[DeTomaso] Update

[gow2 at rc-tech.net]

I have had little time to work on the car between the business and
motorcycle rides but I am progressing.

Some time back I put in a simple steering column form Speedway Motors. The
column had no provisions for turn signals. About the only available on the
market are circuits which you manually turn on/off the turn signals. There
is also an option for turn signals which turn off in specified time.

I built a rotary encoder which attached to the steering column then built
a circuit to control it. That was some time back. There has been much work
on these circuits since then.

I started thinking about another way to do it with inertia. When you pull
out of the drive through, you make a turn and your drink falls out of your
cup holder. The next circuit was built around this force and it cancels
the turn signal automatically internally with nothing attached to the
column. I set it up in the truck. It took a lot of circuit adjustments but
in the end, I could not believe how well it worked; even on a slow easy
turn.

Since then, with many hours of work I refined the circuit around a
microprocessor, and I am now Patent Pending on both designs.

I have developed a process for building the circuits and I expect to be
selling the inertia based turn signal controllers after the first of the
year.....no this is not a pitch to sell them but this is much the reason
why progress has been slow on the car.

The electrical system in the car is from scratch. There is little in this
car electrical which resembles a stock Pantera. Each wire ran to terminals
in the front trunk. The terminals make changes easy. Relays are in 2-banks
in the front trunk. You can see the cap to the electric power steering
pump in the floor:

http://www.rc-tech.net/cars2/panttransam/CT/trunk%20fuse.jpg

The rear firewall also has a small circuit breaker box as well as 2 relay
banks. Located in the rear is also an air pump for the front air bags
(raise the car for obstacles). I have about 80% of the electrical working.
My goal is to get this thing running soon and off to the interior shop
next spring.

Here is the turn signal controller which uses the optical encoder finished
up:

http://www.rc-tech.net/cars2/panttransam/CT/CT1.jpg

http://www.rc-tech.net/cars2/panttransam/CT/CT1.jpg

The controller controls the flashers but does a few other things as well.
There is a flasher reference so the lights are used as flashers as well.
There is a flasher mix controllable with DIP switch. When on the turn
signals can still be used with flashers. When both are used, the flashers
blink 2x, then the turn signal blinks 2x, etc.

On the production box there is also a reference for rear brake lights. I
don't need that here BUT my basically I altered the program to use the
front marker lights in conjunction with the signal and flashers.

There is also a 3 min timer should one fail to turn off the signal for
things like lane changes.

The switch is operated by a momentary. The location on the Pantera dash is
nice as you can activate it with your hands on the wheel. I had a guy with
a performance car get one because he tracked his car a lot and he wanted
to get the turn signal off the column as he had already broke it working
the steering wheel on a road course.

On another note, I wired the dash yesterday. It is connected with 3 plugs
(almost did it with 2). @ plugs for all components and one for power on a
strip mounted on the underside of the dash. This includes the spedo
reference signal so removing dash will be a couple of screws, 3-plugs and
2 vent hoses.

http://www.rc-tech.net/cars2/panttransam/CT/dashwire.jpg


Gary