VEMS Community Forum

VEMS => Configuration => Topic started by: wazzu70 on June 01, 2013, 04:50:56 pm

Title: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: wazzu70 on June 01, 2013, 04:50:56 pm

I am sure this is an easy question, but I am not sure which type of output to use for the tachometer signal for the factory BMW E30 cluster.

Is it a push/pull with divider 16? That is where I assume I would start to find out, but I do not want to risk damaging the circuit if I guess incorrectly :)

Any help appreciated!

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: mattias on June 01, 2013, 08:15:48 pm

Yes, one of the stepper outputs will do nicely. Or the low current output (P259) on EC36-pin4 which has a +12V pull-up (1K).

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: wazzu70 on June 02, 2013, 04:17:16 am

Thank you!

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: wazzu70 on September 15, 2013, 06:43:02 pm

I used the P259 ch.0 (EC36-pin4) with no luck. I am using the normal divider of 16, is this correct?

If this is the correct setting, then I will check the cluster to verify its working properly.

Thanks!

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: mattias on September 15, 2013, 06:58:53 pm

If you measure the voltage on that pin towards ground, what do you get?

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: wazzu70 on September 18, 2013, 05:11:00 am

I was not able to measure any voltage at the pin.

Is this pin grounding when activated or providing power? The 12v 1k pullup confuses me as I'm not exactly sure what that means.

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant and I should use a known 12+V source and connect the ground to the pin and see if I get voltage when its activated.

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: mattias on September 18, 2013, 04:11:02 pm

Pretty much all ECUs have always been equipped with a resistor that internally connects +12V to this pin. The ouput is grounding when active, so it should measure +12V when it's not. 

If you have no voltage, apply that yourself externally. 1kOhm resistor between a +12V source and this pin.

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: wazzu70 on September 18, 2013, 04:41:12 pm

Thank you for the help and explination. I will report back after some more testing :)

I took on this project to learn more about electronics and ECU logic. So far its been a great learning tool with all the help I have recieved here!

Title: Re: Setup BMW(E30) Tachometer
Post by: wazzu70 on September 19, 2013, 06:45:30 pm

Well I solved my tachometer problem and it was user error  ::)

The VEMS unit itself worked perfectly at the pin. +12V and then grounding when activated. I traced the wire in the harness to realize it connected the wrong thing! Unfortunately I got two wires mixed up that had the same color/stripe scheme.

Thanks for the help!