DIY Turbojet Engine Control
anaxcontrol
Posts: 23
in BASIC Stamp
I'm new to STAMP but not programming and logic control. My son and I are close to being done (80%) building a turbojet engine. I want to add some engine control (more as I get better). For now, temp sensor, RPM and pressure transducer. Does anyone have a basic code dump they can offer me to use as a starting point so I can get up to speed on this? I also want to add an LCD screen. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I don't have the controller yet but will be the 2PX with supercarrier. I have downloaded all I can find (manual, example code etc) and have started getting familiar. Thanks.
Comments
My biggest project was writing a massive (for me anyway) FORTRAN program to evaluate proposed changed to the engine and running cost effectiveness analyses on various methods of getting the change incorporated, at next minor/major inspection (best), forced recall (most expensive), or just waiting for the part to fail (cheapest and least recommended). Heavy into probability and statistics (mainly Weibull analysis) and tracking a huge worldwide database of actual engine configurations. At that time, only the Israelis had used the F-16s in actual combat and dogfights. We desperately wanted their failure rate data but could never get it. Fun fact: in tight maneuvers, the turbine disks act like flywheels and resist motion, wiping out the knife edge seals on the turbine blade tips. Our USAF Thunderbird planes get a lot of wear & tear doing aerobatics, that's all we had to look at for simulated "combat condition" data.
For cost effectiveness, I might have suggested switching to BS2s for engine control had they been around in 1982.
Sounds like an awesome project.
I can't help thinking that for an engine controller a Propeller would be a better choice than a STAMP.
The last time I did any work on controller for jet engines in it was for Lucas Aerospace and the Rolls Royce Trent motor used on the 777. That involved a lot of time critical processing. Not that I'm any expert in Turbo Jet Engine Control, we only created the code to meet the specifications.
Anyway, my little point is that with it's 8 cores a Propeller is very well suited to such real-time control systems. Being able to separate "urgent stuff" from user interface activity, for example, is trivial. And very robust.
It has temp , ADC's for voltage, displays etc. The code is in the book. (the book is excellent!!)
https://www.parallax.com/news/2015-02-26/download-new-book-jon-titus-experiments-propeller-quickstart
You could make a nice display with something like this :
Propeller Demo - uOLED-160-GMD1-uSD(Complete)
Another graphics example:
AttoPilot - UAV Autopilot system
Propeller Object exchange ( ready to run software modules)
Example Pressure sensors
http://obex.parallax.com/search/pressure
You could use a screen from 4D systems for Prop:
http://www.4dsystems.com.au/