Quote:
Originally Posted by 93Cobra#2771
Interesting idea. You need to plumb your sensor not only after the tstat, but after the radiator as well. You want to know how hot the coolant is before it goes in the motor, not after the fact. This will give you a little safety factor. You also need to allow for overlap in the temps. In other words, door opens at 220 degrees and closes when at 210. Otherwise, hysterisis will take place and door will get "confused".
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Ideally, you would either use the engines existing coolant temperature or an additional one very close to it just to measure the actual engine coolant temp. I chose to splice in the sensor after the thermostat as the best easy option from an installation and universal programming standpoint. All the controller needs to know is, is the engine coolant hot enough to open the grill? Yes/No. I don't see why you'd need a second sensor to answer that question. The hysterisis is programmed into the arduino code.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vtec-e
My guess is that you would end up having the fan coming on and off constantly. It would cool as normally, due to the grille being open, but things would heat up rapidly upon the grille closing. Having the motorised grille block open at a temp below the cut in temp of the fan would help level out the temps before the fan cuts in. What would be really "cool" would be to have it on a servo motor so the grille could close by an amount that would hold the temps at a pre-determined level. As you'd drive through cold pockets of air, it would close slightly and vice versa. Awesome! 
ollie |
In addition to having the fan come on and off constantly, you don't want the coolant fan running. It draws a fair amount of electricity and we are doing this for efficiency's sake. I currently have my arduino code setup to open up the grill just before the fan comes on, and closes the grill just above max thermostat temp.
I agree, the servo controlled grill block would definitely be best. But, try finding cheap parts for it. Plus its more complex and this is already straining my electronics knowledge haha. If you know of any good solutions feel free to share!
