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Discussion starter · #122 ·
This afternoon I went for a ride through the woods and played with the gizmo quite a bit. I finally learned how it actually works. I think I explained it backwards earlier during stovetop testing.

Anyway, the trigger temp and hysteresis setting are relational... for instance, I wanted the fan to kick on at 100 degrees C (212 F) and stay on until the oil temp cooled off to 88 C (190.4 F), so I had to set the hysteresis at 12 C and set the trigger temp at 88 C. So the actual fan relays triggering temp = the trigger setting (88) + the hysteresis setting (12) = 100 degrees C. The fan kicks on at 100 C and kicks off at 88 C like I intended it to so I'm sure I messed up explaining it all earlier... :)

I also learned that at idle speed the oil appears to cool down faster while the fan is running than at motor RPMs above idle. In fact, if the RPMs are taken up a bit shortly after the fan kicks on the oil temp immediately increases rather than continuing to decrease. So that probably (or might?) indicates that lower oil flow volumes and slower oil velocity through the cooler while idling allows the moving hot oil more time inside the cooler... when it exits it is appearing to be cooling at a faster rate.

When revving the motor though, the oil temp climbs sharply (immediately) a couple degrees and hangs... then falls back at a much slower rate. So I'm thinking the oil cooler capacity might be slightly undersized on my Rancher, as supplied stock by Honda. So two coolers connected in series (or a single larger one) might be a smart option to have on any heavy duty work/performance bike. Ya certainly can't see/learn this kinda stuff using the stock Honda oil temp sensor.

So do I like this gizmo...? A lot? You betcha! It is very sensitive to tiny oil temp changes and very fast to update the displayed temp. It flat out ROCKS! Many, many thanks go to @wheelsquad for getting a fire lit under this one!!! Now I can't wait to free up enough time to build some more of them! :)

I have room for one more pic here so thought I'd share what was at least a 12 foot tall Beaver dam last fall...! It looks like the spring meltdown and icejams took about 3-4 feet or more off the top of their 1st big dam (of many, they control about 3/4 mile of that ravine and have lived behind various dams in that ravine for several decades) and left them with a tangled mess to fix and rebuild. If I hadta' guess... they was a generation of slackers behind that dam... :)
 

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This afternoon I went for a ride through the woods and played with the gizmo quite a bit. I finally learned how it actually works. I think I explained it backwards earlier during stovetop testing.

Anyway, the trigger temp and hysteresis setting are relational... for instance, I wanted the fan to kick on at 100 degrees C (212 F) and stay on until the oil temp cooled off to 88 C (190.4 F), so I had to set the hysteresis at 12 C and set the trigger temp at 88 C. So the actual fan relays triggering temp = the trigger setting (88) + the hysteresis setting (12) = 100 degrees C. The fan kicks on at 100 C and kicks off at 88 C like I intended it to so I'm sure I messed up explaining it all earlier... :)

I also learned that at idle speed the oil appears to cool down faster while the fan is running than at motor RPMs above idle. In fact, if the RPMs are taken up a bit shortly after the fan kicks on the oil temp immediately increases rather than continuing to decrease. So that probably (or might?) indicates that lower oil flow volumes and slower oil velocity through the cooler while idling allows the moving hot oil more time inside the cooler... when it exits it is appearing to be cooling at a faster rate.

When revving the motor though, the oil temp climbs sharply (immediately) a couple degrees and hangs... then falls back at a much slower rate. So I'm thinking the oil cooler capacity might be slightly undersized on my Rancher, as supplied stock by Honda. So two coolers connected in series (or a single larger one) might be a smart option to have on any heavy duty work/performance bike. Ya certainly can't see/learn this kinda stuff using the stock Honda oil temp sensor.

So do I like this gizmo...? A lot? You betcha! It is very sensitive to tiny oil temp changes and very fast to update the displayed temp. It flat out ROCKS! Many, many thanks go to @wheelsquad for getting a fire lit under this one!!! Now I can't wait to free up enough time to build some more of them! :)

I have room for one more pic here so thought I'd share what was at least a 12 foot tall Beaver dam last fall...! It looks like the spring meltdown and icejams took about 3-4 feet or more off the top of their 1st big dam (of many, they control about 3/4 mile of that ravine and have lived behind various dams in that ravine for several decades) and left them with a tangled mess to fix and rebuild. If I hadta' guess... they was a generation of slackers behind that dam... :)
That's great info. I'm guessing my 400AT is going to show some more serious heat needing to be pushed away by the fan too. You also get to keep my old sensor for a future failure gizmo build when we take it out at our meet-up. I suppose I should make sure it's not seized in the case first, eh?
 
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Discussion starter · #125 ·
We'll get that bugger out with a 17mm socket no problem, @wheelsquad! I've got a 3 lb hammer that loves to be put to work too! Just kiddin' :) Being its brass screwed into aluminum those two dissimilar density metals should not bond together very well anyway.

No can do oil temps in fahrenheit @fishfiles. It displays in Celcius only, until someone volunteers to rewrite and remap the program code to display fahrenheit. Maybe someday I'll look into that... and mail everyone a reflash...? But don't hold your breath, I'm gettin' old and lazy nowadays. ;-)
 
I am fairly good at Celsius . Is the pic with 99 on yours actual temperature ? Where you running it hard ? That's about 209 F ?

I think you really got something there , even for bikes with out a fan , I think people would want one to monitor temperature more than an idiot light and would pay for it , send your design to the Chinese and have them market it , and you just work the door on the mail box
 
Discussion starter · #127 ·
Ya, the actual oil temp is displayed in realtime in degrees celcius whenever the key is on. Its pretty cool to be able to glance at it anytime and see the current oil temp. The red LED next to the digits comes on while the fan relays are energized too, so ya always know whether the fan is running or not.

I was not running the bike hard at all today... was just creeping through the woods where there are no trails. Its technical riding sorta... gotta go over logs and downed trees picking your way around stuff through the woods. The top edges of ravines are the easiest places to ride usually, but also the most challenging cause they're so darn steep. My fender flares get scared up bad over time but I like to ride like that. So I'm gonna keep my bad riding habit until they quit selling me new fender flares. :)

I calibrated the control gizmo and oil temp sensor against a digital multimeter thermometer before I sealed up the enclosures... I replaced the pullup resistor with a 5k ohms trimpot so I could do just that. Hopefully it is accurate enough for our purpose, but if it isn't, there is a parameter menu where you can adjust for accuracy in 1/10th C increments... if ya got better measuring equipment than I used to calibrate it. The oil temp sensor was made using a 1/10th C tolerance thermistor, so its very sensitive and fast responding to tiny oil temp changes.

I like that everything is saved in non-volatile memory, so once ya set something it stays set permanently even with the key turned off, or until ya change it.

I have mine set to kick on at 100 C and kick off at 88 C right now, but I'll probably raise the max and tighten up the hysteresis a bit once I get a better feel for what the bike likes, as far as max & min oil temp working range. The fan can be kicked on and off a lot more often using this gizmo... to maintain a hot, tight oil temp range in complete confidence. Rotella T6 likes being run a lil' hot, me thinks. :)

As for a china made gizmo...? It already is cheap china! I just stripped off all of the chintzy china bits and replaced them remotely (in the PS/relays box) with my own high quality component choices. The micro-processor is a genuine ST Micro STM8S003F3P6 so we beat the cheap china crap right out of them this time! I like the mailbox scenario though... wonder how in the world (and for how long?) we could get away with that? :)
 
I finally got to unboxing the gizmo and checking it out last night, but still need to power it up and play around with it. If I were good at recording and narrating I would have done one of those "unboxing videos" for you guys. You'd have no idea this thing was a DIY based on how it looked coming out of the box.

The only thing that is left if scheduling our meet-up for the install, and that's all on me.
 
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Discussion starter · #131 ·
If ya find a good place for a handlebar mount @wheelsquad lemme know. I'm not 100% confident with that clamp bracket I made... it seems to me like the two #10 screws gotta be overtightened to make it clamp down good. I don't trust it.

If we can find a place to mount on the left handlebar similar to the way I mounted up my gizmo, I'll build another control unit and bring it with me. I feel like my workmanship improves on each subsequent build anyway... an' now that the rainy spring pattern seems to be letting go, I am able to do most of the fab work on the enclosure outdoors in natural light, where I can see a lot better.

So I'd really like to make another one... lets see if we can improve them now that we know they are fully functional.
 
Discussion starter · #132 ·
I got two more genuine STM8S boards in the mail the other day.. so the current stock count is at 6 genuine boards. Lets use 'em up refining these buggers, ehh? :)
 
Discussion starter · #133 ·
I also improved the submersible sealing technique a bunch on the control unit when I built the 2nd one... so I want to add that update to your gizmo @wheelsquad. So you see I'm anxious to get nit-picky now... any tiny improvement ideas ya think up no matter what they might be...? Lets bounce some ideas off of each other, see if we can make them work/fit better on the bike for us.

First thing I wanna do is swap the 5-pin connectors I used for 4-pin. I ended up wiring them up differently than I first envisioned when that 5-pin/shared grounds idea didn't pass the final muster. So gotta fix that... also like to improve the harness wraps somehow. And can probably use smaller wire for the repotted oil temp sensor harness.... lil' stuff, but maybe we can surprise ourselves if we scheme on it for a while.
 
@retro the bracket you put on the back of the unit fits right in between the fins and feels like it has just enough solid engagement to hold no problem:


I don't know where you found that bracket and don't think I could have found that myself... But never doubt a wizard.

This will work great on mine but I'll spend some time thinking about mounting others.
 

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Discussion starter · #135 ·
That clamp bracket was cut from a length of extruded aluminum trim of some sort... dunno what it was originally intended for. If you look closely you might be able to tell that the top half of that clamp was cut out from the same bottom half profile... I just filed the top piece to match up with the bottom half shape and thinned the back of it to form the upper jaw.

I am almost halfway done with another control unit. I got a lot done working outdoors in the sunlight today... waiting for JB-weld to cure on the trimpot overnight then I'll continue. I'm getting a bit faster with 'em... got the fabbing techniques (and patience/persistence) pretty well nailed down now. Confidence is improving too. :)

I been thinking about a universal mount... consisting of thick aluminum plate internally, but with thin aluminum plate externally that can be included standard on the back of every unit. It will be drilled (blind holes, unit will still be submersible) & tapped for two screws. That would allow for every control unit to interchange... and allow the owner to make their own mounting choices and even move the unit from bike to bike, rather than each mounting choice having to be custom made at build time. They are permanent one-trick ponies as built so far, so that's another idea I'd like to explore.

I gotta order some more stuff before I can complete this one, but once it is done I wanna send it to ya @wheelsquad. I'll make the same clamp bracket for it (on a universal mount?) if you'd like to run with that type. This will be a much improved control unit updated with all that has been learned so far. That box you just opened is obsolete already. We might salvage the rubber button strip outta that first build though, for one of the next... :)
 

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Discussion starter · #138 ·
I made another oil temp sensor today using the brass that was taken outta my Rancher. That OEM sensor still measured as being good, but they're scrap until gutted, so thats what had to happen to it. The pic shows the new thermie a few moments before it got dunked into JB-weld filled brass.

I also made a simple aluminum bracket that I'll put on the back of every control unit from here on out, unless one of yous' suggests a better one. I'll post a pic of that bracket later on, after the paint gets baked in the oven.

Also made another clamp bracket that can be attached to the universal bracket. This one is drilled for three screws rather than two and is shaped to reach further back onto the fins of the light bar, so hopefully its an improvement. Thats gotta bake in the oven too, so I'll post a pic of it next time.
 

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Discussion starter · #139 ·
This is what I got going so far for a universal bracket and the thinking behind all that...

I struggle making custom-fit brackets for bikes that I have never seen before and don't have parked in my yard to look at... very few of us would ever be pleased with those results. AND in order for the gizmo to be submersible its gotta ship out with a sealed bracket on it.

I can work with folks on basic bracket types, shapes and locations... just can't guarantee anything I make would fit right. More'n likely I'd waste a good day of fabbing time & materials on shipping junk. So I want to include something basic and simple that can be drilled, cut shorter, cut off, bent a bit, another bracket bolted onto it... etc., by the installer. A universal bracket in other words... something to build off from.

The pics show my 1st effort. If y'all have any feedback or other ideas?
 

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Discussion starter · #140 ·
This is the clamp bracket I made for this gizmo @wheelsquad. It is thinner in the nose than the first one I think, so it might fit a bit deeper into the fins on your lightbar? I drilled it for three #10 screws and nuts (nevermind the #6 screws, those were temporarily put there for taking pics) to hopefully increase the clamping power.

The intention is to mount it to the universal bracket pictured in the post above using all three clamp screws, if it looks like it will fit there and work good, when we are installing it?

Whadd'ya think? Shall we throw it back, or try it? The bracket might provide us with a Plan B if that clamp don't work... :)
 

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