Creating a wireless controller - and GUI

Hey everybody!

Basically I’m stumped, I’m not sure what to do at all!

I am installing air ride into my car (that is the easy part)

I want to do something a little hard and run a small GUI on my android phone or a small wireless device so i can control the air ride system.

Let me explain a little. The Air ride is very simple. Each IN and OUT valve is controlled by one solenoid.

(the wiring explination on the left is all i have to control).

The management block is earthed so when each of those wires has 12v+ added it will perform the function it describes (front left up or down and so on). I think it only needs to be a small current too…looking at this diagram it only requires a 5A fuse

So all i need to do is have a device that can basically complete a cicuit (switch) wirelessly…then creat a simple GUI with a few buttons that are programmed to have either multiple valves activated (front left and right, drop) or individual (rear right up).

Anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Stu

Does your phone have bluetooth? If so, you could probably accomplish what you want to do using a bluetooth module interfaced to a microcontroller that can turn a relay on or off. The microcontroller’s I/O lines are probably not powerful enough to turn on the relays, so you would need a MOSFET for each relay. The Baby Orangutan has motor drivers built in to it so those would work too. We also sell the motor drivers themselves. If the bluetooth module has some general-purpose outputs you can use, you might not need a microcontroller.

You could also use our Wixel, which combines a radio and a microcontroller. It can’t do bluetooth but you could use two Wixels to create a wireless system where one is in your remote and the other controls relays.

–David

Thank you for that!

So basically every switch i would need to run a relay for? Is there a way to make my own wireless controller?

What would be the least hassel?

Stu

I don’t know enough about your system to say that replacing switches with relays is the only way to hack it, but it should work. Of course if there is a switch that you don’t need to press wirelessly, you can leave that one alone.

You can make your own wireless controller by connecting buttons to a Wixel. If you want to use Wixels then I think the first app would be to try the Wixel I/O Repeater app because it does almost everything you need. The source code is available in the Wixel SDK, so if you need to make a minor modification (like inverting the polarity of the outputs) then you could do so.

–David

Fantastic! I’ll do a bit more research! :slight_smile:

I’ll let you know how I go!