This is my first actual post so Hi! to everybody.
I've been following this thread for a while now and I'm planning to build something similar to MPGuino (the main reasons, too much time
and a litres/(100 Km) "european" presentation instead of MPG).
To the point... I've been thinking for three days now what's the purpose of the 5.1 V zeners in the VSS and injector inputs.
At first I thought it was a "voltage regulator" configuration. The idea is, Vin is 11-14 V, but the zener limits it to 5.1 V, a somewhat valid TTL "high" level, so the input pin reads a "1".
However, a zener MUST have a minimum inverse current to work properly, a 5.1 zener, about 50 mA. The 100k resistor limits the current to (13 V - 5 V = 8 V; 8V / 100k = 0.08 mA), a fairly lower value than the ~50 mA required. In theory, the zener would not give the 5.1 V but another value between that and 0 V.
What I'm missing? Maybe it's there for surge protection? Then how is the level conversion done?
Also, anyway, why are we not using a more "normative" input level conversion, like this ones (link below), suggested in the Arduino website?
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/upl..._4_arduino.pdf
Please, tell me! I need to sleep!
Thanks!