> The category of person that is going swap out their ECU cares about sub-milisecond timing. FPGA's are good at concurrency and operating in this domain. 8-bit 16Mhz Arduino's are not.
Depends on their goals. I'd oersonally assume that most people who are considering a DIY-friendly ECU are either looking to replace a carburetor or gain better tunability on a vehicle that has an '80s or '90s era EFI setup.
It's not like anyone's suggesting this be used on a brand new car. It's a relatively inexpensive option for a tinkerer to play around with. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the cars this will go in to shipped with 8 bit ECUs from the factory. Ford used 'em as late as the early 2000s.
Also for the most part the people who are doing this sort of thing don't need to care all that much about emissions or any of the other things that make production ECUs so much more complicated. All it needs to do is deliver the right amount of fuel and trigger spark at the right times. A carefully programmed microcontroller can do this.
> Check out this HCCI engine tuning algorithm which runs 240,000 samples per second to provide realtime feedback to an fpga/raspberry pi hybrid board. An Arduino just ain't going to cut it
Considering there are absolutely zero HCCI engines in mass production I don't think that's really a concern for anyone other than those developing the technology.
edit: to be clear, of course I am definitely not saying I'm in any way against a DIY ECU project supporting FPGAs, obviously they enable even more potential capability, but I think you're making it out to be way more important than it is for the market that's likely to use these things. This is basically an open alternative to MegaSquirt 2
Depends on their goals. I'd oersonally assume that most people who are considering a DIY-friendly ECU are either looking to replace a carburetor or gain better tunability on a vehicle that has an '80s or '90s era EFI setup.
It's not like anyone's suggesting this be used on a brand new car. It's a relatively inexpensive option for a tinkerer to play around with. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the cars this will go in to shipped with 8 bit ECUs from the factory. Ford used 'em as late as the early 2000s.
Also for the most part the people who are doing this sort of thing don't need to care all that much about emissions or any of the other things that make production ECUs so much more complicated. All it needs to do is deliver the right amount of fuel and trigger spark at the right times. A carefully programmed microcontroller can do this.
> Check out this HCCI engine tuning algorithm which runs 240,000 samples per second to provide realtime feedback to an fpga/raspberry pi hybrid board. An Arduino just ain't going to cut it
Considering there are absolutely zero HCCI engines in mass production I don't think that's really a concern for anyone other than those developing the technology.
edit: to be clear, of course I am definitely not saying I'm in any way against a DIY ECU project supporting FPGAs, obviously they enable even more potential capability, but I think you're making it out to be way more important than it is for the market that's likely to use these things. This is basically an open alternative to MegaSquirt 2