Hello everyone, this is an idea I came up with about 2 years ago, ended up ordering the parts but just never got around to it. It's essentially an Arduino hooked to a potentiomiter with some pretty colors thrown in. I had plans to use it to remotly activate the high idle after remote start. Anyway here's a little video.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VwhaygEeXK8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

That is amazingly cool!! Gotta get me one of those!! I'd love to see the parts list and schematic. Might be time to break out the old soldering iron.

 

LOVE this!! awesome idea!! I never thought of incorporating an Arduino into my truck before til now!

 

What do y'all use the high idle for? The only thing that comes to mind for me is a winch since I don't think anyone has a PTO.

 

To get the trucks to or close to operating temps in cold weather...before you operate them. On my Dodges it was enabled in cold weather states before the sale. In warm weather states you had to have it enabled. High idling them helped prevent cylinder wash when idling them all day in a field or over night. This function is obviously different than the PCM high idle that senses cold temps and high idles at start up.

 

Now that I have another 6.7, I resurrected this project tonight. Soldered it all up, but it still needs a few more pieces. Not sure where to mount the **** in the new interior now though.

 

Video from original post:

 

Cool stuff. I have various Arduino's sitting on my bench. Haven't done anything truck related with them yet but I have a battery/current monitor for my trailer that sends data on the network to a Pi/touchscreen unit. Working on some other applications too.

The things are cheap enough that you can have a bunch of them. Just ordered more Nano's & NodeMCU's, just have to wait a month for it all to get here from China.

 

Factory alternator(s) can give pretty much full output at idle. I have high idle mod and it didn't provide any measured/observed benefit to winching. high idle does sound cool....

 

Tested it out tonight. Thinking I'll add a temperature probe and set it to engage automagically when it's cold out.

 

Go out in -20F or colder weather... High idle helps there if you are idling for long periods of time. Helps prevent wet stacking actually keeps the motor (and hence the cabin) warmer...

Granted, if it is in park, the truck will high idle on its own, which is why I haven't done the mod. I've remote started it and the truck high idled, then it dropped down, and because it was -22F out, it didn't take it long to go back to idling up... However, the cabin doesn't get warm until you drive off, even with the rapid supplemental heater. (The RSH REALLY REALLY helps though).

 

Cool! If the Arduino you're using has I2C then there are a few sensors available and you can remote them outside the cab and just run 4 wires to it. On my RV monitor I'm using one of the lighter plug USB supplies that I took out of its case to supply the 5v into the micro-USB port. This way I can unplug the board to bring it in and do software changes without unsoldering anything.