New I/O Expander - Now Released!

[TimH]

Poised to release this and will make the formal announcement very soon!

Here's a link for further information

[TimH]

Well, these things always seem to take longer than planned, but I can now announce that the Mini Expansion Unit will start shipping from Monday October 3rd 2016.

There are two reasons for that additional delay:

1. we're away from this weekend for 2 weeks so couldn't ship anyway
2. we're offering £50 off the first 25 pre-orders placed between now and the end of September. Use coupon code 2373 on the website when you check out - normal price is £540 delivered.

As before, full details are here. Outline spec is:

• 4 additional inputs with configurable pull-up resistors, suitable for all sensor types; capable of speed measurement (e.g. for ABS wheel speed sensors).
• H-bridge output which can be configured as a single full bridge or two independent half bridges. Suitable for drive-by-wire throttle control, for example.
• 25Hz update-rate GPS receiver, providing accurate “RADAR” vehicle speed
• Bosch LSU 4.9/4.2 lambda amplifier
• Single channel K thermocouple amplifier, typically used for EGT measurements
• Barometric pressure sensor
• Triple axis accelerometer for vertical, lateral and longitudinal G measurement
• Triple axis G sensors for roll, pitch and yaw measurement

[Slowie]

Very excited about this!

A quick one, does the use of this unit preclude me from using CAN off the ecu for a display as well?

The wording on this point is a bit unclear to me.

Thanks

[TimH]

Glad you're excited

On an S6 there is only 1 CAN interface available and this is used exclusively for the I/O expander. It hogs it.

So, right now, the only way to connect a display is to use the RS232 interface (Toucan and the Bluetooth/iPad/Android solution support this) so that's OK - just means you have to use the wired connection for their CAL selection rather than CAN messaging.

I will be able to offer a variant "CAN bridge" later on that will pick out the usual custom CAN datastream and spit it out in the usual format used by Toucan etc., and will also "bridge" CAL select messages and ALS on/off messages too.

An S8 is OK as it has 2 CAN interfaces so there is one that can still be used as usual.

The S6-plus has a built in I/O expander and I'm not sure that the usual custom CAN datastream makes it to the outside world - but, anyway, this expander is probably not relevant to S6-plus installs anyway!

[Slowie]

Thank Tim

Forgot to mention I'm on a S6, and already using the CANbus, so I will wait around for the "passthrough" version.

Paul

[TimH]

Ok Paul, understood.

[TimH]

For anyone interested:

• 50Hz GPS now available as an option from the PC configuration software
• just finalising a software variant (again selectable from the PC software) to allow the unit to emulate the (very expensive!!) LR/Syvecs 50Hz GPS unit. This allows G sensor and accelerometer data (lateral/longitudinal/vertical G and yaw/pitch/roll), along with 50Hz speed data, GPS latitude, longitude, course and altitude to be sent to the ECU.
• H-bridge outputs can be controlled via the generic CAN datastream.
• I will add a mode to emulate the Bosch M4 protocol, allowing yaw and 4 wheel speeds to be sent in over CAN
• Baro pressure, lambda and EGT can use generic CAN receive (S8 only, until S6 gets this as an option)

All the above allow the standard 1Mbit/s CAN data to be used so no problem with dashes or Toucan etc. sharing the CANbus, on an S6.

And all for £540 delivered

[Slowie]

• just finalising a software variant (again selectable from the PC software) to allow the unit to emulate the (very expensive!!) LR/Syvecs 50Hz GPS unit. This allows G sensor and accelerometer data (lateral/longitudinal/vertical G and yaw/pitch/roll), along with 50Hz speed data, GPS latitude, longitude, course and altitude to be sent to the ECU.

Will no hardware changes be required to the unit to activate these functions, when they are available?

[TimH]

• just finalising a software variant (again selectable from the PC software) to allow the unit to emulate the (very expensive!!) LR/Syvecs 50Hz GPS unit. This allows G sensor and accelerometer data (lateral/longitudinal/vertical G and yaw/pitch/roll), along with 50Hz speed data, GPS latitude, longitude, course and altitude to be sent to the ECU.

Will no hardware changes be required to the unit to activate these functions, when they are available?

Just a software upgrade