Ford Fiesta Stop/Start Conditioning

Projects / Brainstorming
#1

My wife has a new Ford Fiesta with stop/start technology. It’s a great car, but the stop/start has stopped working, mainly I think due to the fact it is only driven on short runs, so the battery isn’t given enough chance to re-charge fully. I’m wondering whether you can use the AutoPi to monitor the battery condition and then shut down or restrict certain systems (e.g. air conditioning) so that the battery gets a better chance to recover?

I’m a software developer by trade and very happy to get my hands dirty but I am new to car control systems. Where can I go to learn about the basics of modern car control systems?

#2

Hi Carl

It’s perfectly possible to monitor the voltage, and you can also trigger stuff based on the voltage.
The autopi dongle can snif the CAN-bus, which you can use to see what messages are sent when you press buttons.
Like if you have a button that turns off the A/C, you can setup the dongle to automatically send this command, if the voltage drops below a threshold, and/or send you a notification text message or something.
So depending on your car, that should be entirely possible.