[Gasification] Was: OBD-II extension for gasifier self-diagnosis Now: cheap sensing and control
Pete&Sheri
spaco at baldwin-telecom.net
Tue Dec 28 10:55:29 CST 2010
This is a follow up to the "OBD-II" posts, but from a slightly different
perspective.
Currently I am trying to bring a 1990 chevy V6 engine back to life
and am having to learn enough about the electronics of the vehicle to
accomplish it.
In doing so, I have become impressed with the whole electronic control
setup for the TBI (Throttle Body Injection) system (okay, so I am easily
impressed).
Anyway, it has a lot of features that might make it a "poor man's
(woman's)" controller for some things gasifier related. In addition
to the many sensors, some of which seem to relate pretty closely to
gasifier needs, there's a stepper motor-driven device called the "IAC"
(Idle air control) which could do some useful output work.
I read that one can burn their own chips for the "computer", too.
Maybe it's all too far off to be useful, but maybe its worth a thought.
Sensors:
rpm
oxygen
Throttle position
Manifold pressure
Coolant temperature
Outputs:
Drive for 2 separate injectors
Idle air control motor
Fuel pump control
And, they tell me the whole setup costs about $100 US at the junk yard.
While I am on the subject of data gathering, I have been using an
inexpensive Data Acquisition Unit that I bought from Dataq.com several
years ago.The deivice connects to a PC. My old serial bus unit cost
about $25 US. Currently, the USB version (DI-148U) costs about $50
US. It has 4 channels of analog input in the -10 to +10 volt range, and
3 channels of digital input. The device comes with basic software for
capturing the data and for displaying it in real time in graphical
format. I used it for about 1 1/4 years to conduct my own solar pv
assessment at our home, making simple passive circuitry to adapt my
ouptuts to this DAU, You can see how I used it at:
http://www.spaco.org/PV/PVSolar.htm
Pete Stanaitis
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