Definitely a neat project. As a former embedded systems software engineer, I dig this stuff. :rockon:
I just started playing with the ATMEGA8 and I agree that the shipping time from China is painful! (But the prices are so good....)
Is there a CAN (or other communications) bus available on the FZ6 ECU? If you could communicate with the ECU, you could get a lot of parameters without extra sensors (voltage, RPM, speed, temperature, etc.)
I think there is a CAN bus or something similar, but I don't believe that it's particularly accessible or well-documented. My goal for this project is not to replace any existing functionality - I'm only adding new things. Specifically the Voltmeter and Gear Indicator are the primary improvements, and to get the Gear Indicator I need Speed and Tach.
Some people have commented that it would be interesting to use something like this to replace the stock display. While it is possible, you'd have to use the CANBUS to get the Odometer, Trip-Meter, Fuel Guage, Coolant+Oil Temp, as well as all the various indicator lights and trouble codes that I've never even seen. Personally, I don't think it's worth it. I like the stock gauge cluster!
I'm not duplicating any existing sensors, at least. I'm going to just tap-splice onto the Speed Sensor and Crankcase Position Sensor, and plug a wire into the battery (which I'd have to do to get power anyway). I am adding a temperature sensor to get Ambient Temperature, but that's a new one - FZ6 has an air temp, but it's at the intake so it's very hot. I want to get the actual Ambient Air temperature, so I will site the sensor far away from heat and hope for the best.
Tapping into CAN would be neat for the purpose of data logging, though. Not that I have any plans for what I would do with a graph of my coolant temp, but who knows!
I also did some more thinking about TPMS. It's actually not QUITE as impossible as I originally thought. For around $100 on eBay or Amazon, you can buy a kit that includes the wireless sensor stems and an LCD screen that shows tire pressure. You'd have to get the stems installed in the wheels, but I imagine that can be done at the time of replacing tires for minimal additional cost (provided that the stems will fit). That alone is all you need to get TPMS, so long as you don't mind having the random LCD screen that comes with one of those kits. Integrating a system like that into this, though, is a bit more complicated. Not a lot of specs on TPMS exist - they are mostly proprietary and all that is known is that they operate at 315Mhz or 433Mhz. In the event that somebody is able to reverse-engineer the protocol and format for a TPMS sensor, you could get a 315 or 433Mhz receiver for $5-$10 and pick up sensors at around $30 each. Again, this is a very long shot in the dark, but it would be amazing if it could be made to work. I'm not going to attempt to even get this into Version 1, but I will keep it in the back of my mind as a future idea that would be awesome.
EDIT: I just found a 433Mhz RX/TX pair for $2 on eBay, including shipping. I think I will do some investigating trying to read from the sensors on my Jeep!
