The YSR Jet Bike will be different from many other DIY gas turbine engine powered vehicles, in that it will be completely computer controlled. The computer system (provided by our sponsors at Parallax and PDA,Inc.) will provide critical engine monitoring features, and will also act as a safety system. Using an array of sensors located on the engine, the system will monitor engine statistics, and have complete control of the bike. In the event of an "out of range" condition, the system will shut down the engine, and even go so far as to provide fire suppression if necessary. This level of sophistication is needed when dealing with such a high powered engine in such close proximity to body parts.

Christmas came early and Santa delivered this

One of our sponsors, Parallax, told us they would be sending a box of products to us for use on the bike. This is what came in the mail. Receiving the package felt like an early Christmas for me, because I had an idea of what was inside. A big thanks goes out to Jim and everybody else at Parallax for this present.

Parallax made sure all the goodies arrived safely with good packaging

The Styrofoam peanuts hid the surprise waiting inside. It was kind of like a Twinkie, bland on the outside, but on the inside........

A cornucopia of electronic goodness

BAM! Seeing the Parallax Basic Stamp2 goodies pop out of that box was wonderful! Kids, this is the future computer, or ECU, for the jet bike. Now all I have to do is assemble it all, figure out what wires go where, program the computers, interface the computers to the touchscreen, test out the whole system, and put it all on the bike. Not that much really!

The Basic Stamp 2P and Board of Education carrier board

Here is the heart of the system, the Parallax Basic Stamp 2P and the Board of Education carrier board. The Little yellow chip is the whole brains for the operation. It is the CPU, memory, and command interpreter for the entire system. The PC board is just a means to connect the BS2P to the outside world, and to provide power. This board has what is called a breadboard on it. It is the little white area on the PC board. It allows you to stick wires and components into the board without soldering so that designs can be changed quickly during prototyping of the system.. The final design will be mounted to a Super Carrier Board, which provides a space for soldering the finalized circuit designs.

Wiring the Board of Education

In this view of the carrier board, you can see the RS-232 connection port on the left side, which is connected to the PC for programming the board and debugging code. The red wiring harness is one I made to interface the board to the touch screen LCD monitor. You can clearly see some wire inserted into the breadboard to connect a temperature sensor. The black cable at the top is for incoming power.

The logo screen on the CS-2B LCD touchscreen from PDA, Inc.

Here is the touch screen LCD monitor. This logo was programmed into the memory of the monitor and appears every time the unit is powered on.

Bar graph style gauge

After some programming with the BS2P, the screen could easily display this gauge in a bar that moves from left to right much like a progress indicator when installing software. It is easy to read, and requires very little code. It will be the gauge style used in the end project.

Sample ECU engine monitoring screen

This screen was created to show possible layout of data on the screen. It was fed with a random number generator in the code so that the values would appear to change as if connected to an engine. The screen is from PDA, Inc.; and is very versatile. You can clearly see the different font sizes that it supports, and it also has graphics capabilities, digital and analog real time plotting (similar to a heart monitoring EKG machine), programmable memory, digital and analog I/O ports, and much much more. This is a great piece of hardware, and if you use Basic Stamps for anything then I highly suggest that you check these screens out.

Round analog style gauge on the BS-2P LCD

This is an attempt at an analog style round gauge. The pointer hand can be seen pointing to 9 o'clock in the picture. The amount of code needed to make this type of gauge makes it impractical for my use. The memory on the BS2P is limited compared to what a normal computer is, so prudent use of code is a must. It takes about 20 times more code to produce a round graph as does a bar graph. It is also a bit harder to see the gauge pointer hand, so those are the reasons that I will be using the bar graph type gauge. Kids, if you hate using sine and cosine, and all sorts of algebra then you would hate programming this gauge. I must admit that it took a bit to get all the code down, but once I figured out the basics it was actually quite easy.

Barksdale pressure transducers

These are the Barksdale pressure transducers that will be used to gauge the pressure of the compressors output, the fuel pressure, and the oil pressure. They output an analog voltage at 0 to 30mv, or millivolts, I will have to create a circuit to interface them to the basic stamp so that I can read the voltages and interpret them into usable PSI, or pounds per square inch data.

TSI systems thermocouple modules

This is one of the thermocouple units that I received from TSI. These will be used in the combustion chamber and in the jet exhaust. This will allow me to measure the temperature of the burning fuel, and the temperature of the exhaust gasses after they have passed through the turbine blades. Combustion chamber temperature will be used to measure engine efficiency and to make sure that safety limits are adhered to. The EGT, or exhaust gas temperature, will be used to make sure that the turbine blades do not get too hot while the engine is in operation. The excess heat on the turbine blades can cause the metal to distort and weaken, which would not be good at the high speeds that the blades will be traveling at. The combustion chamber thermocouple will also be used as part of the fire suppression system through the programming of the ECU. These thermocouples will handles temperatures in excess of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and are industrial quality.

Thermocouple measuring end

Here you can see the thermocouple's business end. The wire comes in from the bottom of the picture and is sheathed in a braided stainless steel wrapper, much like race car hoses use. The large part of the housing is the connection to the wires leading out, and is also used to keep the wiring cool, and thermally separated from the high heat the thermocouple will be measuring. The bent part at the top is the actual thermocouple element. It uses a 1/8" pipe thread compression fitting to attach to the engine. All you do is drill a hole where you want the thermocouple, thread the hole and install the compression fitting. Then you just insert the thermocouple and tighten the fitting to hold it in place. These are quality items, and made of stainless steel. The size is compact enough to fit in the tight confines of the jet bike as well.

Analog to digital conversion chips from Microchip and Analog

Here are some of the chips I will be using to interface the different sensors to the basic stamp. These chips can be found at www.analog.com and www.microchip.com. There are also chips available from www.fairchildsemi.com which I will be using. All of these websites provide excellent data sheets for their projects that will help you to select just the right project. The best part however, is that they all provide free samples! Yes, you heard right. Just point and click, and a few days later you will have them delivered to your door for nothing more than the asking. Talk about helping to keep costs down.

Tiny Eye sensor

Last, but certainly not least, arethe sensors from Tri-Tronics. This is a Tiny Eye TRL-V6 sensors which will be used to get the rear wheel speed for determining max speed of the bike. We will also be using similar sensors with fiber optic probes mounted to them for determining RPM of the engine. These are great sensors, and I recomend them for use in DIY engines.

I am now at the computer programming the system, and learning a lot along the way. The BS2P is a much upgraded version of the Basic Stamp 1, and obviously has a bigger learning curve. The commands are brilliant, and it seems that there is nothing that this little chip can't do. Although it has been years since I have had to program a Basic Stamp, it is still easy to do, and the documentation available is astounding. You can download almost every book written for the Basic Stamp from Parallax's website for free. There are user forums, and great tech support. This is truly a company that believes the customer comes first. I have not experienced this kind of customer service in quite some time.

I will continue development of the ECU until I hear more from our potential sponsors. When I have answers to my sponsorship questions I will obtain pumps for fuel and oil and return to plumbing the engine to get ready for testing. There are many more parts on the way, and more updates to come, so be sure to check back often.

Until next time, thanks for following along!

Russ W. Moore
Bad Brothers Racing

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