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Over the years of building my plane (still ongoing), I’ve been designing a megasquirt ECU board geared towards us in aviation. I only did this as a hobby, but a few people have inquired about it going forwards. For all intents and purpose, it’s still a factory built Megasquirt board with all the standard bells and whistles. Which is a lot btw! But I’ve expanded the base it plugs into, to allow for greater possibilities and improvements.
-2x power inputs, like most EFIS’s have. Main and backup always on -Controls main fuel pump, and backup fuel pump when fuel pressure drops -Baro pressure sensor (changing in altitude will self adjust fuel) -2x MAP pressure sensors (only 1 drives the calculations, the other is just nice to know what the other rotor is doing) -Check engine & battery light -Switch between fuel tables (mogas vs 100ll) -Controls two servo motors. I’m thinking of having louvers outlets for oil and coolant that can open and close to regulate temperature. -CAN bus out, for future interfaces -4x EGTs -8x temperate inputs (ex, Manifold, intake, oil pan, oil cooler, coolant in, coolant out, fuel rail, psru) -Flex fuel sensor that gives you ethanol % (along with another fuel temp) -2x knock sensors -Coolant, Fuel and Oil pressures -Controls RX8 alternator (PWM style, no regulators to mess with) -Push button start / stop engine (Can even remotely start engine, for those cold mornings! Jk! (but not really)) -Wideband sensor for tuning -4x Low/High sensors (ex, low coolant, oil, fuel) -Serial out to interface data to display on GRT EFIS. I don’t know if Dynon / MGL are open source like GRT is. I’m willing to try if people send me their EFIS to test with. -Bluetooth to interface with tablet / laptop to tune the engine
I’m missing a bunch of things, but this is just off the top of my head. Realistically, I have the hardware built and I’ve run my RX8 engine a bunch of times on the ground. Plane won’t be flying until spring time (I hope), so there is a ton of bugs to work out. Plus, I’d want to fly with it for awhile, before I’d even dare to let someone else.
The two biggest questions I get is, why is there only 1 ECU and where is my fuel mixture knob. With the right protection of circuits and power supplies, barely rarely does the actual ECU fail. I’m confident with just 1. And I still haven’t been convinced of a mixture knob. Let the ECU talk with the wideband & baro and do the work for you.
Here's a video of it running.
- Matt Boiteau
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