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please i need some help, i have a project but not sure how to ,,,

hannah_girl

hi all, my name is Hannah, i have built a car into a mini caravan, the car used to be a 2004 Citroen C5 estate, it has hydro suspension, which is electronic, i have manage to bypass the ecu which controls the hydro pump and fitted a remote switch, which you can raise or lower the car, that side of the project is fully working, but this is where i need some help,

 

the car has a height sensor which sense if the car is too high or too low etc, i wondered if i can use my Raspberry pi B to raise or lower the suspension when the car moves about,

i have tested the sensor which runs of a 5v power supply when the car is lower the output signal is 0.3v, and when its on high its about 4.3v. for normal height its about 2.3v

i am great at wiring, but a tad rusty to when it comes to software and programming, if anyone could point me in the right direction, i would be totally grateful,

if you would like more info on the c5 caravan project, please check out this video on you-tube,  https://youtu.be/crk6tFNhkYQ

thank you for your time, Hannah

Parents

  • Hello Hannah, great job!

     

    As far as I saw in your video, if you can control the suspension with a couple of buttons you can control them with a Raspberry Pi too, based on some kind of sensor feedback. Now, the next step is to explain better what should the system do, the logic I mean, then we can think about how to solve the problem.

     

    Enrico

  • in reply to balearicdynamics

    hi Enrico, ok well this is what the car used to do,  if you put some weight in the back, the car would sink a few cm, after 10seconds the hydro pump would then run and make the car go back to normal height,

    if you then took the weight out, the car would then be too high, after 10 seconds the hydro pump would then lower the car to its normal height,

    the sensor has a full range of 0.3v to 4.4v, i am in the process of doing a video of the height sensor and upload it to you-tube,

  • in reply to hannah_girl

    It seems you have already reached the point, check the sensor data. Well, if it should have a simple logic, I think it is sufficient an Arduino instead if you want to have more complex behavior (I personally prefer) and more freedom for now and then, the base of the control system should be the Raspberry Pi. Consider that your sensor has an analog output (as far as I know, you say that it is a voltage range variation). So in this case, in my opinion, the best solution is an Arduino in conjunction with the Raspberry Pi. Arduino should read the analog value (it has six analog inputs) acting as a comparator converting the voltage to the height. Then it should pass the data changes to the Raspberry Pi that process and act consequently accordingly with the logic and eventually other environmental parameters (speed, vehicle inclination etc.)

    To communicate between Arduino and Raspberry Pi, you have the possibility to use the USB to serial connection (you can program the Arduino with the Raspberry Pi in the same way too), I2C protocol, SPI.

     

    Enrico

Reply
  • in reply to hannah_girl

    It seems you have already reached the point, check the sensor data. Well, if it should have a simple logic, I think it is sufficient an Arduino instead if you want to have more complex behavior (I personally prefer) and more freedom for now and then, the base of the control system should be the Raspberry Pi. Consider that your sensor has an analog output (as far as I know, you say that it is a voltage range variation). So in this case, in my opinion, the best solution is an Arduino in conjunction with the Raspberry Pi. Arduino should read the analog value (it has six analog inputs) acting as a comparator converting the voltage to the height. Then it should pass the data changes to the Raspberry Pi that process and act consequently accordingly with the logic and eventually other environmental parameters (speed, vehicle inclination etc.)

    To communicate between Arduino and Raspberry Pi, you have the possibility to use the USB to serial connection (you can program the Arduino with the Raspberry Pi in the same way too), I2C protocol, SPI.

     

    Enrico

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