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Can anyone guess what this little bit of electrickery does? I'd worked out the schematics years ago, the lockdown meant I finally had time to put the prototype through the test. Took a bit of time, but in the end it works as expected. 🙂

Filip

Electrickery.jpg

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Not the engine, though that is a very similar plug. The engine side will be handled by MS, with the usual D37 plug. There's another ECU that can be replaced by just a few relays.

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Sad that we can identify something from a very small component. I bought a Disco 2 this week, still haven't collected it but I think I have solved the starting problem from a photo of the dash.

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Getting very close. 🙂

Obviously a P38, it's for my project (the one sitting on the lift for the past year or so...). But not the gearbox, it will be a manual. And I think 3 relais wouldn't cut it to give decent control over the autobox. But an interesting idea! This controller is to replace an ECU that's more prone to failure than the one for the autobox, especially on early cars.

@Simon_CSK that's not sad at all, it just shows how knowledgeable we are about these cars. 😉 Which is also why forums like this are so helpful, those in the know often only need a reasonably accurate description of an issue to be able to identify the cause and a possible solution.

Filip

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38 minutes ago, Blanco said:

You haven't reduced the BECM to that surely?:ph34r:

You got it! After all, you only need wipers and lights right, everything else is just added weight. 🤣

If only I could... It's something a lot more basic (and unnecessarily complicated in the P38), but I'm still proud of it.

An EAS replacement would be nice (I've seen 2 driveblocks fail on customers cars recently), but to read the height sensors would require something more complicated than a relay, and that's beyond me to design/fab. Alarm/central locking is a good call as well, as it's basically a simple system with just a few microswitches. But incorporated in the BECM, so possibly a can of worms once you start tinkering.

Anyway, not much left now, is there? 🙂

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@Elbekko would like that, a simple controller for the HEVAC! Temperature should be easy, just a mom-off-mom Carling switch to control the blend motors. You could do the same for the distribution, but you'd not have the info about the actual position selected. Might just give it a try. 🙂 That would be several small plugs, not the one big black one in the picture.

This thread was meant as a little fun, now I'm ending up with ideas for yet more work. 😄 As long as we get some laughs out it. 😉

Filip

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When I saw the picture the initial thought was control of the electric AC fans from Series to Parallel and back, but they used relays anyway.
I don't recognise the plug, and can't be bothered to read the ETM connector diagrams - that would be cheating anyway.

'Common failure point in early vehicles', well mine was a '95 (bought by me in '99, so I missed the earliest years). Even so, nothing really sprung to mind, but reading on most things have been eliminated by others.

Thinking for a little longer, the only item not mentioned by others, which did have several revisions in the life of the car, was the electronic control for the Hi-Lo shift motor. The facility, if not the ECU, is common to Auto & Manual gearboxes
I started writing this and nothing else sprung to mind, so that's what I'll vote for.

Regards

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2 hours ago, David Sparkes said:

the electronic control for the Hi-Lo shift motor

Got a winner!

I think it might be a good idea to put an extra fuse on the output to the motor. Since the ECUs are known to burn out when the motor locks up, and not trust the 30A fuse further up the line.

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5 hours ago, Escape said:

@Elbekko would like that, a simple controller for the HEVAC! Temperature should be easy, just a mom-off-mom Carling switch to control the blend motors. You could do the same for the distribution, but you'd not have the info about the actual position selected. Might just give it a try. 🙂 That would be several small plugs, not the one big black one in the picture.

Been thinking about it. Or just hooking some damn cables to the blend motors, the holes are there anyway.

Now I have plenty of free time, I'm too far away from the car to actually try and develop stuff like that. Would be nice.

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6 hours ago, David Sparkes said:

Thinking for a little longer, the only item not mentioned by others, which did have several revisions in the life of the car, was the electronic control for the Hi-Lo shift motor. The facility, if not the ECU, is common to Auto & Manual gearboxes

I started writing this and nothing else sprung to mind, so that's what I'll vote for.

Regards

 

3 hours ago, elbekko said:

Got a winner!

I think it might be a good idea to put an extra fuse on the output to the motor. Since the ECUs are known to burn out when the motor locks up, and not trust the 30A fuse further up the line.

That's indeed correct! David, if we ever meet, you've earned yourself a Belgian beer. 🍺

Ben helped me design it, many moons ago, so he wasn't allowed to guess on here. 🙂 I've had a few ECU's fail and as the ones for the manual are harder to find, I decided it would be nice to just build a simplified control box. Tested in a car today and everything works, including the messages on the dash. Only problem is the non-latching switch in the manual cars, but that's easy enough to replace. I'll be using a bunch of Carlings instead of the original switches anyway. I still need to add something to select neutral as well but haven't decided on using an extra switch instead of faffing about with fuse 11 (as standard). 

As for fuses, the relays and cables should be able to handle the fused 30A without any worry. I could always replace it with a 20A fuse, just to be safe. The problem in the early ECUs was the prolonged high current through the power transistor if the motor stuck. With limited cooling they soon gave up. The relays wont have this problem.

Now, on to the HEVAC...

Greetz,

Filip

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On 5/6/2020 at 12:32 PM, Snagger said:

They made that electronic?!? 😳

Yes they did! Instead of a nice sturdy little gear lever, you get a button (manual) or an H-gate (automatic) to politely ask a computer to change range for you. If all conditions are met, the motor doesn't bind and the position switch is in good order, it will do so. To be fair, usually it works OK, but is the ECU fails, there is now an easier alternative. 😉

Lotus claims the electric windows fitted as standard to the Elan +2 (the first Lotus so equipped I think) were no heavier than the manual winders. I wouldn't mind winders, less to go wrong, but I must admit it's easy to be able to lower the passenger window from the driver side. Especially when using a RHD car in Europe, where everybody walks up to the wrong side if they want to talk to you. 🙂

Filip

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