Has anyone ever thought an SD memory card or a USB flash drive would be the ideal device in which to pattern an EFI system around? Theoretically, with no moving parts it is ideally suited to the harsh climate of a car (I have a cheap Lexmark USB thumb drive and it has been washed about 20 times and it still works fine!).

I bet Craig (and a few others) is reading this laughing his head off.

Yeah I understand it is a far fetched idea... cost inefficient to produce on a small scale... etc...

However, it would make a lot of sense to get rid of the intermediate devices. To integrate an SD or flash drive between a PC and the EFI system would be much easier.

With access like a thumb drive and USB... Just a thought.


Scary thought- Microsoft wants a piece of your ECM...

Automotive Design Line | News | Microsoft interview with Todd Warren

 

I've given thought to it. I'm a senior in both computer and electrical engineering, with a heavy interest in cars, and I've kicked around the idea as a final design project. I would basically use a small embedded "stamp" processor and a removable memory (like a thumb drive), and then custom write software to drive the injectors. This is just some basic thought i've put into it, but yes its doable, and no, your not the only one thats thought about it.

 

Yep, I thought about it pretty hard a couple years back. It'd be totally sweet. I'm working right now on integration of an SD card to one of my new products for onboard datalogging storage. Haven't worked out all the firmware code yet, but it should work fine for that.

The protocols for going to and from an SD/similar card are a bit tricky. Data is transported back and forth in serial fashion rather than parallel. This means fewer wires, but also means that data queries are a multi-step process. So you'd need a micro or CPLD/FPGA to go between the SD/Flash and the ECU. This is assuming you use the 'stock' ECU configuration and just want to use the SD/Flash to render the ECU code.

You could also have the 'appliance' device to pre-load the SD/Flash content onto an NVRAM and then present the NVRAM content to the ECU in normal fashion. That should be possible, you'd just have a 'cycle' of loading the new content whenever it was put in, and need to have a check for new content.

Then again, if you go all-out and ditch the stock ECU configuration, you'd be unlimited in terms of what you can do. Hmm...

But yeah, great idea. Lots of possibilities. Keep thinking about it, I know there's some good stuff there.

 

All the hardware is in place to do this on a stock TPI ecm. All you need to do is write the code/assembly for it. You guys are making it way harder than it needs to be. Some of you are thinking how to do it universally so you can make it for a bunch of different ECMs so you can cash in on it.

Ditching the stock ECM is another way to do it.

 

Yes, stock ECM. Change the code and away you go...