alot of car sensors are analog voltage or current straight into the ECU, though i commend
your interest in CANbus and would like to put something together involving it if
there's a chance
do you know offhand what they use as a corrosion inhibitor?
May 22, 2013 02:01:02 PM, di.franco(a)aya.yale.edu wrote:
Hydro stuff sounds good. Don't let you stop me though.
Water is also an option for hydraulic fluid,
ironically enough, when properly purified and with a bit of additive.
As for car ECU tinkering, finding something that
uses can bus may be a good option since signals are standard and interface hardware is
cheap and ubiquitous.
On May 22, 2013 1:53 PM, "Hol Gaskill" hol(a)gaskill.com> wrote:
I think before jumping headlong into potentially a $10k project, we should figure
out how to put together a hydraulic system. For the basics of fluid control, pneumatics
are very cheap and simple compared to hydraulic systems. There is a compressor at the
shop, and I have a small air cylinder we could use to do some closed-loop actuation tests.
Also a few 24V air valves, and I'll be ordering a 24V - 15A power supply and some
more air equipment that should round out the required bill of materials when i get back in
town. So a quick and dirty control project using pneumatics would be very beneficial for
us even though the behavior is alot spongier due to the compressibility of air. Afterall,
that's what they used for robot air hockey.
One we get the taste of controlling valves to
actuate 2-way cylinders and/or motors, we can raise funds for a 12V hydraulic power unit
which can be had for about $300 including reservoir and some valving. From there all we
need is some hose and tubing, and I propose both a piston (~$60) and a motor (~150) so we
can gain experience with the whole power loop needed for various projects. This is
applicable to the CEB press, reverse trike, rocket thrust vectoring, well drilling, you
name it. Just getting this basic technology under our belts would be pretty sweet and
informative for alot of our people. I bet we could build a small drill rig for under a
thousand bucks - groundwater harvesting, foundation drilling, secret stashing of cannon,
plenty of options there. Anyway, just getting started is going to be a task of its own
and I would propose picking something with a relatively short design-build-redesign cycle
so we feel rewarded at regular intervals with a working machin
e.
On safety, I'm looking into veggie oil etc
as hydraulic fluid since that stuff can be pretty nasty. Below are some links.
Biodegradable hydraulic fluid:
http://www.research.psu.edu/capabilities/documents/biohydraulic.pdf
more info on different biofluid products:
http://www.technologylubricants.com/Technical/Rexroth_90221_1.pdf
On another note, I returned my car to an
operational state recently and having never worked on a car (this was my first time to
even change my own oil) it was interesting to open the hood with a freshly installed
knowledge of some of the components, and actually feel like I had a rough idea of what was
going on and how to debug the mechanical/electrical problems that I encountered. A cool
project if we ever do incorporate an internal combustion engine would be a custom ECU
using whatever standard automotive sensors etc we can get off the shelf and some creative
8-bit math. Any objections to designing around second-hand 90's volvo components?
Cheers,
Hol
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