Hey guys, I'm looking for some guidance before I dive into the Arduino world. I have a 1985 Chevrolet C10 that I have done a lot of work to one of those things being a new engine from a late model vehicle. Because of this I am currently interested in using an Arduino to control my gauge cluster using inputs from my ECM. So far what I've gathered, on my own with limited guidance, is I would require 1 arduino Uno (Arduino Uno Rev3), and 6 driver boards (Arduino Motor Shield Rev3). I will have some assistance in coding for all of this as I am generally new to it but, before i get that far I am wondering if this is what I should need hardware wise. I refuse to buy anything from China so I've stuck with what I have read is not made in China so far.
"using an Arduino to control my gauge cluster using inputs from my ECM"
Well, you will need to be very knowledgeable with your ECM, what data it produces, and how you will get this data from the ECM. I doubt anybody will be able to help you with this. Do you plan on using one of the plug in engine diagnostic tools to get your data?
using inputs from my ECM
The signals and details can very and you'll have to know what you're dealing with.
So far what I've gathered, on my own with limited guidance, is I would require 1 arduino Uno (Arduino Uno Rev3), and 6 driver boards (Arduino Motor Shield Rev3).
A regular-old electro-mechanical gauge (if that's what you have) is essentially [u]meter movement[/u] and in an automobile it's going to operate on 0-12VDC. i.e. On the gas gauge, 0V would be empty and 12V would be full (or vice versa). if that's what you have you can use [u]PWM[/u] (analogWrite() ) and a transistor or [u]MOSFET[/u] driver circuit. The mechanical inertia of the meter movement averages the PWM to give an analog indication.
Since you're controlling very-low currents and low voltages almost any NPN transistor or N-Channel MOSFET will work. (You don't need an H-bridge motor driver which is used to control the speed and direction of a motor.)
As you may know, the Arduino operates from 5V so in addition to transistors/MOSFETs on the outputs you'll need [u]voltage dividers[/u] and/or [u]over-voltage protection circuits[/u] on the inputs (unless your modern MCU puts-out 5V signals).