Arduino

[RobertISaar]

Another thing I thought would be a fun Arduino project would be a little box with LCD to display a mini "dash" from ALDL values.

it does support TTL communications(either natively or via an adapter), from what i've read, which will work with ALDL.

i've considered a great many uses for it, the most exciting of which is similar, though i am leaning more toward the HUD route and have values projected onto the windshield.

[88ragtop]

it does support TTL communications(either natively or via an adapter), from what i've read, which will work with ALDL.

i've considered a great many uses for it, the most exciting of which is similar, though i am leaning more toward the HUD route and have values projected onto the windshield.

True Heads Up would be cool. The TTL should be very easy to handle, as that's pretty much the native capability. To go to RS232 they use an interface, just like we do to talk to the ALDL. USB is also handled in a similar manner.

Does anyone know what the original powertrain engineer HUDs looked like? That could be an interesting thing to try to replicate.

- Frank

[RobertISaar]

Does anyone know what the original powertrain engineer HUDs looked like? That could be an interesting thing to try to replicate.

the GM instrumentation module.... that thing will never see the light of day. i can guess what some of it does based on my disassembly of A1, but from the way it's been described before, it was essentially a datalogging/real-time data viewing device, so not that much different than tunerpro RT itself.

[Six_Shooter]

Yeah, my main reasoning to start with the Arduino was to build a display for my dash, much like the Tuner View II, since I'm getting ZERO after sale support for the device now, got a couple bugs worked out, and then was told politely to "Go fuck myself"...

I know the Arduino can do it, it's been matched to the Honda ECMs, and Megasquirt for the same purpose, I just need to learn the language.

From what I can see, a MAX232 style circuit will be needed to interface with the serial RX and TX lines on the Arduino itself, after that, I'm almost lost. The basic principle I understand, assigning pins, and basic layout of some stuff, but I haven't dove too deep in actually writing the code, since there were some things that didn't make sense to me, and it's been a few months since I have played it with it.

I did the usual LED flash and Hello World stuff as well, I then went to adding LEDs, flashing together and alternatively, bucket brigades, with and without delays between LED on time, glowing LEDS, etc written by me, by that didn't get me even close to where I need to be.

I need to get back to working on that sketch.

[RobertISaar]

that doesn't sound like Moates...

i really need to pick up an Uno and play with it, i mean worst-case scenario, i pay $30 for a board that i could resell if i can't figure it out either.

[FSJ Guy]

Craig Moates is not the creator of TunerView. He is a reseller. HRTuning sells the Tunerview. It looks like a nice setup. If only it were compatible or open source. But it's not. :-(

I just need to take the time to learn Arduino. And bug a friend of mine who DOES know it.

[88ragtop]

From what I can see, a MAX232 style circuit will be needed to interface with the serial RX and TX lines on the Arduino itself, after that, I'm almost lost. The basic principle I understand, assigning pins, and basic layout of some stuff, but I haven't dove too deep in actually writing the code, since there were some things that didn't make sense to me, and it's been a few months since I have played it with it.

Take a peek here at the hardware reference (we'll use the Uno since it's the most current): http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno

You can see in the docs that digital pins 0 & 1 are RX & TX out of the microcontroller. At this point it is TTL level data. On the Uno, a seperate microcontroller (ATmega8U2) is used to convert that TTL to USB. On the older boards, an FTDI chip did the TTL to USB, and on the older serial stuff, a MAX232 (or similar) was used for the same purpose.

Anyway, since you have TTL level data at 0 & 1, you should be able to go straight from those points to the ALDL with no real additional circuitry required.

If someone is familiar with the ALDL datastream and can give us a couple of pointers, a quick overview, or even a link to a doc, we could all give it a shot right here. I'm pretty sure I have a few 7730's laying around somewhere for testing. I'm not familiar with how the ALDL is handled, if there's a "handshake" or something needed, or whatever - I've always been lucky enough to be able to use existing software to get the info. The needed data might be right here on the board, or even available in a tunerpro ADS. I've never looked, but will do so.

I have an Uno for the rare occasion I want to mess around with one of the sheilds. Most of the time when I'm prototyping my own junk I use either a Bare Bones Board or a Really Bare Bones Board from Modern Device (http://shop.moderndevice.com/collect...ino-freeduino/). I like that they plug directly into a breadboard vs. having to flywire it. Either way the software is the same.

- Frank

[FSJ Guy]

I haven't looked too deeply, but I suspect that the info is in the TunerPro ADS files. That file would also tell you if you needed to send any commands to the ECM (handshaking) to start the output. But I can't see that as being too difficult. <shrug>

They also have an Arduino bluetooth module. What would really be awesome is an interface that would output the data right to your smartphone or iPod Touch. Then you'd need Apple's SDK to write a program that would allow you to display the info in whatever manner you wanted. Sort of like a TunerPro dashboard right on your phone. But I digress...

EDIT: The bluetooth module is no longer available.

[RobertISaar]

ALDL is just 8192 baud, 8N1 format, the sending procedure is:

1. send a message to a module

in this message are a couple of different things, 1st being the module that is being addressed. 2nd is the length of the message. 3rd (since we're dealing with polling for ALDL data) is the specific mode message we want sent back(a mode 1 message). depending on the mask, this can be 1 byte or 2, depending on how many messages there are in the mode 1 message system. assume it's a simpler unit and it's only 1 byte. 4th byte sent is a 2's compliment checksum of the entire message.

2. the PCM will now dump the requested stream (most do ~63 bytes of data), and then a 2's compliment checksum of all of the information it sent.

the first byte the PCM sends back is the module identifier, followed by message length, followed by the mode requested, followed by the data, followed by a 2's compliment checksum.



simple enough explanation?

[88ragtop]

Thanks Robert, that is perfect! I actually just opened the $A1 ADX to see you wrote it :)

So (using $A1), if I am understanding correctly, I would:

- Send the hex string F4 57 01 00 B4
- Receive 63 bytes of data to be processed/displayed
- Take a short break
- Do this over and over again

And as far as processing the data, I would find the TPS value as the 9th byte of the response.

Is that correct? If so I guess I'm going to go crawl around the attic and see if I can find a 7730.

- Frank