Crank Wheel Pulser Software

The Crankshaft Timing Signal Wheel Simulator is software from Bowling and
Grippo that simulates the signal from a crank wheel. It does this by creating a
sound file (.WAV) and playing it back through a computer's sound card, on the
'left' channel. There is an optional cam sync signal playable on the 'right'
channel.

Hardware

A typical sound card by itself will only put out about 3 Volts (peak-to-peak)
maximum (you can always lower the voltage with the volume control). This
may be enough for some purposes, but you may want/need more. There are a
couple of ways to increase the output voltage of the signal to usable levels the
signal:

1. Use amplified speakers (they will have an AC power adapter) that have
a headphone jack (often available for $20 or less, if you don't already
have them). These will boost the output to around 13 V (p-p) or more,
and require no additional hardware other than a headphone cable. Use
the left channel for the crank signal, the right channel for the cam
signal. You will get the maximum output with both the Windows
volume and speaker volume set at their highest.
2. You can use a transformer to step up the output voltage (the following
will give you up to 30 Volts (p-p) on the crank signal). The variable
reluctor (VR) output from the sound card requires an 8 Ohm: 1K Ohm
coupling transformer to drive the MegaSquirt-II VR input circuit. A
suitable transformer is Digi-Key 146KHM-ND ($12.89), however this
is a 'non-stock' item. You can find them at Unicorn Electronics. You
might have better luck at your local electronics store (RadioShack, etc.)

Both the VR transformer circuit and cam sync signal circuits are shown
below:
The hardware for the VR output looks like this:
The red wire is the signal, the green wire is ground (on the left side of the
transformer). The thick black cable is a stereo jack pirated from an old set of
headphones.

The cam sync signal (if you use it) requires an external transistor driver
circuit.

Wire the signal from the sound card to the low resistance side of the
transformer, ~1 Ohm (it will be less than eight ohms, which refers to the
impedance, rather than the DC resistance), and the output to the high
resistance (~50 Ohms DC) side of the transformer.

You can build the transformer circuit on a small proto board, or solder the
leads directly to the transformer

Software

Get the executable file here (right click and 'save as' or run it from the current
location):

The source files are here: CWP.zip (7.6 MegaBytes!)

You can specify the number of teeth and the 'missing tooth pattern' from the
selection box. An XX-Y pattern means a wheel in which there are XX evenly
spaced teeth, Y of which has been removed (for example, 36 minus one means
36 evenly spaced teeth, a 5 tooth with a 5 gap to the next one, with one of
these teeth removed, creating a 10 gap). These are the number of teeth per
360 degree revolution (I.e, one crank revolution), so '4 teeth' would be
appropriate for V8 with one signal per ignition event.
For the cam sync setting, you can specify the positional location in degrees of
the cam sync signal with respect to the first 'missing' tooth

To use the software:

1. Define the crank wheel by entering the number of teeth/missing teeth,

and select whether to use the cam sync signal, and select the angle (0-
720) for the sync to be sent,
2. Set up the engine rpms for the WAV file (vary from the lower rpm to
the higher rpm and back over the time you enter.),
3. Set up the WAV file by selecting the sample rate (44100 is more than
good enough in most cases) and file length (from 2 to 10 seconds is
 best in most cases - larger files may be slow to generate on some
systems),
4. Generate the WAV file by clicking the button and saving the file.
5. Play the WAV file. You can do this once, or in a repeating loop (which
may be convenient for testing - but note that there may be
discontinuities in the file when the program it starts each new loop).

Notes:

v1.001 correctly ends the output at the end of a wheel cycle, meaning it
completes a whole crankshaft revolution before restarting the file at the
beginning of the revolution. This makes sure there are no
discontinuities to mess up the missing tooth code when playing the file
in a loop. So the run time is approximate, the actual run time may be
slightly longer. Earlier versions did not necessarily do this.
the possible rpm range is limited by the nominal 20-2000 Hertz range
of the sound card. With a 36 tooth wheel, 20000 Hz is 20000 teeth/sec
divided by 36 teeth/revolution times 60 seconds/minute = 33333 rpm.
For a 60 tooth wheel, because there's 60 teeth and 60 seconds in a
minute, it all cancels out and 20000 rpm is 20000 Hertz.
At the lowest rpms (less than 300 for a 60 tooth wheel), the signal is not
so good and clean, and the triggering may not work well (or at all).
to simulate a non-missing tooth distributor, you can choose 4-0 for the
wheel settings (for a V8), 3-0 (6 cylinder), or 2-0 (4 cylinder). In this
case, low rpms are a problem as well. For example, 30 Hertz for V8 is
30 teeth/sec / 4 teeth/rev * 60 sec/minute = 450 rpm (but the signal is
distorted and the actual limit may be a few hundred rpm above this).