AJKS

Thought I should get my act together and post some pics of my setup:

[img]
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/0903/adamjks/WRX%20ECU%20Monitor/359ca3e4.jpg
[/img]
I either mount the monitor on top of the dash (when on track etc) so that I can see it clearly without re-adjusting my focal point or...


[img]
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/0903/adamjks/WRX%20ECU%20Monitor/1c5776bb.jpg
[/img]
...on the steering column

[img]
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/0903/adamjks/WRX%20ECU%20Monitor/aefbfbbc.jpg
[/img]
The guts of it live in this black box and is mounted in the kick panel. The 4 green buttons are used to change the display (ie cycle through the parameters). One button operates each of the four quadrants of the display.


When I get around to it I will buy a larger font backlight display and make a fancy carbon fibre mounting for it. What its mounted on now looks pretty nasty and was only meant to be there for a few weeks...

Adam

[Edited by AJKS - 9/12/2003 4:05:51 AM]

JonDBM

Thought I'd rescue this thread. Anyone had any luck with MY99 decode yet? I remember Greasemonkey had had limited success - any updates?

Jon.

L555chris

Hi,
sorry to bring the thread back to my problems getting the scoobymonitor to work, I tried greasemonkey’s suggestions of a possible duff track etc, in the end I just populated the spare PCB with all new components apart from the LCD and the ATmel chip. STILL NO JOY! -exactly the same symptoms: light flashes on loading of test program, LCD screen appears blank. Shift light doesn’t work with main program loaded.

I think the time has come to try replacing the screen and chip, greasemonkey has given me the RS part no for a good LCD screen, I’ve tried looking for the AVR chip on RS but can’t make out which one I need, does anyone have the RS part number for the Atmel Atmega 8 chip?

If that doesn’t give me any joy then I might try a labview program on a laptop hooked straight upto the RS232 chip

Thanks guys

Chris

greasemonkey

Jon - not got much further than mentioned previously, other priorities have intervened in last few months. Will do more with it when time and weather permit!

Chris - I don't believe that RS sell the Mega8, although I could be wrong. You definitely can get them from Farnell. Just go to their homepage and search for their part number 3917927.

L555chris

Hi everyone,
I am tearing my hair out here, I’ve put the new screen on and STIILL the same symptoms as before.

How likely do you think it is that the chip could be partially damaged so it can receive, store and run the Output responsible for flashing the light but not the screen? .. no I didn’t think it was very likely either.
I’ve changed every other component (including the board)

I’ve wired the LCD up as follows (hoping I’ve just mis-wired it):
LCD - - > PCB
Vss 40
Vdd 1
V0 1
RS 6
R/W 40
E 8
DB4 10
DB5 12
DB6 14
DB7 16

(backlight)
K 1
A 40

Sorry to keep going on but once mine is working I do intend to return the favour by attempting to write a program to take the serial data and display on a laptop in a console of virtual gauges, which I’ll be happy to send to anyone.


Cheers again,


Chris

AndrewC

A few suggestions:

1. Mega8 fusebits set correctly?
2. Have you tried the test program? Does it output on the RS232 even if the LCD is not working?

Andrew...

AndrewC

Looking at your pin connections they may be wrong.

Assuming your LCD has the std HD44780 interface then the LCD pins should be attached as follows:

1 - Gnd
2 - +5V
3 - Gnd
4 - J3 P6
5 - Gnd
6 - J3 P8
11 - J3 P10
12 - J3 P12
13 - J3 P14
14 - J3 P16

You may also optionally gnd LCD pins 7-10.

Hope this helps.

Andrew...

AndrewC

Double post.

[Edited by AndrewC - 1/8/2004 9:49:35 AM]

L555chris

Andrew, thank you very much for your time checking through my wiring, it was that darn pin 3 on the LCD that was wrong!
the test program now works fine (and the transitor now stays a lot less hot - eek!)

I did quickly re-program it and attach it to the car but didn't get much life out of it - I wonder if I've got the TX and RX the wrong way round, we'll see - I'll keep you updated.

Cheers again everyone,

Chris

L555chris

Hi again,
Tbanks for your patience so far.
Well the test program works fine:
Light flashes
Display shows “scoobymonitor” and displays Switch1 switch 2 when you push them.

However I’m having less success with the run program loaded:
What you see below is a picture of what the display shows when the unit it powered off my PC (nothing on RX or TX) – this is exactly the same when it is plugged into the car – I would have expected something more than that even when it isn’t receiving any data….is this right?




Any suggestions?

Thanks

Chris

[Edited by L555chris - 1/21/2004 8:27:26 PM]

Paul_M

If one of the wires isn't connected right you'll get garbage on the display. It happened to me when the tx or rx wire broke (the stuff I was using was really flimsy) and I thought the device itself had failed. When I finally traced the broken connection fixed it and everything has worked fine since.

StickyMicky

im not sure why, but for my car i had to reverse the tx wires to get any sense from it on my 97 wrx

works fine now tho, although i want to relocate the screen up on the dash (was hopeong for dyneys guage holder to be finnished but thats not going to happen really is it)

L555chris

Hi,
OK, I've just tried swopping the TX and RX round, no difference .

So do I gather that even if everything else is working fine but the unit is not plugged into the car (just power connected) then it won't show anything/ garbage like mine was showing? not temp=0 RPM=0 etc etc?

If so I guess it must be a problem somewhere in the wiring-probably on the car end of the connector? unless anyone has any other suggestions.

Chris

greasemonkey

Correct. If there's no datacomm between the monitor and the car, all you get is a blank display with the arrow when you hit one of the buttons.

Which connectors on the board have you connected Tx and Rx to? If you've terminated them at the Simmstick header, there was a bust track on the DT107 I got that prevented the board working this way. If you're not already doing so, try terminating at J3 instead.

L555chris

Thanks,
Yep I am on the simmstick at the moment, which pins on J3 should I use?

Cheers

Chris

greasemonkey

2 and 4. Can't remember which is Tx and which is Rx though. Try it one way, and if you still get zip, swap them...

StickyMicky

you have got a heatsink fitted as well? (i got caught out with that one}

SoNiCa

Could this be developed to a Skyline R34 ecu monitor? I mean the graphical interface.

TopBanana

Anyone found a good source for the diagnostic connectors?

AndrewC

Chris,

Your photo looks like the unit is working but not receiving any data. There is no error message to tell you this, that costs more.

Try checking the continuity of your Tx/Rx wires to the microcontroller ports D2 and D3 (pins 4 and 5 IIRC but check the Mega8 datasheet).

Andrew...

L555chris

Thanks for your help guys - I'll give it a try and get back to you!

sonica - yep this could probably be developed into a skyline style graphical interface, once I've got my monitor running I'm going to give it a shot, it will be based on a laptop PC rather than having some huge screen and controller.
PCs in cars has got to be the way forward for so many other reasons, music, DVD, TV, GPS navigation, speed camera locations, etc etc.

cheers

Chris

L555chris

Woohoo!
Success at last!

The problem was RX and TX weren't connected to D2 & D3

I'm feeling very pleased!

I've already been and plugged the laptop in and tried to get some information out of it with no results, got the odd bit of garbage onto the terminal screen but nothing of any meaning.
What terminal settings should I have and what commands do I need to send through for it to talk back?

Thanks again for all your help,

Chris

SoNiCa

Congratulations!
I've read whole posts to this thread one by one and decided to start building one for my MY98 Chris do you know the day you've started? It was 6 months ago according to your first post to this thread?

It would be very nice to see the instructions, tricks, etc.. on an article.Any volunteer to do that here?

I'm also very interested graphical interface since I'm graphic designer I'll follow your posts Chris

Cheers.

Paul_M

Thought I'd dig this back up.... anyone else built one recently?

StickyMicky

nope but i use mine nearly everytime i drive to make sure the cars not getting any on boost knock correction, and its not running lean

it was starting to report back that the lambda voltage was lean, and i investigated and found a minor fault which was fixed, so i cant rate the unit enough

Graz

This thread belongs in Projects! Any idea how we can get it moved?

Whilst on the subject anyone got any further with MY99/00 decoding?

SoNiCa

sorry to bring the thread back but I am tearing my hair out here
First of all we've started with our own board design but no achivement
Here is the link for the board;

here is the result screen:


Well the test program works fine:It shows “scoobymonitor” but when we flash the LcdBin.bin file it does not work.

Then we decided to build it on Simmstick.What you see below is a picture of Simmstick.
I scanned PCB high resolution for to show everything.

Would someone please verify me? What is the wrong with it? Is it a problem with the my ECU? Can you please identify your ECUs. I'm not sure now but I think I've AE200 ECU on my car.

cheers

StickyMicky

you need a heat sink for that transistor

SoNiCa

Before that I think my must able to run it.
StickyMicky what type ECU you've on your car?

thanks

AndrewC

Sorry not to reply to your latest email, I have been busy.

Take a photo of the label on your ECU.

How many plugs are on the ECU?

I can't see a single capacitor on that board

Andrew...