Custom CAN gateway/converter

[Blizzard25]

Not sure if anyone has any reason to mess around with something like this, but just wanted to put the offer out there...a couple years ago I made a pretty simple CAN gateway device. It's 4 channel, can accept CAN, analog and USB input and can output either CAN, analog, bluetooth, or wifi. Kind of overkill for the purpose I made it for, just converting a FF analog signal into a CAN signal on an older platform, but I also wasn't thinking about applications for a kit car. So if you can think of any use case for the Goblin, or if you're inclined to mess around with it, I have 4 boards still that I'm happy to ship out, won't cost you anything if you're testing. I can make more if there's interest but the PCBs cost about $25 to make.

You can do the obvious stuff like telemetry, custom cluster stuff....the big idea that I would love to do is active aero, but that requires some mechanical knowledge that I don't think I have to DIY by myself unfortunately. Putting together a kit car is already testing my mechanical limit, designing a custom mechanical component would probably be above what I'm capable of lol software side though, fine.

 

[Ross]

I like playing with microcontrollers, and fabricating metal parts. Since it accepts canbus input and output, then I can see this being useful as a canbus gateway/man-in-the-middle. I don't know why you would convert a fast fourier analog signal into a CAN signal. You will have to educate me.

 

[ah.b.normal]

Hey Guys! Please get back to me and DS when you work out how to jump over/eliminate the BCM. Just thought you might have the how to on this need. IMO Cars don't need BCM's, manufacturers do.

I once had to get a BCM flashed so the window would roll down after motor replacement. Strangely, if I jumped the motor and rolled it down the switch could roll it back up! So, New switch; that didn't fix it. BCM "command voltage needed adjustment". $600 at Jeep dealer for "programing". Traded that SuperDelux Wrangler for a plain jane "Sport" with manual most everything.
BCM's are no way to make friends.

 

[Blizzard25]

I like playing with microcontrollers, and fabricating metal parts. Since it accepts canbus input and output, then I can see this being useful as a canbus gateway/man-in-the-middle. I don't know why you would convert a fast fourier analog signal into a CAN signal. You will have to educate me.

Yeah just DM me where you want me to send it.

The only real purpose for the original conversion was to be able to get it as an input to the ECM I was working with, without having to pin into empty slots or hijack anything existing. I wanted to use that analog signal as an input for custom logic

 

[aaronc7]

I'm definitely going to be looking into this stuff more in the coming months. I'd like to be able to bring in wheel speed sensors and an accelerometer (and probably other things I haven't thought of yet) to the ECU/TCU. For the V2 specifically, I think we're going to lose the speed sensors since the kit won't reuse the oem hubs, and the accelerometer is I think? built into the ABS module, so that's probably not going to transfer over either.

 

[Blizzard25]

I'm definitely going to be looking into this stuff more in the coming months. I'd like to be able to bring in wheel speed sensors and an accelerometer (and probably other things I haven't thought of yet) to the ECU/TCU. For the V2 specifically, I think we're going to lose the speed sensors since the kit won't reuse the oem hubs, and the accelerometer is I think? built into the ABS module, so that's probably not going to transfer over either.

On the accelerometer part, I made a super small device which uses a 6DOF BMI323 for gyro and accelerometer and 3DOF BMM150 magnetometer. All the sensor fusion is done on board. You can see it in action here, for some reason i held it inverted but you get the idea:

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

It's obviously a bit jumpy and needs to be cleaned up but vehicles don't need the resolution sensitivity I have it set to in the video so it's easy to smooth. I have a ton of spares of these, they were cheaper to get that way since the board is double sided and 4 layer to make it compact. The sensor data should go USB (or wifi if you hate data integrity) to CAN gateway and then use it as you want.

 

[Hayden2053]

maybe a dumb question but what does this do?

 

[Blizzard25]

maybe a dumb question but what does this do?

Not a dumb question, it is a bit confusing. At its core, its a middleman device. It takes data from point A, and passes it to point B of your choosing. A super simplified way of looking at it is a middleman control module. You can intercept and split data (sensor going to a module and you want it to go to a dash for example, or fingers crossed active aero), intercept, digest, calculate and broadcast (this is similar to how flex fuel analyzers work) or simply intercept and store (telemetry).

The extended aspect of this is the different type conversions from analog/CAN/USB/wireless, but the core part of it is the main part. If you understand that and want to learn more I can explain further.

 

[Hayden2053]

Not a dumb question, it is a bit confusing. At its core, its a middleman device. It takes data from point A, and passes it to point B of your choosing. A super simplified way of looking at it is a middleman control module. You can intercept and split data (sensor going to a module and you want it to go to a dash for example, or fingers crossed active aero), intercept, digest, calculate and broadcast (this is similar to how flex fuel analyzers work) or simply intercept and store (telemetry).

The extended aspect of this is the different type conversions from analog/CAN/USB/wireless, but the core part of it is the main part. If you understand that and want to learn more I can explain further.

intresting, if I had the money to look into this more itd be very neat. or if I get bored XD

 

[Blizzard25]

2 of the 4 left

 

[ctuinstra]

Is there any details on it, datasheets, manuals, etc, available to download, or is this completely custom made? I don't know a lot about this, but I'm potential looking at a future project with a standalone ECU and customer dash. Is this something that may come into play?

 

[Blizzard25]

Is there any details on it, datasheets, manuals, etc, available to download, or is this completely custom made? I don't know a lot about this, but I'm potential looking at a future project with a standalone ECU and customer dash. Is this something that may come into play?

It's 100% custom, i designed the board, printed, wrote firmware. It uses an ESP32 MCU which has heavy documentation, it's one of the most commonly used hobbyist MCUs that has a pretty low barrier to entry in terms of its learning curve.

You can use it to pass data from ECU to dash or do whatever you want with it, but there's no graphics processing. You'd need to do any graphics externally, which I think is what you meant by custom dash but i just wanted to clarify that part. There's no hookup for any shields or anything for extending the functionality, which if there was some demand for it i'm sure i could redesign, but until that point I'll just leave it as is.

 

[Blizzard25]

Hooked one of these up to the Q60 tonight to see if I could make a pseudo-bump box

 

[David]

Not sure if anyone has any reason to mess around with something like this, but just wanted to put the offer out there...a couple years ago I made a pretty simple CAN gateway device. It's 4 channel, can accept CAN, analog and USB input and can output either CAN, analog, bluetooth, or wifi. Kind of overkill for the purpose I made it for, just converting a FF analog signal into a CAN signal on an older platform, but I also wasn't thinking about applications for a kit car. So if you can think of any use case for the Goblin, or if you're inclined to mess around with it, I have 4 boards still that I'm happy to ship out, won't cost you anything if you're testing. I can make more if there's interest but the PCBs cost about $25 to make.

You can do the obvious stuff like telemetry, custom cluster stuff....the big idea that I would love to do is active aero, but that requires some mechanical knowledge that I don't think I have to DIY by myself unfortunately. Putting together a kit car is already testing my mechanical limit, designing a custom mechanical component would probably be above what I'm capable of lol software side though, fine.

View attachment 54199

This is very interesting and way past my pay grade but you might have an answer for me. Snice I looks like your into chips and coding. Im looking for a way to use a digital display using an Android tablet.

I ran into an app called Realdash that you can use a obd2 Bluetooth reader or a USB to Canbus adapter. My goal is to display has much information on the screen as possible. Also would be nice to see if its possible to wire up external sensors so it reads them also.