Holset VGT Electronic Controller Project

[WhatsADSM]

I'm working on a couple big leads for trucks right now. I'll let you know in a few days. The main thing is I just need to figure out how to get the information needed once I get a truck.

Will hooking up a simple J1939 CAN microcontroller in line with the turbo and ECU be enough to recieve the commands? Or is there a special type of controller/program I will need?

I really am new to this aspect of programming, being that I am a ME, my only background is Parker Hannifan plc programming language and some ladder logic programming.

This whole project is gonna be a huge learning experience from me, and is a slightly daunting task, which is why I appreciate everyones help with it.

To be honest it sounds like you picked the wrong major. It seems daunting for that reason.

Embedded networking type stuff like this ideally you would have a solid background in embedded firmware and a decent background in electrical to make sure you know what you are doing. I am a firmware engineer by trade (with a lot of my focus on real-time networks) , but I also have a decent background in hardware. So that is why it seems like I am moving along rather quickly.

Electrically to connect you will star off the CAN bus. (read installs like a "T"). You can't just go buy a CAN micro and hook it up to the bus though. There is some interfacing you will need to connect directly on to the CAN bus, not to mention all the rest of the hardware needed to get a "from scratch" micro up and going.

I would suggest buying a pre-built CAN converter MODULE of some sort. If you have cash you can probably get one that will have some J1939 software support as well and just concentrate on the software/firmware for now. IMO trying right now to start from scratch with a microcontroller is a bad idea.

[WhatsADSM]

P.S. if you can find a lead in or near Milwaukee please let me know.

[Mistaken]

Yah, thankfully i have the help of a few very good electrical engineers at work. They will be helping me a great deal once i get the turbo and spare actuator in.

I'm personally gonna work on getting PWM to work on my own just as a good learning experience because i know if i can figure out the pinout I can personally do the programming. The EE's at work are going to be helping me with the CAN communication aspect.

We have a few leads on getting a truck to do the research we need. Although I have no guarantees yet. If someone comes through with a truck and I can get it up to Milwaukee I will let you know.

[RustspecS13]

Wow its nice to see some people collaborating on a VGT controller!

Ive been eyeing these VGT's for a few months, and if I did it myself Id probably modify a giant RC sail servo. Basically put it on steroids. And its easily controllable with a PWM signal. 0-5v The only issue would be an automatic controller but with simple pwm that would be much easier.

I'm also considering a compound turbo setup, taking another page from the diesel guys! Check out this 2jz+ compound turbos in a z31 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbFr_BW_278

~Alex

[WhatsADSM]

Wow its nice to see some people collaborating on a VGT controller!

Ive been eyeing these VGT's for a few months, and if I did it myself Id probably modify a giant RC sail servo. Basically put it on steroids. And its easily controllable with a PWM signal. 0-5v The only issue would be an automatic controller but with simple pwm that would be much easier.

I'm also considering a compound turbo setup, taking another page from the diesel guys! Check out this 2jz+ compound turbos in a z31 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbFr_BW_278

~Alex

The problem with putting on your own servo is the packaging, mechanics, and heat issue. Where would you mount your huge servo? How would you mount your servo? If in the engine bay how would you avoid heat? How would you gear it down to provide the holding torque needed? What about an encoder? Would your whole motor/encoder system be waterproof? etc... But yea it is possible, just not very likely.

CAN using stock hardware > modified stock hardware > complete electromechanical redesign.

Did a little "brute force" CAN work on the actuator last night with still no luck. Pretty sure I will need a truck here to get some data off of.

[RustspecS13]

The servo would be pretty easy to package as its not that big,relative to the turbo anyway. Especially the small control board would be plenty easy to isolate from heat and water. DC motors can run perfectly OK submerged in water, its AC motors that short out in water so it would just need a shield.

As far as gearing it down that would be pretty easy since the servo would have a built in gear box or if I had to use a bigger motor there's plenty of cheap R/C parts to make gear boxes out of.

Like I said Ive been thinking about this for a while and I just wanted to get the best possible VGT actuation as fast as possible, and I have no idea how to do any software writing for the can.

I do agree the more stock stuff used the better as it is designed to work with the under hood conditions.

~Alex

[Mistaken]

Unless you could remote mount the Servo, I dont believe any R/C servo would stand up to the heat of a Turbo. The main advantage of retaining the factory equipment is that the electronics are designed to take some pretty serious heat and are also water cooled on top of that. Even then there is still some skepticism that it will hold up to the heat of a gas engine, although no one has had a failure yet.

Not trying to bash your idea because its good to see someone trying to find an innovative solution to a fairly difficult problem, i just thing you might need to get either really creative with your mounting solution, or find yourself something that can stand up to the heat.

[WhatsADSM]

Still looking for a truck. Turns out my one buddy has an 07 but it is the early 07 with the 5.9.

I made a post up in the Cummins forums in the wisconsin section. Hopefully there is someone that is willing to let me collect some data from their truck. If I don't get any takers, I'll give it a shot in the IL section of the forums... Hopefully I find someone!

[Mistaken]

I am waiting to hear back from a few leads on trucks.

On a side note my spare actuator arrived today, and I am picking up my turbo from 240z4u later tonight (thanks again). I am going to partially dissassemble the spare actuator tonight or tomorrow to see if I can find the I/O pin for PWM, and also see if I can get part numbers off the microcontroller and motor controller for the CAN side of the project.

[240z4u]

Glad to help, see you tonight man! Thank god I have blizzaks on my S14.. else I wouldn't be looking forward to the drive.

Evan

[WhatsADSM]

I am waiting to hear back from a few leads on trucks.

On a side note my spare actuator arrived today, and I am picking up my turbo from 240z4u later tonight (thanks again). I am going to partially dissassemble the spare actuator tonight or tomorrow to see if I can find the I/O pin for PWM, and also see if I can get part numbers off the microcontroller and motor controller for the CAN side of the project.

Awesome... Yea it will be interesting to see if we can find a pin for the PWM input and bring that out.

As for the CAN side, it shouldn't matter too much what uC is in there since it is really just a protocol (firmware) problem. Essentially that is a software solution versus a hardware solution.

Only other thing I was thinking about last night was if we get in there and find an off the shelf uC. It might be a long shot but if you really wanted you might actually be able to completely just take over the stock hardware and drop your own firmware on it, that does just take a PWM signal. Again, probably a lot of work, but if you were dead set on it, it might be an option.

[Mistaken]

I found a guy that will help with the truck, only problem is that he is located in Tennessee. Is there any kind of basic hardware we can used to datalog the commands sent to the turbo from the ECU? OR something i can throw together with some simple code and an arduino like CAN capable board?

What kind of hardware have you been using to do the CAN testing?

On a side note i tore apart my spare actuator and found the other 2 pins that arent wired up, i started making a picture with labeled pins. I started doing a little work with sending it PWM signals with no luck so far, gonna ask the EE from work for a hand tomorrow.

[WhatsADSM]

I found a guy that will help with the truck, only problem is that he is located in Tennessee. Is there any kind of basic hardware we can used to datalog the commands sent to the turbo from the ECU? OR something i can throw together with some simple code and an arduino like CAN capable board?

What kind of hardware have you been using to do the CAN testing?

On a side note i tore apart my spare actuator and found the other 2 pins that arent wired up, i started making a picture with labeled pins. I started doing a little work with sending it PWM signals with no luck so far, gonna ask the EE from work for a hand tomorrow.

Cool keep us posted on how the PWM stuff goes, I am definitely curious.

BTW you got an email.

[Mistaken]

Email inbound WhatADSM.

An update for everyone, after some serious desoldering and time spent tracing some pins. I got the actuator to twitch, so i need to start playing around with input voltages and the frequency to see if i can get it to move. Although after all of this work its quite clear that PWM is no where near a reality for a production version and takes quite a bit of time and work.

[blownhemi]

So I take it's a seperate pin from wherer the CAN wires go? What do you mean by twitch, just one small movement, or is it moving back and forth in a really small range? What kind of pin was it that you were manipulating to get this?

If you have pictures about the controller, could you send them to me via e-mail? Thanks!

[Mistaken]

Yah there is a total of 6 pins, 2 for can, power, ground PWM, and something else.

We believe we found the correct PWM pin, but i wont say which until i am 100% certain, it was a huge b**** to depin and remove the wires so this mod isnt for the faint of heart. They really were never meant to be removed.

By twicht i mean we got a very small movement out of it, it maybe moved 1mm then went back. Not much, but lets us know that at least we are on the right track. I'm going to do some testing with a signal generator on monday to figure out the frequency and voltage it is looking for.

[WhatsADSM]

Yah there is a total of 6 pins, 2 for can, power, ground PWM, and something else.

We believe we found the correct PWM pin, but i wont say which until i am 100% certain, it was a huge b**** to depin and remove the wires so this mod isnt for the faint of heart. They really were never meant to be removed.

By twicht i mean we got a very small movement out of it, it maybe moved 1mm then went back. Not much, but lets us know that at least we are on the right track. I'm going to do some testing with a signal generator on monday to figure out the frequency and voltage it is looking for.

That's not bad news at all. Any movement would be good.

As for voltage be careful. I'm not sure exactly what pin you are tapping into but if it is a logic level pin it's very easy to blow it out with too much voltage. I would be weary of taking it over 3.3V

[blownhemi]

Maybe the unkown one is the negative differential of the PWM. Worth a shot. Though if it is between supply voltage and ground, that would give it enough shielding not to need differential signaling. Don't know. Is there a part number on the ST uC? Search for the datasheet at ST, and look up I/O voltages, and absolute maximum ratings, that should give you how much voltage it expects on the pin, and how much it can tolerate without permanent damage. They can usually take quite some overvoltage before dying.

This all of course in case you have dug deep enough to get a visual on the ST, and if it has labels on it...

[Brayden]

We already have the controller done

It allows you to create your own boost map relative to various analog or CAN inputs or both. The videos you see on youtube are of us testing the unit. There is realtime control of boost or vane ring position with an adjustable knob (scramble boost) to allow more or less boost in realtime.

Not trying to advertise, but it will be available in the next week or two for sub 500.00 price range.

Thanks,

BraydenFleece Performance Engineering

PS We already have Garrett VNT controllers in stock for GT37/40 based VNT's.

[Mistaken]

Brayden,

Someone posted a video link to your controller earlier in the thread. Looks like it works great. It's impressive that you guys got it working so well. I take it since your a diesel shop you guys had trucks on hand to easily pull the CAN commands, and then develop your own microcontroller around it. The main problem we are running into now is the lack of access to a truck to do R&D on.

I think the main reason im doing this project is that I want to say I got it to work on my own, or with some help from some friends and people from nico. But ultimately if i ever failed at getting it to work ide probably look into buying one. A sub 500 dollar price tag isnt to bad, considering some boost controllers are north of $400.

[WhatsADSM]

We already have the controller done

It allows you to create your own boost map relative to various analog or CAN inputs or both. The videos you see on youtube are of us testing the unit. There is realtime control of boost or vane ring position with an adjustable knob (scramble boost) to allow more or less boost in realtime.

Not trying to advertise, but it will be available in the next week or two for sub 500.00 price range.

Thanks,

BraydenFleece Performance Engineering

PS We already have Garrett VNT controllers in stock for GT37/40 based VNT's.

Your video is already in the thread

Yea I think the OP was kind of looking to see if it could be controlled, and then if it was worth it to try to come out with a controller. A little competition never hurt Especially since your primary market is trucks and his would be retrofits to cars.

I also tend to agree with Mistaken. I think our biggest hang up here is just the lack of a truck. With some time and a truck there was/is probably a good chance of making it move over J1939.

Mistaken:

IMHO as a fun project and/or to put on your resume I would continue on the PWM route. It would be interesting to see how far you get and it likely would still be possible to use it on your car!

[Mistaken]

I'm deffinetly not giving up on the PWM route, mostly out of my own boredom, and also because it would be a good accomplishment to get it to work.

The J1939 route is what im shooting for with the production side of the project. I have someone lined up that can very quickly get me the motion commands i need, just need to find a truck to get the information from now. Normally ide take the time to do the work myself on this, but i dont have that kind of access to a truck to spend the serious amount of time it would take me.

[Mistaken]

Bump, project is still on going, but still looking for a truck to pull the j1939 movement codes off of. I have a good lead on a truck but it might be a few months till i get access to it.

I also go back to school in 2 1/2 weeks so the project will be kinda taking the back burner till after finals are done at the end of march.

[Chaos the Xile]

hmm seems very interesting, looks like a couple ppl are looking into diesel type technology to create a quicker spooling turbo!

[Mistaken]

We should combine my VGT work with your compound setup and create the ultimate twin turbo setup

Also the most complicated TT setup. I guess you could use a small VGT for your small turbo and a regular one for the big turbo to possibly avoid the need for a wastegate on the small turbo.

[RustspecS13]

You wouldn't really need a large compound turbo since its probably has a large exhaust housing any way.

Besides that would be a NIGHTMARE to tune. Two VGT turbos in a compound setup? OMG.

But I would think the benefits of a small turbo with a exhaust side VGT would be worth it. I would think you'd still need the waste gate but it wouldn't get as much use or need to be as big. That's of course in addition to the normal VGT benefits.

There's a he351v is a hx40 with a variable exhaust housing I think and I think there's a he341v that might be a hx35 equivalent or so.

Now that would be an insane setup with a he341v and a hx50. Talk about some airflow!

~Alex

[karlo]

Bump!

Did you ever find out anything more about controlling the actuator? With the exception of the Fleece controller, you guys are easily the ones that have made the most progress on this. Personally, I started hacking up a J1939 implementation for Megasquirt, but never got to the point where I actually could hook it up to the actuator to see if it actually did anything.

- Karl

[Mistaken]

I am still away at school for another month or so, so all funding for any progress that will cost me anything is going to have to wait.

On a bright note one of my good friends just got a job as an engineer at Cummins, so there might be a break in the clouds soon.

[WhatsADSM]

Bump!

Did you ever find out anything more about controlling the actuator? With the exception of the Fleece controller, you guys are easily the ones that have made the most progress on this. Personally, I started hacking up a J1939 implementation for Megasquirt, but never got to the point where I actually could hook it up to the actuator to see if it actually did anything.

- Karl

Yea even with the CAN up and running and J1939 running above it I don't think you will get very far with just the turbo and the megasquirt. You will almost surely need a truck to datalog from and hopefully from there you can figure out the message formats. What I can tell is that it is using proprietary formats and is not in the standard J1939 application layer.

Reason I stopped is I never got a truck locally that I could datalog from. Not too many around I guess?!

[karlo]

What equipment did you use to probe the actuator? I understand that you at least managed to communicate with it.

What kind of probing did you do on the device?