cirrussport

If your going to go to all the trouble to make yourself an interface for this, why not put a temperature sensor in the car and just make it so you can set a temperature in degrees and it will heat or cool to maintain that temperature. Then you can set a preset of what temperature and what vents you want it coming out of. Then make just a couple quick buttons like defrost windows.
That way you would not have to be adjusting it at all, Just let the computer take care of it.
Im sure that wouldnt be much more complex than making buttons, and it would be alot more practical

06TC_OWNER

My honest answer would be NO - the reason I say this is not because it wouldn't be cool and get a lot of looks, but because I would be concerned about not being able to access my environmental controls. I suppose the only way I would even consider it would be if it were in a configuration that I could override the computer driven controls. If my harddrive crashed or the pc wouldn't come up for some reason in the winter - that'd really suck!

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diablodemorte

To all the people that are worried about the comp failing and then not being able to access their ac(Originally one of my concerns) I designed by system w/ the factory Ac unit still installed(My Touchscreen holds up over it) and i would still be able to use the ac when using my comp.

Siezmik

I'm all for it, provided the original climate controls are still available to be used when the computer is not powered on. This might be easy enough for those with electronically or vacuum operated controls, but my controls are physical by design (rods and levers). Since servos would have to be used to drive these, I assume some kind of slipper clutch would be required in order for the original controls to still work.

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diablodemorte

Yea, my system is electronic. For those you yall that have a manual system(Like my truck) I guess one would have to devise a servo system which indeed has some sorta clutch or a servo which wasn't damaged with manual turning.

Aaron3262

Once I get Streetdeck, (I mean once I finish studying for this stupid test and have time to download the trial and play with it more) I would love to be able to control the A/C, mainly because when my TS comes out of the dash it blocks the controls anyway, good luck and I'll be looking forward to seeing your work.

h3rk

I was laughing unitl I realized you weren't reinventing the controls, just duplicating the HMI.
If you were to duplicate the brain of the ACC unit you'd have a lot on your plate.
First and foremost, different vehicles pose a major concern:

-There are different sensors in different places among different makes, models.
-Some companies use stepper motors, servos, vacuum actuators, etc.
-Some vehicles now use pollution sensors with PWM outputs.
-Sunload sensors.
just to name a very few.

To apply heat transfer and thermodynamics to single- dual- or tri- zone closed loop control is kind of a tough problem. I won't even get into blower speed curves.

Engineering an aftermarket ACC controller that will work with, as well as without certain inputs, configurable via usb, that saves it's settings for use without a PC, and that auto calibrates itself to best approximate some of the modeling companies like Visteon can do because R&D money is abundant takes some time and head scratching.

Then to design this embedded system with good engineering principles (so that it's reliable), with a supporting line of sensors and actuators, so that those with manual HVAC don't have to use Mastero's Aircon2; well...

I'll just call it a daunting and difficult task to say the least.

So I laughed at first, because I know, and I was going to ask if you were feeling a little overwhelmed yet... Then I realized that this isn't quite what you were doing, so.. no empathetic laughter for U.
Good luck on your build.