Wireless control of engine throttle

Hello again,

We have our sawmill on the workshop operating table this week and have done a bunch of things to it, two tasks of interest one being an automated stepper controlled component and the other being an engine replacement...

The new engine is injected which negates the need for a throttle cable connecting the operator station now, rather it is controlled by a potentiometer on the engine control panel.

The stepper component has caused the need for an electronics enclosure to be added so I am thinking while I have that open, might it be sensible to add functionality to wirelessly control the engine throttle from the operator station (which in near future, will be nowhere near the engine).

Connecting via wires involves energy chains etc which we'd like to stay away from, so my question is a two part, what kind of hardware would we be looking at to transmit a single channel signal to an engine from an operator station and two - rather than a servo operating a pot, is there such a chip available that can take a PWM signal and mimic varying the resistance like a pot does?

I'm reasonably familiar with RC electronics but wondering if there is something smaller format than strapping a 6ch model transmitter to the operator station for e.g.. is there a small module available as an Arduino shield or the likes that will transmit/receive a pwm signal?

Thanks in advance as always!
Josh

arduino pro mini with nrf24l01+ are 18 times smaller as arduino uno with shield

Since radio is inherently unreliable, for safety reasons it would be an extremely good idea to have rock solid error detection, and have the throttle instantly released if valid signals are not received.

Adafruit Feathers are well designed, well built Arduino radio modules, compatible with RadioHead, which performs packet receipt ACK/NACK validation, and radios that perform packet level error detection. A second error detection level on top of the packet detection is strongly advised.

1 Like

Consider doing a FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) it will point out many potential problems.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.