I run a forum (superturbodiesel.com) for Mercedes Turbo Diesels. No you may ask, what can decades old technology learn from open source of today? Perhaps you can teach an old dog tricks.
I would like to measure the mV from the glow plugs. These are basically acting as a thermo coupler. Is there any way I can increase the sensitivity, say 0-1Volt?
Anyone know of a good way to measure fuel volume? One of the biggest issues is that the entire system outside of the glow plugs and starter is mechanical. That means mechanical fuel injection. While in theory this makes for EMP proof cars, they wear. The car uses the Bosch MW injection pump which is in essence the reverse of the engine. Inline pistons and a crank. I would like to measure the fuel pressure and quantity emitting from this pump. The injectors open at 135BAR so I would need to mimick that kind of pressure. Ideas anyone?
I plan on picking up all 5 glowpugs on one card and getting another for measuring boost, how open the injector pump is, tachometer and odometer (All of these sensors are there just not used efficiently).
There are two ways to achieve the 0-1V input. One way is to change the reference voltage the arduino's ADC uses. This is fairly easy for a Freedunio, but I don't know how easy it is on a standard Arduino.
The other way to do it is to use an op amp circuit to amplify the 0-1V signal by 5x to 0-5V. There should be a topic or two here somewhere about doing that.
There are a variety of pressure sensors that can be interfaced with the Arduino, but you might need to look for one that handles stronger chemicals. The sensors come in a variety of pressure ranges. Would there be any off the shelf fuel pressure sender units that could be read by the Arduino? Seems like there could be.
There are liquid flow sensors out there, but I haven't looked into them much. I think there are some that are essentially rotary encoders, and some that just produce a pulse every time a set amount of liquid flows through. Maybe someone else knows more on that.