Automatically actuated grill block - Mk3

[samwichse]

ECU is under the passenger footwell. Pull up the corner of the carpet starting near the passenger door hinge and you'll see a black metal plate at a 45 degree angle, it's under there. Probably easier to tap the ECT in the engine compartment, honestly.

If you have an OBDIIC&C, it puts whatever is on the screen (the 8 display slots) out from the headphone looking jack in serial format, so you can take coolant temp, intake temp, vehicle speed, engine load, pretty much whatever as serial input on your arduino.

Sam

[LittleBlackDuck]

Originally Posted by samwichse

ECU is under the passenger footwell. Pull up the corner of the carpet starting near the passenger door hinge and you'll see a black metal plate at a 45 degree angle, it's under there. Probably easier to tap the ECT in the engine compartment, honestly.

If you have an OBDIIC&C, it puts whatever is on the screen (the 8 display slots) out from the headphone looking jack in serial format, so you can take coolant temp, intake temp, vehicle speed, engine load, pretty much whatever as serial input on your arduino.

Sam

Only one word - OBDuino.

Implement and *******ise the code with your addons for grille control. Opens up a plethora of variables to use such as opening under prolonged high load, closing if idling etc.

Simon

[Daox]

I copied the last few posts over from my build thread. They're more pertinent here than there.

I love the idea of the OBDuino. I guess never really followed the progress of that project, but as you said, the flexibility you'd have would be tremendous! I must admit, it is a bit beyond my current programming skill set too. Rise to the occasion? Perhaps. I'll have to look into it a bit further.

[LittleBlackDuck]

Originally Posted by Daox

I copied the last few posts over from my build thread. They're more pertinent here than there.

I love the idea of the OBDuino. I guess never really followed the progress of that project, but as you said, the flexibility you'd have would be tremendous! I must admit, it is a bit beyond my current programming skill set too. Rise to the occasion? Perhaps. I'll have to look into it a bit further.

Glad you liked it. Coding won't be too hard. Look over the obduino code and there will be a main loop. I would stuff your bits in at the bottom. Look at which variables you want to use for the control then draw a pretty little state diagram of how things will go. What this will do is make you consider all the possible paths between the finite states. Once all this is done the coding is pretty simple. Your main states will be full open, full closed, opening, closing and stopped. Draw these on a large sheet of paper around the edges. Open at the top, closed at the bottom, opening on the left, closing on the right and stopped in the middle. Next, draw arrows that represent the transitions that will occur and then write next to them the condiitions that need to be fulfilled for it to happen.

Always remember the 7 Ps - Proper Prior Planning Prevents Pi$$ Poor Performance. Think ten times, draw it out a couple of times then cut the code once.

You can always scream for help and I will try to assist.

Simon

[Obormot]

some our old cars has stock grills for protection from very cold weather

usually this grills driving manually but some people install electric drive

maybe you can find and use some stock grill block?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNjE1_0dB0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UMc7GpL-5A

also modern Fords has automatic grills:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhFVJMVVafM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opN-WjSyG8c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJtoq7lLIFg

you can look at their algorithm, and thier construction.

[samwichse]

In the related videos on your 3rd youtube video there: How to remove the active grill shutters from your RAM 2500, no CEL!

[RoadCyclist]

I think you may be overthinking this. Why not just run the server angle based on a temperature sensor mounted on the engine somewhere? You could just adjust the max/min temperature reading servo thresholds to mirror the actual coolant temperature. That would mean you didn't have to bugger with ECU wiring.

I have been pursuing this angle with some tinkering of my own. I busted out the Arduino today and tried out some code, which i modified from the following link. It's worth a thought.

[RoadCyclist]

Temperature controlled servo

[gumby79]

On the f150 the last videos.
The louvers shown are synced to the intake air temperature not coolent. This will make a massive improvement in warm up time, especially in cold climates like mying forcast -8°f mon -14 tus. increase the IAT by 1°f = 3°f rise in EGT

[Veen]

This may be simpler than the OBDuino to get up and running with.

Freematics OBD-II UART Adapter V2 (for Arduino)

Also, I didn't see in your photos earlier if you were using a mosfet or a transistor to power the servo. If that servo is drawing 250mA, you'll eventually kill the arduino. It can only do about 50mA sustainably.

Just my two cents. Loving this project. I've been thinking about something similar for my FIT for a while. I was thinking of using a rotary pot mounted to the dash to control the servo position. It's a bit more manual approach but I suppose I just like fiddling with things as I drive.