Interest in CAN and OBD-2 support for Cougar?

[Grimm]

You can get a 7/8" Chinese import Android tablet these days for ~$100. There are even 10" ones in the $150-$170 range. Just search for tablets that use the WM8650 chipset. I'd be really tempted to dash mount a tablet and load it with Torque and a music player. It's like a poor man's carputer!

Another possibility might be to turn the Cougar into an actual Android accessory. I think there was already one person who ran a Cougar with an Arduino, so it's definitely a possibility.

[DJBecker]

I've created a new project on Google Code named 'obd2-instruments'.

http://code.google.com/p/obd2-instruments/

This project contains multiple subsystem.

The Cougar add-on OBD2 code is there, unchanged from its early January snapshot.

There are more recent versions for both the AVR (e.g. Arduino hardware, and the Cougar hardware) and the STM32.

The AVR version supports multiple chips. Our first motor controller used an Arduino Mega1280 board, which soon added a MCP2515 CAN controller. At that point I rewrote our firmware to be partially compatible with the Cougar config structure in the hope that the CAN interface code would be useful for Cougar users.

I later added a driver for the CAN controller built into the AT90CAN32 series, although that is untested and there is no GPIO setup code for those chips.

The STM32 version started with our use of the STM32VLDiscovery board. We wired up a MCP2515 controller, since I had known-working code. (That was supposed to be easy, but we lost a few *days* to chip bugs that made that specific SPI port unusable.) I later added support for the '103 and '105 chips and their 'bxCAN' on-chip CAN controllers once our controller PC board was fabricated.

BTW, thank you 'Laen' at DorkbotPDX for making it easy and inexpensive to have our controller PC board made, along with all of the other random PC boards for our EV project.

[Simy]

Wow DJ Your really rocking with that. Its awesome! =)

[sawickm]

Originally Posted by DJBecker

There are more recent versions for both the AVR (e.g. Arduino hardware, and the Cougar hardware) and the STM32.

Our first motor controller used an Arduino Mega1280 board, which soon added a MCP2515 CAN controller. At that point I rewrote our firmware to be partially compatible with the Cougar config structure in the hope that the CAN interface code would be useful for Cougar users.

I later added support for the '103 and '105 chips and their 'bxCAN' on-chip CAN controllers once our controller PC board was fabricated.

Our controller PC board made, along with all of the other random PC boards for our EV project.

DJB,

Are you selling these motor controllers your developing? or are they open source EV projects?

-Mark

[DJBecker]

Originally Posted by sawickm

DJB,

Are you selling these motor controllers your developing? or are they open source EV projects?

-Mark

Everything is Open Source -- GPL for the firmware.

I've put most of the CAN related code on

obd2-instruments - Automotive CAN bus implemention including OBD2 reporting and gauge/display drivers - Google Project Hosting
and
arm-utilities - ARM processor toolchain utilies - Google Project Hosting

I haven't yet called this a release or made our circuit boards available because of a long-running problem that was only recently resolved.

Our drivetrain would make a horrible squeal when under load, such as when going uphill or accelerating. Everything was under suspicion, including oscillations caused by the board layout and the firmware. Only recently was the problem tracked down to the armature winding structure slipping on the shaft(!) under high load. We had been sold a bad motor.

That mechanical problem is now resolved, but it delayed development by months and caused me to rip many features out of the firmware. I'm working on the west coast most of the summer which makes development of the motor controller section more difficult, so I've focused on other aspects.