Automotive use, Transmission Controller

Archive New Product Ideas
1

Howdy, this is my first post. And I haven’t been hands on with an Arduino, yet.

I am wanting to control an automatic (electronically controlled) transmission for a car, with an Arduino. It will need to take inputs from 2 5V Square wave inputs(to determine wheel, and engine speed), a few Digital inputs(push buttons, like the brake pedal, etc), and control 3 12V relays(to control which gear selection solenoids are activated, and when to lock up the Torque Converter).

It will need to do the math to determine which relays to switch based on the inputs, without having a full computer on-board, IE just the Arduino, powered from the cars 12V DC system doing the work.

I did some programming in my younger years and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able able to handle the programming, but just want to make sure this is something the Arduino can do, IE constant monitoring of many inputs and controlling the relays as programmed.

Any problems I will run into? Any suggestions on which kit to buy? I’m thinking this will work, but I’d need to write my own sketch for it: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc … ts_id=9526

2

In any automotive application, you’ll need a very robust power supply -

well filtered for noise, protected from spikes and watch for brownouts

as the car is started and so forth. A microcontroller can do pretty much

random things when the voltage goes low and you don’t want the car

jumping into reverse as it’s started.

You’ll also need good failsafes. Wouldn’t want to jump into reverse

while driving down the highway because of some error, electrical noise, etc.

Overall, the car is one of the most demanding environments for electronics.

3

Check out MegaSquirt. There is a controller in the work to control the 4L60E and 4L80E transmissions. It’s all open sourced. You can buy the ECU in a kit form and assemble it yourself. Same controller will work for just about all transmissions. Google MegaShift, your find more info there.