt Bilinski]

Not exactly FSAE, but I used an MPC565 for our airborne application. It's an awesome chip with tons of IO. One issue is the ball-grid connections to the part but sockets are available.

[Chuckster]

General advice:

Ease of progammming and electrical performance is one thing.

Environmental is another.

Environmental is not only the abilty to withstand temperature, stock, vibration, over/under voltage, but also to resist EMI. To be sure, some of this is dependent upon the board design and the rest of the circuitry, not just the processor itself.

Last, maybe the least of your worries (but you never know :-&gthttp://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif is radiation resistance to total ionizing dose and abilty to recover from single event upsets.

Chuck

[Chris Lane]

Talk to the guys at University of Western Australia. I believe their electronics guys are making their own ECU as they have outgrown the Motec.

[screwdriver]

I assume you mean the engine-ECU (correct me, if I'm wrong).
For that matter I can only recommend one that works with Mathlab/Simulink, if you want have it state-of the art (i.e. if you want to do what all the big names in the business do).

Before considering to build your own board, you might as well ask some OEMs or engineering firms who specialize on automotive electronics. A lot of them have universal ECUs with a complete toolchain. You might even be able to sell your control unit to them, ie have them pay you and the team for your project.

So far we only have PICs on board and the way things are headed here, it looks like we won't need much more. The only thing we'd like to try sooner or later are FPGAs.

[Gurkaran]

Chris - we still use the Motec, not a custom ECU

[Chris Lane]

Gday Gurkaran!

I thought UWAM had one in the works? I heard whispers of such an ongoing project anyway....

Congrats on your win last year!

[Chris Boyden]

look at megasquirt.

it's open source software and hardware.

it would be a great place to start.

[Kirby]

Originally posted by Chris Lane:
Gday Gurkaran!

I thought UWAM had one in the works? I heard whispers of such an ongoing project anyway....

Congrats on your win last year!

UWA has many potential projects "in progress" that may or may not ever be realised on a competing car. Just like most FSAE teams. It was my understanding that there was research into a custom ECU.

[Gurkaran]

Originally posted by Kirby:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Chris Lane:
Gday Gurkaran!

I thought UWAM had one in the works? I heard whispers of such an ongoing project anyway....

Congrats on your win last year!

UWA has many potential projects "in progress" that may or may not ever be realised on a competing car. Just like most FSAE teams. It was my understanding that there was research into a custom ECU. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm sure at some point a custom ECU feasibility project might have been offered. I don't know what became of it though or if anyone took it up. It would be similar at most teams I suspect, where some projects take off and others don't. Atm though....no custom ECU.

[Chris Lane]

Ah no worries mate.

Are you coming to the bbq at Curtin soon? Not sure when exactly it is, but there is one in the works...

[USM_Erny]

I have spent my year designing an ECU using a Freescale 16 bit MC9S12XDT512. I am very pleased with this chip and chose it for the following reasons to name a few.

1. 80/40MHz Clock/Bus Freq
2. Small scale but pins are exposed so it can be soldered by hand.
3. Time Co-Processor (runs at 80MHz but RISC)
4. Many peripherals (Timers, serial, CAN...)
5. Demo boards are available for prototyping
6. Cheap Programmer available

I was also looking at the some of the 32 bit Freescale processors. Some have a co processor called an eTPU. This processor can be used to manage the decoding of the crank/cam angles with very little main processor input. However evaluation boards are expensive and the chip would be very difficult to solder to a PCB without the right tools.

I have just got the unit working on an engine after having a few problems with noise from the coil drivers but have no regrets regarding the chip and would highly recomend it.

Erny
University of Strathclyde