Peter Nowell's Arduino Shift Light Project Offers Coolant Warnings, Wheel Lock-Up Indications Too
"[There's] so much you can do with NeoPixels and CAN bus," Nowell writes. "It's great fun!"
Peter Nowell, of motor racing specialist PT Motorsport, has released an Arduino Nano-based project that offers gear shift and wheel lock-up monitoring over a CAN bus connection — firing up NeoPixel addressable LEDs in a 3D-printed housing as an at-a-glance indicator.
"This shift light project has really grown into a lot more," Nowell explains of his creation. "Now it's a PRNDL [Park-Reverse-Neutral-Drive-Low] indicator, coolant over-temp warning light, wheel lock-up indicator. So much you can do with NeoPixels and CAN bus, it's great fun!"
As Nowell says, the little 3D-printed box of tricks is designed to read status from a vehicle's engine control unit (ECU) over the Control Area Network (CAN) bus. A Microchip MCP2515 CAN controller connects the ECU to an Arduino Nano or compatible microcontroller, which then uses user-configurable revolutions per minute (RPM) limits to indicate when it's time to shift up or down.
The 3D-printed housing, meanwhile, provides a mounting point for a NeoPixel strip of RGB LEDs, though it's not strictly speaking necessary for the project to work. Vehicle compatibility, however, depends on the engine control unit fitted: Nowell has published three versions of the project, suitable for a standard ODB2 interface and Haltech and ECU Master ECUs.
Nowell has published the source code for the project on GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3, while the STL files for printing the housing are available to order on the PT Motorsport website for a name-your-price fee starting at $1.50. Additional information is available on Nowell's Reddit post.