Everyday Practical Electronics RuLES

[immeraufdemhund]

I've been reading a magazine called Everyday Practical Electronics, and in the september to november 2009 issues their is a 3 part section on how to make your OWN programmable Ignition system. and i also found that they made it so you can add a knock sensor to it, and also a LED/Digital tach for it. i'm super excited about being able to have something that i Can build.

from the article it says it features:

• Advance and retard adjustment over a wide range
• Plug-in LCD hand controller for adjustments
• Hand controller LCD shows values and settings for adjustment
• Suitable for single coil ignition systems with a dizzy
• can be used as a timing interceptor or as a replacement ignition
• ignition timing mapped against RPM and engine load
• interpolated values used for RPM and load values between sites
• Optional single map or dual timing maps
• single map has 15rpm sites x 15 engine load sites
• dual maps each have 11rpm sites x 11 engine load sites
• 1 deg or .5 deg adjustments
• dwell adjustment
• knock sensing indication, with optional ignition retard
• suits 1 to 12 cylinder engines (4 stroke) and 1 to 6 Cylinder 2 stroke engines
• 2 debounce settings
• high-level or level level triggering
• points, reluctor, hall effect, digital signal, or optical triggering
• works with many pressure sensors (MAP sensors)
• min and max RPM adjustments
• Min and Max engine load adjustments
• Diagnostic RPM and load readings
• add-on knock sensing unit (optional)
• requires evenly spaced firing between cylinders. For v-twins, you will need two ignition systems and a seperate trigger for each cylinder

so to say the least i'm super excited about this project. I want to start getting stuff for it but i'm moving to indiana here in two weeks and don't really have time or money to be getting this stuff. but What I want to do is have it so I can run an engine on a stand without having to hack up a civic, accord to get a engine to run. Plus I have a few other ideas. What do you guys think though? I"m not looking for profit, this is fun and a project.

[cp[mike]]

so what exactly is provided, schematics, or a supplied board and parts list? sounds like it would be a fun project...

[immeraufdemhund]

First section shows how to use it, how it looks all together, how it works. It gives the specifications about what and how it can work (all those things i listed it gives specific values so you know what it's limitations are). Then starts all the heave stuff. It gives you a few schematics (since it's about 3 boxes) and it also gives you a shopping list of things you need (ie. chips, capacitors, resistors, lcd things, ICs connectors.) the only thing that it never lists is wires and sizes. I wish it did. but not a big deal just run same size as your car which i *ThINK* is 14awg. might be 12. It tells you were to put all the pieces if you buy their PCB (and it shows you how your pcb should look if you make your own...) It tells you which wires to hook up were and a few other things that are awesome. and final contruction and break in stuff. the only thing i don't know yet (because i haven't read all 3 sections (about 50 pages of stuff)) so basically if you buy this stuff and build it like it shows you it will work. i have to find a place to buy this stuff.

[immeraufdemhund]

I just read a part on the Programming Code.... as follows

Note: the programming code (ignprgm.hex) for the PIC16F88-E/P microprocessor featured in this project will not be released or be made available on our website. Authorised kit sellers will supply programmed microcontrollers as part of their kits. For people who do not wish to build the project from a kit, programmed micros are available from Silicon Chip (www.siliconchip.com.au) for $30.00 by airmail.




I wonder though if you can't buy one of those take the chip out of any of our ecu's and put it in instead of that one microcontroller.

[blazenem]

part1:
http://www.epemag3.com/index.php?pag...mart&Itemid=26

part2:
http://www.epemag3.com/index.php?pag...mart&Itemid=26

part3:
http://www.epemag3.com/index.php?pag...mart&Itemid=26

in case anyone wanted to attempt this and get the back issues of the magazines its the sept oct and nov issues...

[chessboxer]

Be wary of the diy ecus IMO. A lot of tuners HATE them and will NOT tune them. Saw this a lot with the megasquirt guys. Don't know how many shops we dealt with that said when a kid comes in with an MS unit not running right, they would tear it out and put something else in due to the number of variables out of their control with the ecu itself. Looks like a cool idea, but unless you are skilled in tuning and in EFI, it might not be for everyone. Also, with the price of many budget ecus now, you can get a high quality ecu and harness for under 900 bucks.