🛠 How Power Distribution Works - PD16 Overview | TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

hi guys matt from haltech here and today is an exciting day because today i'll be doing our very first video on the how tech pd16 power distribution module [Music] sit down buckle up and get a can of your favorite energy drink because today's video is all about power distribution we're going to walk through a background of power distribution in general then we're going to look at the different ways to manage power distribution in a vehicle then we're going to take a look specifically at the new haltech pd16 i'll break down all the important specifications and walk through how you go about wiring and setting up a pd16 in your elite or nexus powered vehicle so let's get cracking what is power distribution very broadly power distribution is exactly as it sounds it's the method we use to physically distribute 12v power throughout a vehicle now in years gone past this task was typically performed through a series of mechanical switches relays and fuses something like the six channel relay box that comes on a haltech premium wiring harness now inside the fuse and relay box we'll have a 12 volt supply wire that comes in from the battery and then we've got a low current trigger wire that typically come from either a mechanical switch or an ecu and these trigger wires would tell the relays when to switch on when they do there's a little contactor inside the relay that flips over and mechanically makes a connection between the battery 12 volt input and the 12 volt supply wire that goes out to the fuse and then eventually out to the device that the relay is controlling typically that's a fan a pump headlights injectors or whatever now these fuse relay block arrangements have been around for about 100 years and they're fairly commonplace they're cheap and they're widely available what is this pd16 device then well the pd16 is just like the mechanical fuse relay box but it's smarter just like a fusebot we have a main power input and just like a fuse box we have outputs that turn devices like fans and pumps on or off but unlike your conventional fuse relay block there's no mechanical contactors and there's no physical fuses to blow with the pd-16 all of the switching on and off is done with solid-state drivers and fuse currents that are set digitally by the end user so the pd-16 in essence replaces all of your mechanical relays and fuses now this does a few things firstly it can really simplify a vehicle's wiring and secondly it allows the user to do things like monitor current draw in real time you can set programmable fuse limits and because those fuse limits are set digitally they can also be reset digitally which means if a circuit goes over current for any reason you can program the pd16 to reset the fuse after a certain time period maybe a second or a minute or whatever you can also set the number of times that a circuit will try and reset before it shuts down completely for good and because all of this information now lives digitally in your vehicle wiring you can set a dtc to be sent to your dash for example with an error message about exactly which circuit has shut down and why and this is just the start of what you can do with a pd16 so let's take a look at what's in the box when you buy a pd16 from healthtech and then we'll have a little play and i'll introduce you to how to set up pd16 functions using the howtek nsp software and an elite 2500 ecu what's in the box as with all healthtech products there is the obligatory quick start guide and wiring diagrams you get the main 120 amp surlot connector a cool key train a usb stick and lanyard with the latest haltech nsp software and a usb programming cable which for now you're not going to use because all the programming of your pd16 is actually done through the ecu there's no need to connect directly to the pd16 for communications and setup we're going to talk more about this in a moment but for now just realize you'll probably be using this usb cable for a skipping rope and of course there is the pd16 unit itself so let's take a closer look at that you notice on the top there's a big red connector well that's where the main power from the battery comes into the unit via the 120 amp fully sealed solo connector we've got a 4 pin deutsch dtp connector on the front here too this houses 4 25 amp high or low side switching outputs each of these four pins is capable of either supplying or syncing up to 25 amp of current now that 25 amp rating is the limit of the deutsche gtp pin itself being used not the limit of the driver internal to the pd16 unit which means these pins can actually supply significantly more than 25 amps for short periods of time without an issue so the 25 amp hcos as we call them for high current output can be pulse width modulated at speeds of up to one kilohertz or a thousand times a second which makes them capable of doing speed control on things like thermo fans or fuel pumps straight out of the box there is also the 34 pin super seal connector now this connector houses 10 8 amp high side outputs these outputs can supply as the name suggests up to 8 amps of continuous current on each output there's also two 8 amp high low push-pull h-bridge outputs that can be used for dc motor control for things like varex variable exhaust flaps and that sort of things but they don't have to be used as hp outputs they can of course just be used to power supply anything you like now again the current limitation here is set by the pin itself and not the driver inside the pd-16 so you can have confidence that burst currents of over 8 amps for short periods will be okay now the pd16 is not just an output box there's also 8 programmable inputs on the 34 pin connector and all 8 are able to be used as analog voltage inputs for pressure and temperature sensors and those sorts of things with four of these inputs also being capable of accepting high speed switched inputs for things like wheel speed sensors and frequency based flex fuel sensors there is of course also a 5 volt sensor supply and a signal ground for powering up any sensors and grounding those sensors that will be wired into the pd16 and for those who are about to ask because the pd16 is directly integrated with the ecu software any sensors or inputs wired into the pd16 are automatically and directly available for ecu functions as well and for that matter so are the outputs so if you wanted to say do a boost trim based on whether your headlights are on and off and they're being controlled through the pd16 then that's totally possible on the top of the box you have your status indicator lights for each output channel if the led isn't lighting up a channel's off if it's green the channel's on and it's operating correctly and if the led is showing as red then the channel is in a fault state normally caused by an overcurrent so that's an overview of the hardware components that come in the box when you purchase the pd16 there are some optional accessories available as well things like tube mount kits and of course there is a full five meter flying lead harness to simplify those big wiring jobs but i'm sure you guys are all really just chomping at the bit to open up the pd16 software and get a taste of all the things that you can and cannot do with the haltech pd16 but here's the catch there is no such thing as haltech pd16 software see as i mentioned earlier the included usb cable is only for updating the firmware in the unit and not for actually programming the pd16 so how on earth do i get this wonderful box of magic switches to do its thing that's where you need one of these either a haltech elite series ecu or a haltech nexus series ecu and the reason you need one of these ecu comes down to the way in which you set up and program the pd16 now if this is not your first rodeo with a pdm then you would know that setting up and programming all of your outputs and channel functions can be quite a labor-intensive task with the haltech pd16 however once the power wiring is complete you simply plug the pd16 into the ecu can bus and it's automatically recognized on the bus and at this point in time your pd16 is actually online and ready to program directly through the ecu's nsb software package there's no need for a separate programming software for the pdm there's no need to create matching cam parameter files to allow the ecu to talk to the pd16 you just plug it in and it works like magic so once the pd16 is plugged into the ecu can network it's as if the pd16 was always meant to be there if you want to set up say a headlight function you simply go into the functions page select headlights assign the outputs to one of the available 8 amp or 25 amp outputs whichever you choose and in this case i'm actually going to use the can keypad to turn these headlights on and off so i'll set that up as well so we can go through now and add indicators left and right and given that we've got the indicators wired up we may as well put the hazard lights in there as well now if you're wondering why i'm skipping through this keypad setup so quickly it's because we actually have a complete video walkthrough on how to set up a keypad for your elite series issue already here on youtube just look for the dude in the incredibly yellow yellow hoodie so this is all pretty cool and coming along nicely but check this out and this is in my opinion one of the coolest things about using a pdm when i turn on the headlights i can see how much current the lights are drawing now this isn't really all that exciting when it comes to headlight activity but it could be really useful to log the amount of current being drawn by your ignition coils or your fuel pump especially when you're trying to chase down those hard to find issues that only occur under very specific circumstances being able to data log and see exactly how much current is being drawn by each circuit can be really useful now speaking of fuel pump that's going to be a common thing to be controlled by a pd16 so let's set one of those up again in nsp we simply go to the enable disable function page and we find fuel pump let's set up the primary fuel pump if we drop down the primary pump mode we have the option to set up the fuel pump as a digital output switched or digital output duty cycle now if we select switch the power to the pump is either on or it's off but if we select duty cycle then it'll send a pulse width modulated signal down to the pump which effectively allows you to speed up or slow down the pump based on a map now a word of warning here not all fuel pumps can be driven as a variable speed pump so make sure to find out from the fuel pump manufacturer whether this style of pump control is okay for you now one quick note here is you can see here in the options for fuel pump control you can set the output type to digital switched can or duty cycle can now these can controls are not going to be used with a pd-16 all the pd16 functions integrate directly with the ecu can control fuel pumps are for specific vehicle applications where the oem fuel pump is controlled via a can message on the oem can bus that's not what we're doing here so i just thought i'd let you know that we assign the fuel pump output to the pd16 pins by simply hitting the edit connection button on the fuel pump output relay function scrolling down to one of the 25 amp outputs and selecting the one that we want to use our pump is ready to go for all the 25 amp outputs on the pd16 we can specify the fuse current the soft start current which is actually really useful for high current loads that often drag down the electrical system when they start i'm thinking of things like thermofans now you've probably all experienced that dip in idle speed as a fan kicks in this can be avoided by introducing a soft startup on the fan and slowly bringing it up to speed we can also set up the behavior of the output if and when it does go over current or in the old speak when it blows a fuse so do we retry the output once twice 25 times and what's the delay between tries is it 1 seconds 5 seconds 30 seconds a minute what you put in here will really depend on what you're trying to achieve whatever it is you've got the option to do it now the final setting in here is the safe state now this is the state that the pd16 output will go to if the unit loses communications with the ecu for any reason now for some outputs like say a thermofan it makes sense for the save state to be active and for other outputs like say a nitro solenoid the safe state is definitely better to be inactive now this might be pointing out the bleeding the obvious at this point but it's worth reiterating because the pd-16 is so integrated into the nsp ecu software architecture the pd16 is only compatible with healthtech elite and nexus series ecu's if you're not running one of these csus then the pd16 will not integrate directly with your system and it won't run as a standalone device without an ecu to be its master programmer there are plans to allow additional functionality to these units in the future and possibly to integrate into different manufacturers ecosystems but these are all future developments don't worry when these additional functions are added you'll get to see my ugly mug again as i explain to you how to use all of those additional features as well that's really all we have time for today if you want to know more about the pd-16 why don't you head over to our website howktec.com and download the latest version of nsp software this will allow you to set up a full ecu and pd16 map it allow you to assign the outputs the functions and to get a really good feel for how simple and effective full engine control and power distribution can be well i'm matt from haltech and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Haltech

Views: 33,570

Keywords: haltech, ecu, engine management, tuning, pdm, power distribution, pd16, haltech pdm, haltech pd16, haltech ecu, automotive wiring, relay box, fuse box, automotive power distribution, technically speaking, product overview, haltech elite, haltech nexus, halech ic7, wiring car lights, wiring headlihghts, wiring brake lights

Id: 1GF8-QtqxWY

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022