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CHECK STATUS SYSTEM OF ENGINE CONTROL UNIT.

[Category : - Motors]
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-TITLE
CHECK STATUS SYSTEM OF CAR ENGINE CONTROL UNIT.

-Technical Field
Present plan has been designed for the electronic parts of the four stroke engines, and its technical field is relevant to the car and totally engine control units,fuel and diesel engines,

- Background
History of the technological background
Since invention of the fuel injection system, engineers and machine designers have tried to design diagnostic systems of the automobiles’ fuel injection parts that led to the design of a CHECK ENGINE light for these systems. As you know, the CHECK light helps the driver significantly to be informed about the general defects in the fuel injection system. But one of the shortcomings observed in this system is that the vehicle’s CHECK light is not able to show the hardware and software defects of the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) and cannot show the defective IC of the Engine control unit to the repairer (That’s why the repairer is compelled to remove the Engine control unit entirely, when based on the experience he is suspicious to the failure of the ECU). It is also unable to show a partial or serious defect in the fuel injection system to the driver, as he can make a decision to continue to drive or stop the car. Possibly, the inability to diagnose the ECU, made the designers invent an ECU-tester device, which could show the problems of the ECU and defective ICs accurately to the repairer. However, this device has its own problems including being not portable (which makes troubles for the repairer during relief helps), the inaccessibility of the driver to the data, as well as the high cost that the repairer has to pay for every unit separately to provide a socket, and also the inability of CHECK light to display the precise status of ECU and show the partial or serious problems of the fuel injection system to the driver has remained. Since then, some plans have been designed for declaring the ECU defects, which could diagnose the solely relevant software defects. Other plans have been also developed, in which the whole ECU manufacturing process should be revised and so they could not be installed on all manufactured standard units in cars, or the plans that could diagnose the defects of control unit outside the vehicle. Overall speaking, from my point of view and many experienced repairers’, it is essential to design and develop an cost-effective system that could be installed on any type of the vehicles and informs the driver about the extent of the failure of Engine control unit (to help the driver to make decision about using or not using the car), and declare the ECU defect or health and the failure point (in case of failure) to the repairer.

Recommendation of solutions for the present problem
For resolving the above-mentioned problems, our purpose is to design a system that could be installed on the ECU of any type of vehicles’ engines (old or modern, and even the four stroke engines installed on various industrial machines (without changing the hardware or software of the control unit) and provide the driver or repairer with useful information about the status of the control unit of the fuel injection system (by displaying the alarms in three different color modes including blue, yellow and red). This way, based on the color displayed by the designed system, the driver can identify the extent of the defect as a minor, major or serious problem. In other words, according to the alarms, the driver ensures that if driving is continued in minor alarm conditions, no serious problem has threatened the control unit and they can refer to a car repair shop in the suitable condition. Also in the serious alarm conditions, the driver identifies that there is a crucial defect in the vehicle and by continuing the driving it is expected to face a significant problem in the control unit and the whole vehicle. Thereby, he should refer to the car repair shop as soon as possible. This also has advantages for the repairer as well, so that according to the alarms displayed by the colors, he identifies that whether the defect is related to the control unit or other parts of the fuel injection system. In addition, using the alarms, he could also distinguish the control unit defects caused by the software failure (that could be just resolved the problem by downloading the unit, without unloading) or the hardware failures. In the case of the hardware defects, using the system alarms, the repairer can realize that which IC of the control unit has caused the problem and so replace it. In this regard, I'm sure that using the present control unit monitoring system, the repairer has no longer need to the control unit tester devices and in general, using the three alarm modes, the system declares the defects to the driver and repairer.

- (Summary)
As you know, nowadays, the cars are manufactured by the extensive electronic systems and major electronic brains have been used in the vehicles (such as the control unit of the fuel injection system). That’s while there is no systems embedded in the cars to show the status of the control unit of the engine fuel injection system in various modes (being healthy, existing the software or hardware defects, or declaring the defective zone to the repairer if there is a hardware defect). Also the CHECK ENGINE lamp of the fuel injection system is not able to display the noted messages in the case of control unit, because the CHECK light alarm is turned on for the entire fuel injection system, and cannot specify the precise state of the ECU, type of defect and the defective zone and IC. This has led to complicated troubleshooting process for the repairer. Similarly, the warnings displayed to inform the driver about the existence of defects in the fuel injection system (such as a warning light of the fuel injection system or the check light) cannot inform the driver whether the defect in the fuel injection system is serious or the fuel injection defect is in a state that he could not continue driving, whether it will suffer a major disaster and etc. In the other case, it will ensure the driver if the defect is minor and the vehicle will not suffer a major disadvantage if he continues to drive. All these issues have led us to design a system to be installed before the ECU power supply pin and show the status of the control unit in three different modes (software and hardware failure modes as well as health of the unit).

-Detailed Description
The alarm system of the control units is a system that provides the driver and repairer with very useful information about the state of the control unit of the fuel injection system by warning in three modes (green, yellow and light), as the performance of the plan is so that it definitely shows to the driver or repairer about how the Engine control unit status is. For example, in the first warning (green light), the system notification happens when the ECU encountered a software (and not hardware) defect (there is no IC defect or short circuit conditions in the ECU circuit). In this way, the driver identifies that the car is not experiencing a serious problem, but it has the swinging defects and no damage occurs in the control unit of the vehicle fuel injection system if he continues driving. Also by observing such alarm (the green light) the repairer will notice that the problem will be resolved by downloading control unit software (without removing the car's control unit). If the problem was not resolved after downloading, the green light shows to the repairer that further problems occurred related to the other parts of the fuel injection system and certainly, the problem does not route in the hardware pats of the control unit (and he should not manipulate the ECU hardware at all). So the repairer should search for the defects in other parts of the fuel injection system by investigating the other parts such as the sensors and Actuators. The second alarm mode (yellow light) is turned on when a hardware defect occurs in the control unit (including short circuit IC, short circuit in ECU circuit and its components, IC burn, and generally any 5v hardware defect in ECU).
The yellow light alarm notifies the driver about the relative damage in the control unit and he identifies that by driving in a long path, it is possible to face the disasters like failure of the cylinder head gasket, failure of the fuel injectors or coil, control unit and other components of the fuel injection system (because this alarm is declared when a hardware defect is occurred in ECU such as IC short circuit and short circuit circuit, as you know, failure of a part of the ECU may lead to failure of the system, for example, the fan performance will fail if the ECU fan IC is defect,). By observing this alarm, the driver should drive to the nearest repair shop to avoid more serious problems. Also this alarm (yellow light) declare to the repairer that the defect existed in the car certainly is related to the control unit and he must remove the ECU from the vehicle and then remove its cover to replace the electronic components (parts) or modify the short-circuits defects in the control unit board (and also by such alarm, the repairer should identify that the failure of the control unit is only occurred by the defective 5V ICs, such as those of Knock IC, fuel injectors IC, fan IC and etc., or existence of a general hardware defect in the 5V parts of the ECU board, which significantly helps the repairer to identify the defective points in the control unit). The third alarm (red light) is showed when there is a highly serious hardware defect in the control unit and the driver should not move the vehicle by observing this warning, otherwise, the possibility of the serious defect in the car and unit is considerable.
This warning notifies the repairer that the problem has been occurred definitely in the control unit of the car and he has to remove the unit and remove its cover. For fixing the problem, he should search to find a defect in the 12V ICs or 12V parts of the control unit circuit (such as regulator IC, connection of the diagnostic device IC, etc.)

-To have more info or any discussion regarding the patent please contact us.

.US Application number:62626081
.IRAN Patent no:92/A 008944
• First name: Ehsan
• Surname: Zadpour
• E-mail: [Use the button below to contact me]
• Phone number:+98 9364202656

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