Thank you Macrobb. I will start working on this tomorrow morning. I am putting the dash back together tonight. I tore the instrument panel out to see why it wasn't lighting, traced all the lines, did all the research to find schematics online, measured everything with the multimeter..............then found a blown fuse a couple hours later (Fuse #10).

 

lol I'm right there with you!

 

Going to try the pilot run of the completed assembly tomorrow. Tune back in for an update.

 

The day turned into a complete failure. I posted once already about this and it ended up on some other post on here, go figure. My computer gets sooo laggy that it gets a mind of it's own.

Anyways both channels were up and running briefly but as expected the piezo signal is waaay higher than the "Crank Position Sensor". I had the grounds tied together on both of them and it was causing the signal from the Piezo to bleed into the "CPS" channel rendering it unreadable. I will try to post a picture.


Okay there it is again, hopefully going to the right thread this time!

I have rebuild the CPS "Crank Position Sensor" previously called RPM sensor or something. I have increased the number of windings of wire on the nail from 5 to about 60 so that should in theory bump up my sensitivity a little bit on the CPS. I brought the whole assembly back inside but am kind of wondering what is the best way to wire the thing into my input recorder. I am going to put a diagram of how I have it now. Maybe somebody can chime in.

 

This is how I currently have it tied together guys. Let me know what you think about isolating the Left and Right Channels. Perhaps this will work If I just get the CPS sensor to put out a little more juice.

 

I wonder what would happen if I were to just tie both ends of that coil on the CPS to the ring conductor only (middle conductor on the plug). That would isolate it completely. The AC Pulse Might be something that shows up on that conductor without a corresponding ground, given the signal generated is a type of AC.

 

Come to think about it this little digital sound recorder might not even be able to record in stereo. I need to look into this. If this is the case I will have to try and run everything on one channel. I know that is possible with the right amplitude on things. As a matter of fact it's going to make life a whole lot easier to just run this as a one channel set up. I am back on work days so work on this will be limited for the next 4 days.

 

Measured the circumference of the dampner. It measures out to exactly 22 3/8" by my method. Am I correct then in thinking each degree corresponds to 0.06130137 inches? That is ABOUT a 1/16th of an inch.

 

I have an idea. Use a coil pack from about any vehicle built in recent history. They run on 12 volts, but the beauty of them is they are triggered with a 5 volt signal from the ecu. Connect your timing light strobe to the coil pack secondary. Use a piezoelectric sensor attached to the injector line and connect it to an analog input of an Arduino and an output to the coil pack. This link has the arduino sketch that might just work: Mambohead | Piezoelectric sensors The code is in the public domain. Here it is:

*/

// these constants won’t change:
const int ledPin = 13; // led connected to digital pin 13
const int knockSensor = A0; // the piezo is connected to analog pin 0
const int threshold = 100; // threshold value to decide when the detected sound is a knock or not

// these variables will change:
int sensorReading = 0; // variable to store the value read from the sensor pin
int ledState = LOW; // variable used to store the last LED status, to toggle the light

void setup() {
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // declare the ledPin as as OUTPUT
Serial.begin(9600); // use the serial port
}

void loop() {
// read the sensor and store it in the variable sensorReading:
sensorReading = analogRead(knockSensor);

// if the sensor reading is greater than the threshold:
if (sensorReading >= threshold) {
// toggle the status of the ledPin:
ledState = !ledState;
// update the LED pin itself:
digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);
// send the string “Knock!” back to the computer, followed by newline
Serial.println(“Knock!”);
}
delay(100); // delay to avoid overloading the serial port buffer
}

With the adjustable threshold it seems like it could be set just above the noise level to catch only the injector popping. Of course connect the coil pack to pin 13, where he has the led connected. This sounds easy and it just might be. I don't have the time to play with it right now so maybe someone here can run with it and let us know the progress. I have some Arduino experience (enough to be dangerous) so I might be able to answer some questions about loading the code and getting it running.

 

It's an option. I don't see why it would not work but I am trying to keep my version under $40. There is snow on the ground right now and it's freezing outside so I have not messed with it. I have not forgotten though and will have this thing working eventually. My digital recorder does NOT record in stereo so my initial plan is not working as well as I thought it would. I will probably have to attenuate the piezo element signal as to not drowned out the crank position sensor.

Did anybody ever give any more thought to my last post? "

 

I get .0621", which like you said for our purposes is close enough to call 1/16". It would laid out as an arc length vs a chord length. As long as the circumference was measured accurately you should be good.

 

Okay I got the truck running good as can be seen in my other post. I think now that the weather is good it might be time to retry this budget diesel timer.

 

any update on what you guys were doing? I was just about to use my oscope to try to figure out some sort of pulse sensor on my truck when I stumbled across this.

 

You might be waiting for a while for a reply, some of those posters
have not logged on in a couple years.

Clock on their name and check their profile and it will tell when last logged on.


Charlie