DIY Gizmo - Honda ATV Programmable Fan Control Unit

[Fishfiles 20,145]

500 !! ----  Any idea how many visitors have pasted thru ?

[retro 4,048]

Today was a solder-stuff-together day. Here is the top view of the board after soldering the heatsink, VR & other components down.

 

 

And the bottom view....

 

 

Then I shoved some DIY (lengths of solid copper wire) wire connection headers through the board from the backside.

 

 

Topside view of the headers:

 

 

Then I proceeded to solder in the hookup wire on the backside to complete the circuit to the headers:

 

 

Then I nipped off all of the protruding component legs as close to the board as I could. I had to file a few of them shorter than my dykes could cut them to insure that the board would slide into it's slot in the enclosure. Then I washed the flux residue off of the solder joints using a plastic brush & 91% alcohol.

 

 

.... and dropped the completed power supply board into it's slot for a pic. This power supply is ready for harnesses to be made so I bagged it up and put it away for the next gizmo build.

 

 

Next up: I'm gonna power up and test one of the W1209 fahrenheit modules and begin to make some cutting & filing messes on my table!!! 🙂

 

 

[retro 4,048]

38 minutes ago, Fishfiles said:

500 !! ----  Any idea how many visitors have pasted thru ?

 

Thats a great question! I have no idea though, the default visitor logs only go back 30 days. Here are the total number of visits over this last 7 days:

 

 

And here are the total numbers of unique visitors stats over this last 30 days:

 

 

So we are probably averaging over 10,000 unique visitors each month and we are growing steadily. We generally see at least one new member join every day, or about 8-9 new members join every 7 days. Steady as she goes eh....

[retro 4,048]

I think most of them come to read your posts @Fishfiles, they probably got ya bookmarked. 😏

[Fishfiles 20,145]

I think it is ES guys looking for your help  !!! 

[retro 4,048]

Ain't no wonder those ES's still ain't shiftin' then. haha

[Fishfiles 20,145]

A ES shift Gizmo might be a big seller ! 

[Goober 1,555]

😎

I got my workbench all cleared off and now set up for the gizmo project again.

i started trimming the circuit board to place the items.

[retro 4,048]

Great! Hollar if there is anything I can do for ya Goober.

 

I rebooted a bit early... been too busy to work on the gizmo for three days now. I got my eye on Friday though.

[retro 4,048]

I played with the new fahrenheit modules for a while. The components layout differs from the Celsius boards and it looks like the MCU chip is a Nuvoton rather than a STM8S. The chinamen even went so far as to grind the identification numbers off of the MCU! Haha! So the boards are fakes, but they work the same and the sensitivity & response seems to be very good. So I am quite happy with them. And I am OK with the chinaman saving 4/10ths of a cent on the chip, but he blew his savings on labor grinding on the chips to hide his dirty deed, didn't he. 🙂

 

I stripped the unneeded parts off of one of them and filed the lower edge of the board down so it fits low in the enclosure. Then soldered on trimpot leads and glued the leads & trimpot down with JB-Weld. I'll let the glue cure overnight and continue hacking on it tomorrow.

 

 

[retro 4,048]

Fabbing continues today... I gotta start dremel-ing out the button holes in the lid in a few minutes, but thought I'd better dump pics of the progress made so far.

 

First off, I soldered the trimpot leads onto the trimpot this morning. Then I popped the Celcius board out of the enclosure back that I had already fabbed up and desoldered the leads, then I notched the new fahrenheit board to fit inside of it. The harnesses and the mounting bracket are already completed on that part and it is in great condition, so I'm gonna reuse that assembly. It just needs an alcohol wash and it'll be ready for final assembly.

 

 

Next I put a lil' dab of Ultra Black on the end of each of the button stems and snapped the top cover on to mark the three locations where I gotta drill & begin dremel-ing for the button strip. The button stems are a bit shorter than the stems on the Celcius boards, so I may not have to file them any shorter like I'm accustomed to doing. This work is moving along nicely....

 

 

I had a polycarbonate button strip frame & window partially cut out already, so I finished notching around it's perimeter for a trial fitting in the cover.

 

 

Here is how that PC frame mocks up on the fahrenheit board. I'm about to begin making holes in the lid so y'all can expect these next steps to take me a couple days to complete. I'll be back once I'm satisfied with it.

 

 

 

[retro 4,048]

Another ten members have joined us this past 7 days! And true to form, I ruined my 1st cover already when I drilled a pilot hole too large and wiped out a button hole edge. Round Teux... so far this attempt is still alive. 🙂

 

I imagine many of our new members are hitting up @AKATV for display refurbs? I hope that he doesn't get burnt out this winter fixing them, he's really bringin' 'em in!!! 👣

[Fishfiles 20,145]

13 hours ago, retro said:

Fabbing continues today... I gotta start dremel-ing out the button holes in the lid in a few minutes, but thought I'd better dump pics of the progress made so far.

 

First off, I soldered the trimpot leads onto the trimpot this morning. Then I popped the Celcius board out of the enclosure back that I had already fabbed up and desoldered the leads, then I notched the new fahrenheit board to fit inside of it. The harnesses and the mounting bracket are already completed on that part and it is in great condition, so I'm gonna reuse that assembly. It just needs an alcohol wash and it'll be ready for final assembly.

 

 

Next I put a lil' dab of Ultra Black on the end of each of the button stems and snapped the top cover on to mark the three locations where I gotta drill & begin dremel-ing for the button strip. The button stems are a bit shorter than the stems on the Celcius boards, so I may not have to file them any shorter like I'm accustomed to doing. This work is moving along nicely....

 

 

I had a polycarbonate button strip frame & window partially cut out already, so I finished notching around it's perimeter for a trial fitting in the cover.

 

 

Here is how that PC frame mocks up on the fahrenheit board. I'm about to begin making holes in the lid so y'all can expect these next steps to take me a couple days to complete. I'll be back once I'm satisfied with it.

 

 

 

What if you could dig up a piece of square tubing the correct size , grind the edge sharp , then heat the metal up with a torch or the stove and push/melt thru the plastic 

[retro 4,048]

That would probably work to get a hole started. The button shape is oblong-rounded and is not a symmetrical shape though. So no matter what is used to make a pilot hole in the cover the dremel bits and hand filing & sanding with a stick is still required. 20 years ago ya wouldn't have caught me whining... nowadays I'm gimpy and blind though, so creating neat holes in these tiny boxes have become an incredible challenge for me. I gotta get a 3D printer, got no other choice left at my age. 🙂

 

[Fishfiles 20,145]

Took a second look and see now , had me fooled they are not square , my eyes are getting bad also and fast ----

 

 If you are going to make some more of them , maybe once you get one where you want it , make a templet of it , then a jig of  wood that the cover would push into  , use the Dremel like a router , might be able to use a drill stop over the die bit to  act as a follower and  follow the jig ----- 

[retro 4,048]

A duplicator jig? Now that is a fabulous idea!!!

[retro 4,048]

To be honest Fishfiles I really want to buy a new toy though. I would use a 3D printer often if I had a good one in my shack. So that's what I want to explore right now.... I could make my own enclosures, display window and button strips (all in one print) for gizmos, they'd be 20% smaller than they are now and assembly would take just a few hours for each, rather than several days.

 

My mind is already made up, I'm getting a Prusa 3D printer this spring/early summer! The two Prusa models that I intend to buy run on 24 volts DC too, so the entire system can be operated by my existing solar power on a dedicated run of 8 gauge copper wire. Ahh, the smell of molten ABS in the morning....  😂

[jeepwm69 7,609]

Fish, you are NEVER allowed to talk a man out of buying a new tool.  That breaks man code. 

 

Anytime a man says "I'm thinking about getting a..." when referring to a tool, you must 100% support him.

 

Retro, you NEED a 3d printer.  Better get one before .gov decides to regulate/ban them.  It's only a matter of time.  Can't have the peasants having the means to produce shooty things without big brother knowing about them.

[retro 4,048]

"Man Code",That's some pretty strong language, I like it!

[retro 4,048]

No doubt about it, I NEED a good 3D printer! My eyes are aching from peering through my magnification headset over these last three days making holes in the cover! I got the cover roughed in though, finally, and I will touch up the button holes tomorrow with some 800 grit paper and bond the button strip and PC frame into it with Ultra Black.

 

 

This is not my best looking work, but it'll have to do until I get a 3D printer. It'll look better tomorrow after some touchup with fine grit paper wrapped around a wooden matchstick. Top View:

 

 

While I was squinting at the button holes yesterday I took a break to solder leads on & glued the fahrenheit board into the back cover:

 

 

If all goes well tomorrow I will be dunking the oil temp sensor in hot oil to calibrate the module while I wait on the button strip & PC frame gluing step to cure. We're only a few days from finishing this bugger up now.

 

 

[retro 4,048]

I touched up the button holes and window with 800 grit this morning, then decided that I would glue each part into the top cover individually. So the button strip is glued down into the top cover with black 3M adhesive and is curing. I will add the PC frame & window later on this afternoon using Ultra Black to waterproof seal it to the cover and 3M adhesive to seal/glue the PC frame to the button strip and top cover. I don't want to leave any doubt in my mind that the gizmo can (& will!) submerge deep behind Fishfiles place! 🙂

 

So then I moved all the electrical stuff to the old stovetop to calibrate the module to the oil temp sensor suspended in hot oil. Before I put any heat under the oil I learned that the trimpot that I had put on the board was no good though. So I used a razor blade to slice the glue loose under it and removed that junker, then soldered in another new 10k ohms Bournes multi-turn pot and glued it down. Back to the stovetop... the gizmo dialed in easily with the sensor suspended in oil at room temp this time, with the new trimpot.

 

I cycled through the menus to set it up initially with hysteresis set at 20 degrees F, fan relay kick off temp at 180 degrees F, High Temp alarm turned OFF. This setup kicks the fan relay on at 200 degrees F and kicks the relay back off at 180 degrees F. First test, I unplugged the oil temp sensor to see if that alarm worked (LLL displays if a sensor wire gets broken or unplugged) and it did.

 

 

Then I turned the fire on under the oil and stirred the oil constantly until it reached 220+ and kept stirring. I fine tuned the trimpot to match the rising, stable & falling oil temps with my multimeter by turning the fire on & off around the 220 degree mark, and then allowed the oil to cool to test the relay kickoff.

 

 

Then I heated the oil to check the max at 230 degrees vs my multimeter, with the high temp alarm still turned off. It tracks very nicely indeed! Sensitivity & response is excellent!

 

 

That left me with just one more test.... I entered the parameters menu and selected P6, the High Temp alarm, and toggled the alarm to ON. Then I adjusted the high temp alarm threshold to fire off when the oil temp reaches 225 degrees and lit the fire under the oil again and began to stir. These next two pics show that the high temp alarm works a lot differently on this fahrenheit board than the Celcius boards do. This board, once the oil temp surpassed 225 degrees, the temperature display began to flash off and on every second. I got no way to post a video, so I took two pics instead to show how the high temp alarm works. Here you can see the display has flashed on and the fan relay is still active, the LED indicator is lit, just like its supposed to behave.

 

 

And here you can see that the display has flashed off while in the high temp alarm condition, while the fan relay is still active and the relay indicator LED is still on. The Celsius boards do not behave like that, they don't flash at all, they just show "HHH" on the display while in high temp alarm mode. So the high temp alarm feature works like it should (and the display flashes the oil temp) on these fahrenheit boards, which is a pleasant surprise! 🙂

 

 

As I mentioned earlier I got some gluing to do now, it'll probably take about two or three days to complete those glueing & sealing steps. I'll be back with more pics when its time to LOCA the display window and seal the top cover onto it.

[Fishfiles 20,145]

That is looking awesome Retro --- the flashing numbers when high temp alarm is activated is over the top , the digital numbers are very bright and readable >>>>  controlling both fans independently and automatically  is a great feature , at the moment the fans are on separate toggle switches --- I just have to find the correct numbers to set them at , one fan is relocated on top the front rack with double stacked OEM coolers , the second fan is blowing air on the engine --- I would think set the cooler fan to come on right before  normal operating temp and the air flow fan to come on before  high temp ---  what' your thoughts on temp settings 

[retro 4,048]

That sounds like a good plan! But you'll have to flip one of the fans on manually if ya want one of them to kick on at a hotter oil temp than the other. There is only control for one fan relay provided by the board, so there is only one 40 amp fan relay in the current configuration.

 

The two (+12v) fan wires are tied to the same relay terminal output. So in order to operate two fans automatically at different oil temp thresholds we'd need to add a second board to the gizmo, That's another option we never thought of yet.... we could probably do it if ya want a double display gizmo!?!?! I'm pretty sure that I could squeeze in another pair of relays inside the power supply box! Ya game for two head units? 🙂

 

[Fishfiles 20,145]

No , no need for two , a toggle switch off of the lead going to the engine fan will  be best way when I think about it ,  being able to turn the fan on the engine off when it goes into the water or turn it on if the temp does go high 

[retro 4,048]

Ok, I'll look around for a module that can control more than one fan relay independently though, just in case this gizmo can be improved someday.