Hi All, firstly i would like to introduce myself, my name is Adrian and i am currently in my second year of an electrical degree. As part of my major project i am designing a chassis loom and touch screen for my 1979 Opel Ascona 400 rally car. At present i have little knowledge on CAN or automotive wiring design but is something i would like to learn and ultimate achieve on my car.

Couple of questions,
Which micro controller would people choose for an automotive can system, the Uni would like me to use a PIC however Arduino seems far more popular.

Does anybody have any tips of articles i could read on how to go about the project i.e. which type of switching devises to use, how to integrate the micro with the touch screen etc

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

You have a number of questions in one post.

Firstly, what does CAN bus have to do with your project?

What MCU chip to use? You use any chip that gets the job done. I would not use PIC nor Arduino.

What is a switching device?

What is the purpose of the touch screen? Which touch screen do you have in mind?

 

Does your 1979 Opel actually have CAN?
Seems a bit early for CAN.

 

You have a number of questions in one post.

Firstly, what does CAN bus have to do with your project?

I am looking to use a CANBUS wiring network for the chassis loom and control of the car

What MCU chip to use? You use any chip that gets the job done. I would not use PIC nor Arduino.

At present i have not selected a chip, the university would like me to use a PIC as they have experience with them and various software packages. Can i ask what MCU would you be inclined to use?

What is a switching device? What i mean by these are MOSFET's IBGT's etc

What is the purpose of the touch screen? Which touch screen do you have in mind?

I am looking to replace all the physical switches in the center console with a 7" touch screen which willl control all the fuel pumps, ignition on, map lights etc. I have been looking at the following touch screen
https://www.4dsystems.com.au/product/uLCD_70DT_AR/

Thanks in advance for any help

 

Does your 1979 Opel actually have CAN?
Seems a bit early for CAN.

Originally no it didn't have CAN, however since the car has had a ground up rebuild and i have added a fair few systems it seem like a good opportunity to learn and get system that should be more reliable and lighter

 

Hi,
The first thing you need to do is define your architecture, what interfaces you expect to use, how many nodes (Control Units) what type of messages will you send will you have one master and many slaves, will the nodes be analogue input or output, digital, high current loads ...... etc.
Once you know what you want to achieve you can then decide on your hardware, the processor can be any as long as it's capable of supporting the workload and you can program it, do not dismiss the PIC if your Uni has more support available for it, I would use the Arduino because my knowledge of the Arduino and it has many CAN projects already out there but it is an 8 bit processor that may not be capable of supporting your workload.
There are other considerations like Diagnostics and EMC implications to name just two.

 

It may be worth playing with an Arduino on the bench for a couple of CAN nodes just to get you going as that is a real cheap way to start.
The CAN devices I have built use PIC32 chips.
But there are lots on others. Do you already have PIC programmers to use?
Have a look at ARM based controllers too as you may need a bit more horsepower to run lots of nodes and the display.