So I built a few canbus/car electronic projects… anyone got ideas for more?

[Gripless]

Found and fixed an issue with the RGB LEDs control dropping out. This was due to the pin used this time. The full incase build was pin 26, current test rig was pin 2 and now pin 4.

There may have been an issue with power as the LEDs that show the wifi password are white and full brightness so draw 3x more current than when acting as a shift light. They also get toasty warm when full white compared to ambient when showing typical colours.

 

Finally added a test led function for the custom colour set. Once set in the web interface you can click a button to show those colours love on the display. Since you can only set half the LEDs color as it mirrors each side, when testing it uses the whole display with every other LED blank so it’s easier to interpret color and work out which number each one is.

[Gripless]

Well it’s 1am and fixed all the current issues.

Added the colour option for when it flashes which should have worked already but I had a read 16 bits in the 32 bit read code from a copy paste.

Code to make canbus speed adjustable added, though the option was in web portal already.

Started to add some formula options, default is STI but have Porsche and GR Yaris. Different model use different byte orders and modifiers to get rpm.

Eg

sti is just byte6 and byte5 joined to make 16bit number

Porsche uses two bytes joined divided by 4. Which in binary jist removes the last two digits making it 14 bits.

Yaris may use two bytes joined multiples by 0.8 

 

I still have to figure out how to do the formulas while running, I may have a seperate function for each, then when it boots that function gets set as the canbus interrupt handler. It saves having a switch if bunch of if statements in the code that would run every can message.

makes the code larger in storage, but faster in the most critical part.

 

Canbus code all needs a testing as the current chip has power off and listen only mode pins that can be controlled. Old version didn’t have this. But the old chip can be used on the new board if needed.

Once it all updated and running it’ll need a complete rewrite as the Esp32 has new release of its core code to 5.5 which has all new canbus functions.

[Gripless]

Restored all the code that was commented out for ready for real canbus testing.
Still need to stop the watchdog timer running when in wifi mode. The watchdog reboots everything if it does not see can messages in 10 seconds. This was as during cranking the voltage dropped and the canbus receiver became unstable.This isn’t likely now but the first prototype has no capacitors in the power supply.

 

Added a webpage button to check canbus driver status along with stats on queued packets and errors.

 

Fixed a mistake displaying the flash colour in webpage.

 

soldered some light sensors to wire and add heat shrink to keep it tidy ready for when needed.

 

The case I have spare has a couple of metal blocks in it that need to be removed. The early ones the glue was easy to remove, the current ones seem to have melted plastic not glue. It doesn’t dissolve and won’t melt before the case does if the blocks are heated. Guess to save cost they melt other products that fail QA and use them as glue. This one just happens to have been from higher melting point plastic product. 

I ordered the other model with the battery to see if it has the metal blocks as well.

 

[Gripless]

Found night lights make good shift lights as they have good front light diffusers.

Will solder up a new board tomorrow and fit a 24 led strip inside. Using some new smaller 3mm LEDs. 

This is mostly a joke for a friend, but they come in green, blue and yellow. So may have to make a set and respray them to WRC blue, gravel express green and legacy yellow.

When idle or low rpm the LEDs show the same colour as the body.

 

 

 

[Gripless]

Well the dinosaur board with custom tiny LEDs got assembled then other things for in the way.

 

All parts arrived for another project after a typically painful aliexpress not accepting returns for mislabelled products.

the first of a series of 10 moisture sensor on leads with a central temperature, pressure and humidity combo for plant monitoring. Which connects to apple HomeKit so can be used in automation and remote monitoring.

 

So far nothing seems to remove the glue for the metal blocks. Acetone, glue remover etc all do ore damage to the case than the glue.

The plan is still to have the shift lights by the end of November along with another ECU canbus expansion. But that might not be on a custom pcb by then just early prototype multi board. But the main code will be done which will make it fully functional.

[Gripless]

Between heating the metal weights and applying ice to the case I now have 3 more cases to use for prototypes.

the resin glue still has higher melting point than the ABS plastic case, so I tears a thin layer off from the inside.

 

Spent time rewriting all the storage and variables to use #define names not random numbers. Everything now makes sense and sits in arrays.

 

Found a bug that stopped the wifi from being set to always on or off. The button on startup to activate wifi had always worked, but the default is now wifi on so initial config can be done. That required wifi on/off to work so it can startup off and the shiftlight started.

 

Was halfway through swapping the led display to use a timer and interrupts rather than the dodgy timing hack I made up (It’s simple and fast, but I have no idea how it works or how I came up with it). But the hack can stay as too much effort to fix with the new canbus upadates.

 

Espressif that make the esp32 these are all based on released v5.5 which redoes the canbus system almost completely.

There are no examples outside the Espressif ones, so it’s all new code.

 

While searching for some fixes to the newer code AI keeps offering code snippets. The code is all old. If you say that and ask for updates using new library names it just swaps those names and keeps the old data. It’s a mess and hallucinates the changes between the old and new system and makes a list that isn’t real.

 

AI coding is pretty poor and keeping up with changes, it likes old examples that everyone repost. All examples it gives for canbus are version 1, that’s very old as few examples even use version 2. That lastest release replaces v2 with a whole new design.
 

[Gripless]

Updated code to latest canbus v5.5 functions. These are a little more complex up front but way easier and consistent once working.

Not sure yet how well it’ll work for dual canbus networking but that’s not needed for these projects.

I was thinking of building some bridges to allow canbus translation between different generations or ecu to body control modules etc.

Second biggest things was I found a small solder blob that had been stopping canbus working on one of the boards. Which was a test one, so likely wasted a bunch of time trying some can stuff on a board that wouldn’t have worked.

 

tried a new library for led display that doesn’t require a commercial licence if you sell anything based on it. This is a real issue when they want thousands of USD for a single licence.

 

Accidentally stumbled onto a LIN chip for the older K or L line pre canbus that cost 50c US. Makes it cost effective to make stuff for the older cars especially since it’s still in production. 

 

Spent a day getting some parts and building a NAS and making a single storage point for all the work. I was spreading work across a fast desktop, an old slow 2014 laptop (it has all the can bus test rig attached) and a modern laptop. 

 

 

[Gripless]

Finished a pcb design for the audio section and ordered yesterday. It should arrive in a week. No time to make a nice case etc but should have something usable in a day or so after it arrives.

 

I spent a few days working on a spreadsheet to work out what the management/control over canbus looks like for these projects.

eg any packet with the first byte as 0xFF will be a command, next byte is  is which command eg test or reply with current status.

 

Initial setup to give it a canbus address will be via the web page. But after that the ecu can send a canbus packet to change the ID, so if you are in the ecu software or want to change it you don’t have to go back to speed setup.

 

PCBWay has 24 hour turnaround after they check the design. So far other than the first order it’s been under an hour to be checked and approved.

I tried JLC PCB, which is part of LCSC which is a huge parts/components supplier. If they had a better way of combining shipping or parts and pcbs id likely use them more. Other than a few cheap bulk parts every chip and part has come from LCSC.