Project "Better" Stock Clocks....

servo as in Futaba R/C servo?

 

yeah... I'm using airtronics right now but they need to go. I'm going to get a set of micro Hitech's that are twice as fast.

 

Just be aware that when the coil fires there is up to a few hundred volts on the 12v coil negative, induced when the field collapses to fire the coil. How about using the noisy un-shielded system to your advantage?

You may be ably to pull a signal from the secondary by putting a few simple twists of wire around a high tension lead. (if you don't want AC throw in a tiny signal diode).

Good luck.

 

I haven't found any real useful advice or schematics for the inductive pick-up... Everyone say a few turns around the HT wire but when I do that I get nothing...

 

Here is a video of the tach response time and what not after I rewrote the code and am using a different method to pick up RPM... Getting close but I think that there is a bit of room for improvement with a faster servo. Let me know what you guys think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RoXiPW3hWU

 

DANG!... I can't win!

So, this system shown above works on the bike using the timing wheel... works good actually... BUT the sensor doesn't clear the timing wheel cover!

Ok, no big deal. Either I'll buy a extra cover and modify it by making it deeper or I'll just have to machine a spacer to space the cover from the block.

 

How are you measuring it? Oscilloscope or multimeter?

 

At the time I was using 6 coils of unshielded wire around the HT wire with a big cap on one end of the 6 coils and then reading the voltage across the wire with a multimeter. The hope was that the cap would charge slowly and I would get a good overall voltage reading... It didn't work.

I guess I can go back and get rid of the cap and put a o-scope across the leads and set my trigger to rising (and pause after the trigger has been passed).

For a good signal, I can use a schmitt trigger with a 555 timer and hopefully filter any noise.

 

I'm watching this thread. Sounds like an exciting project thus far.

 

That setup works nice, but too big? Ever consider individual
Components or both tx and rx on the same side with a reflective stripe

 

Yes... I was testing that last night... The sensor I'm using is digital so it gives a nice high or low signal. The one I was testing last night had both components on the same side and was analog, the performance was no where near what I need.

The bright side is that I still have three more methods to test... Lol. I want this to work really well so I'm in no real hurry to finish and will explore my options.

 

Yay! new servos arrived!

BOO... one arrived broken.

Working on some menu system code tonight. I'll get to testing out the new servos tomorrow night or possibly Wednesday.

 

If your testing continues for a few more weeks, I may be able to add some info as I am about to repair a TCI unit for another XJbikes member, and will have a scope set up and I can show any signals you may want to use.

 

Sure. I have a scope here too however I have to make a connector so I can read the coils.

 

Not much to report lately... I have been waiting for everything. (circuit boards, donor cluster, replacement servo.) I did do a little work on the menu system of the display and whatnot. Still haven't gotten around to testing the new servo... just been too busy.

 

Interesting, just read the thread. Nice work so far.

 

So the new servos are plenty fast but the amount of rotation I get out of them is only 168* not 190* like the slower ones... In order to keep the same 0-120 speedo set-up, I'm going to have to raise the gauge reading to 130mph instead. This way the 120 mph mark will fall at about the 168* mark. The speedo will never actually be able to show a reading above that.
The tach will not be a problem because the 11k-12k mark is already beyond the redline.

I also got my micro-controller circuit boards in! I made two tiny mistakes in the design (real minor). Here are a few pictures, the bare boards and the finished test product. I ran some sample code on it last night after soldering it and it works perfectly. For what it's worth, it's a ATMega328 processor running at 16Mhz.

 

Hot damn that's sexy

 

Can't wait to see the finished product.

 

me too... hahaha.