10-05-2016, 10:54 AM
I would love to see Canbus. I have a couple of waterproof /fuse/relay boxes mounted under the hood. Each box can handle 10 relays but would settle for 8 for simple bit reasons. The wiring between the switches is a huge time and material consumer. I would love to be able to read the switches at 12 volt levels then translate that to Canbus on a slave then send to a slave mounted inside the relay box. Another feature would be to have 12 volt inputs on the Relay box slave so that it can monitor the fused output of the relays. On the switch panel, each switch has two LEDs one LED is a panel lamp to identify the switch, the other LED is to indicate an on condition. By monitoring the fused outputs on the relay box side and sending that status back to switch panel slave to illuminate the 2nd LED to indicate good condition. Switch on and no 2nd LED would be blown fuse indication.
Reason for staying with 12 Volt rather than TTL is because I can use common off the shelf automotive parts and it allows it to be configured with direct wiring instead of Canbus if someone wishes to.
There are commercial products that are available to do exactly this but are high priced for the DIY crowd.
A future option could be a touch screen on the Master to provide a GUI switch/indication screen eliminating the need for mechanical switches and mounting.
I have found some I2C boards I could do this with, but I think the environment is too noisy electrically to cover the distance between inputs and outputs.
Reason for staying with 12 Volt rather than TTL is because I can use common off the shelf automotive parts and it allows it to be configured with direct wiring instead of Canbus if someone wishes to.
There are commercial products that are available to do exactly this but are high priced for the DIY crowd.
A future option could be a touch screen on the Master to provide a GUI switch/indication screen eliminating the need for mechanical switches and mounting.
I have found some I2C boards I could do this with, but I think the environment is too noisy electrically to cover the distance between inputs and outputs.