Speeduino

Wowsers, what a month it's been! September has seen probably the heaviest development I've put into Speeduino for quite a while and I'm really happy to be able to say that there has been a few really nice things come out of this work.

As usual, here's a list of the major things that were done in the last month:

• The new custom PWM system! This is really terrific and was a huge piece of work. It means that the PWM outputs (Idle, boost and VVT) can operate on any pin we like (Not fixed to the PWM pins listed on the Arduino specs) and at any (within sensible limits) frequency. The timing remains in hardware, so overhead is quite small (Though the 2 new 3D maps for boost and VVT do have a slight impact). This should mean that most PWM valves are able to run directly and smoothly.
• I finished off my old dual VR / Opto conditioner board. Best of luck to any brave soul who wants to try this out
• Added full calibration ability for MAP sensors. No longer are MAP inputs limited to the MPX4250, but now basically any 0-5v type sensor can be used.
• Dwell is now added as an output channel for logging / display
• Fixed a bug that was increasing the skip revolutions by 1 (Ever so slightly faster starts now)
• Further work on the 'smart' decoder filters. This is still very much a work in progress
• New dual wheel decoder added
• Dwell limited can now be turned off
• High speed tooth history logger now a more reliable (Some further work to come here, issues remain for low resolution triggers at low RPM)

FINALLY, I've made a new video showing the latest features in the firmware! Feel free to check it out and share it with anyone you think might be interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVwM_OJ8Z4g

Another month gone already! Firstly a huge thanks and congratulations to the various people who got Speeduino up and running in August! Amongst other things, Speeduino ran its first V6 engine, which was great to see as it's not something I have the facilities to test with at the moment.

August has been almost exclusively focussed on testing and a lot of bug fixing. That said, there has been a few new features added and I've done some code restructuring to allow for some of the upcoming features. Without further ado, here's a description of what's been done in the last month:

• The largest feature added is the idle control system. Fast idle valves, PWM valves and Stepper motors are all supported in open loop mode. On/Off valves and steppers are well tested, PWM is less thoroughly tested, but should work ok.
• The appropriate definitions have been made to allow VE Analyze Live and table generation functions in TunerStudio
• Tach rejection filtering has been added to most of the decoders
• Fixed a bug that prevented the fuel pump output from turning on
• Fixed an overflow in the duty cycle limiter that could cause issues in some cases in the 500-1000rpm range
• Fix the high speed tooth logger byte order
• Corrections to pin outs on various boards

That doesn't really sound like huge progress I know, but some of those bugs took a lot of time to track down. With confidence I can again say that this months monthly code drop is more reliable than last months, so that's progress in my books.

As always, this monthly code drop can be found at: http://speeduino.com/wiki/index.php/Com ... g_Firmware

It's a very rough vid of some very early testing, but the v0.4 board appears to work fine. Will post a more comprehensive video with some commentary once the tune for this car is complete

OK, so time to take the wraps off the new v0.4 board!

Firstly though, it's worth giving a brief introduction as to what the aim of this board was. Unlike the v0.2->v0.3 update, the v0.4 board isn't necessarily designed to replace the v0.3. In this regard, the most significant difference is that the new board uses a single internal connector in place of the screw terminals on the v0.3. The idea here is that the v0.4 board isn't connected to directly, but plugs into a low cost interface board instead. This interface board might have something as simple as a bunch of screw connectors on it, but the idea is that application specific boards (ie ones that plug directly into existing looms) can be produced quickly and cheaply. As an example of this, one of the first interface boards I produce will be for an NA Miata / MX-5.

The connector itself is an IDC 40, commonly know as an IDE connector, used in the past for IDE harddisks and CD-ROMs. Cables for these are therefore very cheap and easy to get in a variety of lengths. This internal connector is used for all interfaces except the main 12v in, which remains on a screw terminal that needs to be powered directly.

As far as features go, here are the main highlights:

• Electrically identical (with some pin moves) to all features of the v0.3 board, with the exception of the optional EEPROM chip, which has been removed. Component overlap is therefore also very high between the 2 boards, making assembly and kitting simpler.
• An optional DRV8825 (Eg https://www.pololu.com/product/2133) mounting point has been added for running stepper based idle motors
• Dedicated PWM idle and boost outputs. These are minor updates to 2 of the 'spare' outputs from the v0.3 board, attaching them to PWM pins with appropriate frequencies.
• 5 medium current low side switched outputs have been added. These are suitable for driving relays and low power items (Eg an LED) and will be programmable in the future.
• Board size has shrunk by approximately 30cm2! At 100mm x 100mm, the board will now mount nicely in cases such as Hammond Manufacturing's 1455 series (http://www.hammondmfg.com/1455.htm).
• Better grounding and general electrical protection in a number of areas

Schematic: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/noisy ... _schem.png
PCB: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/noisy ... .4_pcb.png

Once testing is completed (Probably about a month from now, depending on how long these take to arrive), I will look to begin selling them. If anyone has a burning desire to test one of these out, please let me know as I will have a few spares going.

Wow, another month gone by already!

So, without a doubt the big change within the last month has been the move to 16x16 tables for fuel, ignition and AFRs. This came with a huge overhaul of memory space and just a lot of work in general to make the whole thing work properly. Due to a number of optimisations that went in with the extended table lookup code, the 16x16 tables actually perform better than the old 8x8.

Since this went in, there was a good few weeks spent fixing the little issues that it brought with it, but I'm now confident that its not causing any issues.

I know I've been a little quiet on the forums the last two weeks or so, but rest assured there is a LOT going on. Primarily I've been working on hardware and am super happy to say that a testing run of v0.4 boards has just been ordered. I'll start a separate thread specifically for that board, but if you're interested in trying one out, just let me know

Finally, a few other small bits and pieces that have happened throughout June:

• Better linear interpolation accuracy
• Added duty cycle limit
• GM 7X decoder

Per the commitment to monthly mini releases, a new stable code drop will be placed on the wiki (http://speeduino.com/wiki/index.php/Com ... g_Firmware) shortly.

Just a brief update... The new 16x16 fuel, ignition and AFR maps are now fairly well tested and working well! This has been a big milestone to hit, requiring some solid code optimisation as well as a large memory reshuffling.

It all seems to be very solid in testing, with a number of bugs being squished and optimisations taking place at the same time.

So that's about it for now. I'll do another monthly update in a few weeks, but this was a big milestone forward :)

Well, nearly the end of the month, but I've made it with the progress report. A couple of big things to announce this time around, starting with the fact that I've decided to go in a slightly different direction with the 1.0 release. I've decided that v1.0 deserves to be a bit more feature complete than I was originally aiming for and so will delay it's release for now. However...

In order to make things a bit easier for those starting out with the project, I'm going to be doing regular (Approximately monthly) preview releases. These will be stable, reasonably well tested versions that can serve as a reference point until the next one. They may not have all the latest and greatest features that are in the git repo, but they should be relatively recent.

The first of these preview releases is now available at: http://speeduino.com/wiki/images/c/c5/S ... review.zip

These preview releases will also have a nice stable ini file. So even if I need to patch the release to fix a bug, the ini file will remain the same. This leads me to onto the next exciting point...

I've reached an agreement with EFI Analytics, the company that develops Tuner Studio, and am super happy to announce that the next release will include signature recognition and automatic ini loading for Speeduino. This means no more masquerading as a Megasquirt 1 or anything like that

And as if all that wasn't enough, there's been a few nice things happening within the firmware itself too

• The modular wheel decoding system is now in! Currently only 2 decoders are there, the existing missing tooth decoder and a basic distributor pulse, but now that the system is in place, writing new decoders is relatively painless if the pattern is understood.
• I've committed basic support for 6 and 8 cylinder engines. this needs further testing and ideally someone with an actual engine to try it out, but it's all there and seemingly working
• Trigger reference angle is now accurate down to 1 degree (Had been 4 previously)
• Injector timing is now configurable on a per channel basis
• Added fixed that was preventing outputs working properly since the dynamic pin mapping was added
• Fuel pump activation added
• Finally I've started work on idle control. Plan is to support basic high idle (ie On/Off), PWM valves and stepper motors (With the use of an external driver board). This is not yet working, but much of the basic code and interface has been done.

One of the people who has been testing the project from early on posted this the other day. Very cool stuff!