she gave me a heart attack - Isolde had no pulse - part 3

I know my vehicles really well as I do all the services and repairs. While I knew I pin-point diagnosed the recent engine failed to turn over, there is something in the mind that something can still go wrong. Taking a 6 hours round trip into town is not something to be taken willy nilly. A few months ago I notice there had been slight loss of engine coolant. I did visually witness some wetness on the ground immediate below the water pump, and I replenished the small amount of coolant lost.

in good shape, isolde - part 18

 

It's been so long that I cannot remember the last serial number of this series. I did some search which is not reliable but the best I can ascertain is this one is 18. The last post of the series was back in 25 April, 2016. This is a short post of I upgraded one of the 12V receptacles to one with built in USB type A receptacle 5V charge ports, and a built-in voltmeter.

she gave me a heart attack - Isolde had no pulse - part 2

 

These two posts were written real time with the progress of troubleshooting as the event unfolded. By mid morning today I knew I was onto the scent to the cause of the problem. It is not the ignition hall effect sensor in the distributor. It is a component in the ECU module that failed the moment when the engine stalled when I was ready to leave for the city. I count myself very lucky that it occur right in the garage rather than on the road. Also have I rely on even the best of Vanagon mechanic I have good reasons to believe he would not perform troubleshooting down to the component level as I did.

she gave me a heart attack - Isolde had no pulse

A few days ago I loaded everything and ready to go into the city in Isolde. As I started the engine within a a couple of seconds the engine stalled out. No amount of cranking would restart it. I thought that is odd, as Isolde has been flawless in the last year. I immediately suspected it may be a problem with my home brew only-I-know immobilizer. I designed this immobilizer that is easy to use, impossible to find, simple and reliable.

brunnhilde's ventilation fan - part 1

A few years ago I designed this 200mm thermostatically operated ventilation fan in Isolde. I have been wanting to install a similar fan in Brunnhilde's bathroom skylight, but hoping to find a fan with slightly more CFM.

a little bit of delights for Isolde

 

Sometimes something simple brings pleasures.

this campground is open

I love sleeping in the Westfalia Vanagon Camper. To sleep in it at home is like a treehouse retreat and conjures up a child's excitements. Now I have my own woods camping is just a few steps away. No firing up of the ICE is necessary.

westy and westy

Strangely here in the US they call all Westfalia campers and motorhomes Westy, rather than referring to their specific names such as VW Westfalia Camper or Mercedes Benz James Cook motorhome.

isode redux

I have not driven Isode for may be three years. It has been sitting in the garage all this time, and the gasoline in the tank no doubt is very staled.

bed cover for isolde

I managed to maintained the upholstery in Isolde in pristine condition after 27 years. The secret is a layer of sacrificial material over the factory fabric. In recent years the fabric on the bed cover deteriorated and I have been challenged as what to do. The cover is a old fashion sleeping bag that has been modified in circa 26 years ago. Today these old fashion sleeping bags are few and far in between. I entertained replacing the worn fabric while keeping the insulation core of the sleeping bag. The problem is the retail cost of the fabric would cost more than the sleeping bag.

arduino based multi-function display for Vanagon - part 4

As in any design development, there are challenges with the parts that one specified. I happened upon the DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor because of its dual function. It would turn out it was fun while the curiosity lasted. I have 3 of this and found that they are worthless junk. The temperature reading often jumps around 2 degrees, and at time 8 in consecutive samples. Also all three are extremely inaccurate. I had play with the Maxim DS18B20 quite early on and found them to be very accurate for solid state active sensor. One reason reason that I didn't choose it was my attracted to the DHT11's humidity capability. The bigger reason is the library for the DS18B20 is very memory intensive, and I had ran out of program memory as well as SRAM.

arduino based multi-function display for Vanagon - part 3

When I first embark on this project, I only have a vague idea of the list of features I want. It was just a preliminary list of requirements. Oil pressure and temperature, interior and exterior temperature, and most import a data logger.

arduino based multi-function display for Vanagon - part 2

I added a clock and calendar screen. It took a bit of work to sort out the navigation logic since this is a new feature that I didn't plan for. With each feature that I add, it had been a hand-to-hand combat to conserve precious memory, both the flash and the static RAM. The latter is most critical as there is only 2k bytes. My goal is to have a least uncommitted 512 bytes left. The power management features that I implemented is working very well now and appears to have few bugs. The joystick UI is very smooth without mis-registration. I also managed to add time stamps to the file creation and modified.

arduino based multi-function display for Vanagon - part 1

This is the continuation of a series of post staring with my purchase of an Arduino Uno microcontroller board. Started as a project in search of a mission soon it took on an evolution. It evolved into a project that fulfills some needs that I have long wanted to address and more.

a multi-function display for isolde - part 9

The keyword for this post is power management. Dealing with power management is complex work in hardware or software design. The algorithm of this Vanagon multi-function display has now becomes quite complex. There is a round robin multitasking in which the tasks has their independent cadence and conditional logic. Additionally there is timer interrupt driven polling of the joystick. Now I am adding power management features to manage the ability of soft-on and soft-off based upon the Vanagon's ignition, as well as the ability to use the data logger function independent of the Vanagon's ignition key position. I started to add the power management function when the flash memory is already at 95% capacity. The RAM is already at 70% capacity. Cutting it tight is an understatement.

a multi-function display for isolde - part 8

A lot of Arduino toys keep arriving in the Asia to USA transit pipeline. Because of the 20 to 25 shipping time I have been trained to put stuffs that I anticipate I can use way ahead of time. I also tend to buy 2 if I anticipate the item would be good because I need to keep one copy of the system for continue code development and maintenance. I however buy 1 if the item is unknown or expensive. Most of these stuff cost between $1.50 to $6 so it is not like I am going poor house doing shopping spree.

a multi-function display for isolde - part 7

The rude awakening that my code exceeded the 2k bytes of RAM in the Atmel ATmega328 uC's quickly put the brake on the progress. I have spent some time in the weekend investigating what are the big RAM consumers and to find way to work around them. Else I have to readjust the list of features that I set.

a multi-function display for isolde - part 6

More toys arrived from China. Among them are an 20x4 LCD display with I2C interface with green LED backlight, an accelerometer breakout board, Arduino Uno protoboards, and the most exciting one - a data logger shield that has an RTC and a SD card connector as well as some prototype area.

a multi-function display for isolde - part 5

This is a continuation of a previous post a multi-function display for isolde - part 4. I have been searching for ways to mount the OLED display and the joystick onto Isolde's accessory track. My plan is to hide away the Arduino Uno and the miscellaneous electronics in an enclosure.

a multi-function display for isolde - part 4

The reason I purchased these engine oil pressure and temperature gauge was to get the corresponding sensors. The gauges were so cheap ordered directly from China so I thought the purchase would be a good hedge against my homemade multi-function display project should I decided against it. I would have the option to install these two low cost, yet relatively unobtrusive gauges.