1st Gen Haltech ECU Discussion

The HT gauge is made by Gaugeart and specifically locked into Haltechs price, their cheaper gauge that works with every other ecu (that's the same device) is software locked from working on haltech. You must buy it from haltech, but funny enough the bare electronics, which they also sell are not soft locked out of the haltech and sell for what is still too much but a lot less. $200 less than the HT gauge

 

Gear tracking on manual transmission: Aside from tracking with the VSS + gear ratio, I was looking at bringing in the clutch switch (with pull up) for tracking gear changes. Would have to remove it from the starter circuit and "re-purpose" it me thinks.

I had a very fun weekend getting deep with the Haltech NSP software (not going to use ESP). I love it. Everything is wired up, but I'm not getting power to the Haltech. Going to have to tap a different spot in the circuit for +12V Ignition power cause I accidently disabled the EFI relay with how I have it routed now (whoops). Anyway, we'll see what my multimeter says tonight.

 

Man that's awesome. Not sure what it looks like on the backend for programming, but would be sweet to have an option for a module where you can read the HT info like you are and then do your own layout programming for different sized displays like what @Speedytech7 is saying with the different form factor

 

Make sure whatever circuit you're using receives power during cranking, this advice is good for the ic7 display and wideband controller too to avoid restarts and delays

 

Displays tend to absorb a lot of memory and processing the more you put on them, which can be a big problem for little MCs like an Arduino, so it will be a challenge to support any display size or type, with user-defined repositioning, but I'll certainly look into the options

 

Even just a larger predefined display would be better, I literally cannot read the Haltech gauge at any distance, the font is just too small. So looking at a glance, as you should use a gauge, is worthless to me.

 

Ya that should be fine... provided there are some that can run off SPI, UART, or I2C - as long as it doesn't require an astronomical amount of I/O pins. I think there's a font library that can resize based on basic ASCII characters without taking up more resources. Bitmaps are essentially what I need to avoid, or greatly minimize.

 

@Speedytech7 I was planning on using one of these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255987027504
https://www.ebay.com/itm/155074790573
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265030625039

very small, but I figured I would display one parameter at a time, and you just tap it to cycle though

 

Yeah its better if it is just one item then I think. Must be a common watch display size, I was trying to find one that was like 1.8 to 2" but that seems like it doesnt exist

 

ya I'm pretty sure its a smart watch size, 2" would be better

I think the largest rectangular I can get without migrating to an Rpi or something heartier is around 3.5"

 

this is the largest round one I saw

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294892841430

 

Looks like the control won't work for me, but good news is the LCD itself out there so maybe someone will make it a compatible protocol later. It seems like they kind of tap out around 320x480 for whatever reason. I also think an e-ink display would be really cool, and the best for direct sunlight - they've made leaps and bounds in the last 10 years in refresh rates and multi-colors

 

I really like e-ink personally but only if the backlight isn't obtrusive... but it is way easier to read during the day compared to oled or tft/ips

 

I don't think E-ink doesn't have a fast enough refresh rate for doing something like a gauge. I agree it would be the best looking though

 

This one can do partial refresh in 0.3s, which should be plenty for updating numbers, but no backlight
https://www.ebay.com/itm/314423193762

 

And at least from what I understand from reading the io expander data sheet haltech can only fully refreshes data every half a second.

 

I definitely get much faster readings than that from the CAN (and datalogging for that matter). Maybe that's just the IO Expander built-in limitation?

 

That's not too bad. I guess it's better than what it used to be back in the day on kindles. I like the size of that display too.

that can't be right. it has to be faster than that. The IC7 needs to have fast refresh rates in order to function as a dash

 

Any 5VZ folks willing to share their transient throttle settings, I'm close but I have a pretty noticeable lean surge on quick stab that I think I'm missing something obvious about.

 

I've had a similar behavior on mine that I haven't been able to tune out.
Is it just a sudden drop in afr, or do the RPM's dip before rising after you stab the trottle?