feat: CAN support #2
Description
This is a tracking issue for a PR in the works right now, which will refresh this project as a whole, bringing with it several general refactors as well as optimizations for performance + usability, and (more notabilty) introduces experimental CAN support to the ECA utility.
There are numerous commercial products on the market for processing and either interpreting/transmitting the interpolated EC data to things like in-dash displays, custom piggy back tune boxes like the JB4, and some even communicate it directly to the car's ECU/DME itself, so that the ECU or tune can optimize the timing, trigger a secondary fuel pump if necessary, and so on.
I've seen these products range anywhere from $150 (e.g., basic bluetooth-only kits or 1-wire 0-5v outputs) to prices as high as $800-900 (e.g., Motiv ReFlex kits, which use proprietary private encodings that I haven't had time to reverse engineer). Why pay all that money for something you can build yourself in an afternoon for a minimal amount of money? That question is what drove me to originally created this repo: I wanted an ECA for my tuned BMW N54 engine running on an ethanol-heavy fuel mix, and I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars for it.
Maintaining that original driving force, this PR implements a configurable CAN output feature that can be set up to theoretically function just like one of those expensive commercial products currently on the market. With the right hardware (a simple Arduino board such as a Nano, Uno, or any other microcontroller you can flash an .ino to that is compatible with the APIs and dependencies of this library), you'll be able to build a full-fledged ECA unit on the cheap. Your vehicle and/or tune will see it as the same thing, and you can spend those hundreds of dollars saved on some parts that actually warrant that kind of price tag.
For more information about the new features and implementation, refer to the associated Pull Request, #3.
Thanks!
Nick