Hi,
My name is Garth and I have just recently purchased an Arduino Uno.
I will give you a bit of my background, I studied mechanical Engineering at Portsmouth Polytechnic, and left with an HND, I then spent 16 years at a company that manufactured membrane switches and printed electronics. While there I took both ONC and HNC electronics, unfortunately the products we made tended to use the customers circuit designs rather than us having to design them so I never got to practice what I had just learnt. So I have a reasonable understanding of how things work but would not do too well with a completely blank sheet of paper and try to design a circuit from scratch. Anyway back to the present day, i am no longer in engineering, but want to get back into it. I also have a passion for classic cars and want to combine the two ie electronics in classic cars to give them useful additions that you are used to when driving your modern car, but at the same time not to make it to obvious. For example adjuustable intermitant wipe, follow you home lights, remote central locking etc, all things that just make life that bit easier but don't detract from the overall classic experiance. i know a lot of car purists would string me up but each to his own.
Now what I want to do to my car for my first project is to replace the ignition switch with a starter button (the car is a 1967 Triumph Herald and does not have a steering lock so removing the ignition key altogether would not cause a problem from that point of view).
I intend to replace the "ignition on" first part of the ignition switch function with a remote key fob (from Maplin) which will turn the 12volts on in the car and light the ignition and oil pressure lights.
Then I want to be able to press the start button which will be a momentary action switch and be able to hold it down long enough for the engine to start, as soon as the engine is running you will release the button ( the same as turning the key to the run position) obviously the power must then be cut to the starter solenoid.
Now the tricky bit ( well for me) is to enable the engine to be stopped by another push of the start button, but not an accidental one. So I figure I will need to check for the engine running before the arduino decides what function to give the next button push. What i don't want it to fire the starter again while the engine is running. I was thinking of using a modified version of a debounce routine, so that any thing less than 500mS would be ignored and more than that would switch of the engine and the electrics.
Any help and guidence would be greatly appreciated.
Garth