Oh hahaha.... I don't think we know yet do we?

it worked out about £280 if i remember rightly from comfort auto it was a bit more than the new shapes but not that much more

Posted by: Bootsie

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tHATS £470 gb Pounds Nic.

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No mate, I was hoping it was an oddball signal from the speedo head that we could steal for the cruise.

how would you use it for the cruise control?

aint there a pickup for the overdrive ??

theres got to be one somewhere surely

Posted by: Yoda

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how would you use it for the cruise control?

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It would be a speed signal that I could use for 'setting the cruise' and getting round having to fit the extra speed sensor.

Posted by: treeboa

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aint there a pickup for the overdrive ??

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Interesting thought that, I'll have to have a nosey around the wiring and see if there's some info for that. Could be the very same wire / relay.....

SO the speed sensor's purpose would be to prevent cruise being engaged below say 35/40mph, as most cruise controls are?

Oh yes Sir, but it would mean that there is a speed signal there somewhere to deal with this.................... A little magic PIC box to do a little signal conversion and we have a speed signal.

So if that side was sorted there is an after market cruise control that will do the job? Set a speed and disengage if we hit the brakes or clutch?

No, it uses the speed impulse to maintain the set speed on the cruise controller, i.e. set it at 60mph and it will maintain it uphill or on the flat via the signal being fed into its ECU. and controlling the potention meter controlling the accellerator on Fly By Wires

so a voice pipe and all ahead full, half speed, rig for silent running aint gonna cut it then

Posted by: Yoda

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So if that side was sorted there is an after market cruise control that will do the job? Set a speed and disengage if we hit the brakes or clutch?

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Any universal cruise would do.

Cool. Forgive my lack of understanding (I'm getting there) but how does it manage with the throttle cable?

Posted by: Yoda

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Cool. Forgive my lack of understanding (I'm getting there) but how does it manage with the throttle cable?

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It kinda depends. On older (non Fly-By-Wire) vehicles there was a motor that physically pulled on the accelerator cable to increase the revs. But, nowadays (and I guess I'm thinking last ten years or more, but I don't know specifically about the classic L200), the accelerator is a dirty great potentiometer (aka variable resister). Pressing the throttle down brings the resistor closer to 0v/12v (depending on the vehicle).

So, given that a cruise control unit ultimately wants to give more gas when you're not travelling at the required speed, it will either need to be an electro-mechanical unit to pull on the throttle cable, or an electronic unit that brings the FBW resistor closer to 0v/12v.

The latter is more straightforward (and doesn't have any moving parts).

By the way, this is where the speed sensor comes in. You need something to tell you the current speed of the vehicle. Again, in the old days, that would have been a variable voltage going from 0v up to something or other.
Nowadays, though, it's Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) which "blips" voltage on the speed sensor line. The slower you are travelling, the wider the pulses apart (think "dit.........dit.......dit.....") and the faster you are travelling, the closer the pulses are (think "ditditditditdit").

If you're playing along at home, you'll realise that a cruise control doesn't actually need to understand how fast you are travelling (i.e. in MPH), instead all it needs to know is that when you hit the SET button on the cruise, it records what the speed sensor is set at. Then whenever that rate slows down (you hit a hill, for example), it increases the throttle until we once again have the speed sensor reporting the same rate that we originally requested.

I had cruise control on a K-reg Vauxhall and it was very much the dark-ages version, with a variable voltage for the speed sensor and a mechanical actuator to pull on the accelerator pedal. Nowadays, certainly on the new-shape L200, it's PWM for the sensor and variable voltage on the accelerator.

One final point is that I believe that you can also get vacuum operated accelerators, but I don't know anything about them

on the fly by wire classics the pedals still the same as the early version, so you may find the actuator pulls from where the old hand throttle connected

Good news, found the electronic speed signal on the classics, built into the speedo head.
May need tiny mod but no rocket science...
Lez.

Well done Lez, the cruise control we used for the new shapes would work, just need to overcome the plug and play difference with the accellerator plugs, new shape with 6 wires and classic with 8 wires just need to route the right 6 in and out of the cruise ecu and just continue the 2 extras looped outside the ecu, I have found the identification of 6 wires out of new shape potentionmeter from the pedal, will locate it again and give you the page in the manual.

Thanks Brian, I'll check out the relevant page and see if I can do a conversion to the classic's.

A slight aside, but what is the hand throttle actually there for. I use it for upping the revs when jump starting other cars and when I'm charging the air tank when stationary. But I'm sure that isn't what it was designed for. Any ideas?

Someone said it's also for when winching off road. Same reason you use it. But no idea for a certainty....

Quote: Tonka wrote in post #45

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A slight aside, but what is the hand throttle actually there for. I use it for upping the revs when jump starting other cars and when I'm charging the air tank when stationary. But I'm sure that isn't what it was designed for. Any ideas?

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Aha. Thanks guys

Quote: Tonka wrote in post #45

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A slight aside, but what is the hand throttle actually there for. I use it for upping the revs when jump starting other cars and when I'm charging the air tank when stationary. But I'm sure that isn't what it was designed for. Any ideas?

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As Lez said that's what it says in my manual