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MEMS3 Temperature Sensor Calibration Table - Any Bright Ideas?


revilla

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Whilst working on the MEMS3 mapping, I've identified a number of tables which contain the calibrations for temperature sensors. For example here is the one that I've confirmed by experiment is the calibration for the coolant temperature sensor:

Cal_0.thumb.png.7f184cc32989cf969e42d1f60642d154.png  

If you change the temperature numbers, for example increase them by 10 degrees, then the engine's IAT readout on OBDII scanner increases by 10 degrees as expected. So the table is mapping the reading of the IAT sensor onto an actual temperature reading for the ECU.

The question I have is - what exactly is on the X axis?

I know the Z axis is correct for temperature as all of the temperature scales in the ECU are in tenths of a degree Kelvin and are very recognisable as numbers like 2732, 2932, 3132, corresponding to 0C, 10C, 20C etc.

The X axis however doesn't seem to correspond to anything that I can think of, for example it doesn't vary linearly with either the voltage measured at the sensor or the sensor resistance. It seems to be roughly proportional to the square root of the resistance but that doesn't seem to make any sense as a choice by the designer. All of the other scales that I've identified in the ECU have been sensible and identifiable (e.g. temperatures in Kelvin, engine speed in RPM, MAP in kPa*100, fuel enrichment in %).

You can tweak it without knowing what X is just by using the indicated temperature and working backwards, and to be honest I doubt anyone would really have cause to tweak it, it's mostly just for academic interest as I want to understand as much as I can about what's going on.

Any ideas?

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I thought about that, but it didn't seem to match against the numbers I had. Mind you, the voltage measurements I had weren't my own, they came from somebody else I was helping out ... they may differ to what I might measure on my own engine. I guess I could play in Excel to see if some combination of series resistance and supply voltage matches those numbers reasonably well. I've got resistance measurements off my own sensor.

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Regin, I think you're right! I think the voltage numbers I've got must be wrong. I'll need to measure them tomorrow properly.

But this is what I've worked out:

As it sits in my garage cold now, the sensor has a resistance of 4085 ohms and when connected to the ECU, the voltage across it is 3.482V. Assuming that the internal supply is either battery voltage or (more likely) a regulated 5V supply, that leaves the following likely solutions which would be consistent with the measurements stated above:

  • 12.6V in series with 10700 ohms.
  • 5V in series with 1780 ohms.

If I model the second solution over the range of temperatures for which I have approximate resistance data, as shown in the table below, if I take the calculated voltage assuming 5V in series with 1780 ohms inside the ECU, and multiply by 200 I get something looks which very, very close to X indeed (my resistance and temperature measurements weren't that accurate).

 MeasuredCalculated  Multiplied 
TempResistanceVoltage  by 200X
703900.898617512  180182
605501.180257511  236241
508001.550387597  310315
4012002.013422819  403406
3018802.568306011  514511
1249003.667664671  734728

So X looks to be voltage across the sensor in units of 1/200th of a volt, or 5mV.

I'll try to profile the voltage against temperature for myself tomorrow to confirm it.

Thank you!

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OK so I just warmed the car up and took my own set of voltage readings vs. ECU-reported temperatures.

Curve.png.2f2691ad191c71a73e491a2f43413899.png

I think that pretty much confirms it. X is the output of a 10-bit analogue-to-digital converter in the ECU, reading sensor voltage, when the sensor is supplied with 5.0V through approximately 1780 ohms.

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Do you still get the sigmoid transfer function with that explanation?

Yes, because of the sender characteristics.

Temp/resistance data for typical sender here:-

https://www.lotus7.club/sites/default/files/images/users/42534/Temperature_Sensor_NTC_M12_Datasheet_51_en_2782569739pdf.pdf

- Using Andrew's figure of a 1780 ohm source resistor results in the following relationship:-

S007.png.7db821b279f03480c6eefc81445ade8d.png

Cheers

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Whilst poking around inside the ECU looking for something else on the mapping front, I couldn't resist checking this out:

It's 5.045V:

1_6.thumb.jpg.0daba54d89c6dd405fe8f0cf348ff736.jpg

In series with ...

2_6.thumb.jpg.0a87981456c0d345cf59790b0e6c0339.jpg

1815 ohms.

3_6.thumb.jpg.fb848bb8c64fb1219a24adb2d6c4e8fc.jpg

So what I guessed would be 5v supply was actually 1% higher leading me to get the resistance very slightly low, but it confirms what I was thinking.

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Sorry Andrew,

I had missed updates on this one. I've never seen a Vref for sensors that was not regulated to +5V on aany ECU I've come across so it makes sense in every way.

Pretty sure it'll go in "safe mode" if the input is above say 4.8V or below 0.2V and assume the wires are, or the sensor is, broken.

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It's a simple potential divider, so:-

V = Vsource * Rsender /(Rsource + Rsender)

The graph is drawn assuming the analogue to digital converter nominally outputs 1023 for an input V = Vsource (i.e. with an open circuit sender) so becomes:-

x = 1023 * Rsender /(Rsource + Rsender)

As for the 'S' shape - here's another graph showing three different source resistances - the curves of the sender and the divider fight each other and the source reistor value determines which one tends to dominate:-

S002.png.9b4360d6db4d2f694a0469b491783f7b.png

Cheers

 

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