DIY Consult on USB lives!!!

[John Bennett]

Think I might go home and have a drink now (been doing late nighters this week to get the damn thing working after waffling on about it for months ).
After a load of silly mistakes and bodging (hence the mass of wires and blue breadboard next to the PCB ), and then hours of writing and adjusting the software in the PIC chip, I finally got an ECU to communicate to the PC via USB and run Datascan correctly .

All the signal processing and conversion is done by a £5 pic chip and some transistors . I might redesign the PCB to be entirely surface mount and try and get it down to postage-stamp size .

Yeah, I know you can buy/make a serial consult lead and put on a USB converter, or just buy a USB consult lead from the states, but that's not the point

(BTW, that's an S14 ECU and engine loom piled up in the photo).

[M pro]

How easy would this be for an s13?

i'm thinking i could use this on my car PC

PS good work m8

[Yakko]

Blimey John, you've got some skills!

[Nicely]

Well done, mate. Know you've been banging your head with this.

[Parker]

Gauge-tastic

[John Bennett]

Thanks guys

How easy would this be for an s13?

i'm thinking i could use this on my car PC

PS good work m8

To do it on a UK S13 would involve fitting an ECU that has a consult data port, as the CA18 doesn't, unfortunately .
SR20 conversion would solve it, but that's a tad drastic to get a few gauges

[h0us3y]

impressive work

[inflexion]

and why did i not learn how to do somthing useful like that with PIC chips when i was using them at uni

[madcowman]

very nice work Mr Bennett !

[Phil LS]

Nice one john, looks pretty cool

[Grim]

hope my advice on serial data transmission was of use














(in joke - with me being the numpty pic'r)

[Martin T]

Nice work there John

[SL25]

Excellent stuff....any chance you'd want to build me one for my car pc? I would be willing to pay for your time and parts etc...

[amnesia]

How much could you make these for (if you wanted to) ?

The cheapest I have found on the wonderweb is $125AUS but that came with ConZult software too.

[John Bennett]

Grim I appreciated the offer of help, but I didn't need those cereal bites in the end ,

Erm, to reproduce, (although that's definitely on my mind) I can't really say at the mo- and can't just make up group buys on the spot , parts-wise alone, it's near a tenner, it's just that dreaded Consult (& Subaru diagnostics) plug that costs the most component-wise. I might have a go at building some pins into the board to make it plug directly onto a car.

Amnesia - is that PLMS's serial board? Datascan software is only £10 .

It'd be nice to get some more work done on the free Consult software I/SXOC were making, but that ground to a halt trying to put lighting on the 3-D gauges

[don]

Thanks guys


To do it on a UK S13 would involve fitting an ECU that has a consult data port, as the CA18 doesn't, unfortunately .
SR20 conversion would solve it, but that's a tad drastic to get a few gauges

That means I can have one

Seriously awesome project John

[Pulsargt]

Nice one Mr Bennet

see you on Sunday bring mine along,
or are you calling through on Saturday?

[amnesia]

Amnesia - is that PLMS's serial board? Datascan software is only £10 .

Yeah that's the one.

I found this too... http://www.nissansilvia.com/forums/l...p/t117698.html


I would be very (read - definitely) interested if you were to produce these

I wonder if I could use a USB port on my laptop for this, and the serial port for the RLTC at the same time How 2F2F is that

[John Bennett]

The commercial one they mention is the Blazt cable:
http://www.blazt.biz/
($88 US).
Anyway, I'd better not make this a gauging interest thread . A bit more R&D to be done anyway, and then field testing .

[Grim]

that's the problem i always get john

electronics £5
box to put it in £7.50
cables, connector etc £8.00

burning your thumb soldering on the kitchen table, priceless

although making it small enough, means the box can be replaced with large heatshrink