HGM Automotive Electronics

Okay, welcome to Renner's Radar! I love to discover places and I'm here at the west coast. But especially places from the automobile industry, w But I'm here to learn more about controls and transmission. I'm here at HG Automotive Electronics. I'm here with Guy. How are you? Good, Of course, we're happy that you're here. I'm curious to get here and learn a little more about what exactly is going on with HG Electronics. Yes. Let's take a look here. HGM was founded in 1999. It was created with a kind of competition between a couple of friends, that we could build a control for automatic transmission, of course with electronics, as the company name says. And yes, we won. We won the competition and a side ac And then what it is today? A full-time job for six people. Wow, congratulations. You never know what comes out when you hang out with friends and close a competition. I know. You don't? Tell us a little bit about you. So, I'm an educated engineer. Actually, I have an electronic background. I was an electrical engineer. I made my final at the U. C. Urwein here. But I grew up with a screwdriver in my hand. My father was a hot rod driver. And that's how I was basically called as a c I had to become a clamping mechanic and welder and just keep the notes and so on. So I already screwed up my father with my little car. You've always been dirty with your hands. Me too. That's because I'm on the hot rodding world now. Tell me where the luck is. What needs have you seen that led to t At the time, you had to know whether you were using computer-controlled drives or automatic electronically controlled drives. These came only at the end of the 80s, at the beginning of the 90s on the market and people began to be interested in it until the end of the 90s and actually put them into hot rodding applications. Because as The competition was about a pre-handling drive control, with w And he turned to my father and then to me to do somet And that's exactly what we did. So we actually built a prototype on the bed, w And so you could see all these circuits. That was built around 1997 by hand. And next to it my father made most of the electronic design. And although you can't see it, there is actually a small computer board be And we drove many, many miles in a Chevrolet Sedon delivery with t W Finally, our first product was made here. When was the first product brought to the market? I would say that the company was founded in 1998. And so we would have come to the market in 1998 or 1999. Wow, back then weren't at t M, were only in a small space next door of a company that was still open here in Torrens and called Torrens Transmission. And M, one of our founders, was the owner of the company and he had the space to do it. And of course it was close, because weren't just capable electronics engineers, but he also had the cars, the gearbox and the knowledge about it. And honestly, when I started with that, I really didn't know anyt M, I had a little bit of a change, but I really didn't understand how they work. M. Well, I'm on the name of Mark Bola from Bola Performance Transmissions. Fantastic gearbox, Yes, and we already know Mark for a long time. He would have been one of our first customers. That's what I'm doing. I'm excited, because we don't always talk about the computer or the control that's in it. Right. I know, when somet Wait, who did that? That was never the case here, people. But if it's about hot rods and the cars on fire and in public places, will the car, the gearbox and the engine be mentioned and of course the manufacturer. But there is still so much more to be done with certainty that what's going on in there. M. We talk more about the control. My knowledge is given to the car or the gears in the basic instructions to s In fact, is that not so easy to understand? For an engineer, I have it in my opinion too easy. No, see, if you concentrate on it, what to do, then it is what has to be done. Right. It has to change the gear, but it also has to control the steering pressure in the gearbox. It has to monitor whether the couplings slide. It has to work according to a so it values the inputs in the system. What does the engine do? What does the driver share with the gearbox? If he walks on the pedal, so that it should accelerate, maybe it s All these different functions. The computer control always observes the condition of the gearbox and basically makes sure that the gearbox works fine at any time. Or it grabs back on a safety situation, if there is a problem with the gearbox or its integration into the ve And all that is delivered by t He does that. Yes, he does that. Well, all that is also produced here in the USA. I am here in the plant and would Please do that. Yes, so. You show us how it works. There is a lot of gearbox here. Yes, there is no duplicate here. Each of these gears is a different one and these are all gears, with w Do they all look the same? How do they differ? In size? That is a good question. Normally, the overall dimensions of the gearbox depend on how much torque or power it can work. In otherwise the smaller ones are usually suitable for smaller applications. Here, on t Let's take a look. Yes. I'll start from the other side. Yes. Here there are some gears for the Japanese domestic market. M, t And as you can see, the feet of these gears are similar to the ones of the houses and the houses are relatively small. But as generations go by, you will notice that with increasing torque capacity and power capacity the physical size of the gearbox is increased. The 40. 180 is much bigger than t Yes. I can't show you how it works. We have a 4 cylinder gearbox from the Type 4R70, 4R70W. M, t . . Here a much bigger opening, right? Yes. The size of the lock housing can be a return to the overall size or not. But if you look at the housing and the body size, there is one that can usually be used to maintain the power of the gearbox. But not always. There are a few interesting exceptions. And M. That's different? Not true? Oh, it's first of all wrong. Yes, so, correct. So you are in different directions here, only for space reasons. T So that was be So you can see that t If you look at, for example, modern GM and Ford gearboxes. M, there are a few different generations here. So, we have a Ford 6R80 here, next to it is a GM 10L90 and. . . . . . at the back is a Toyota AE80. So these are 8 gears, 10 gears and 6 gears. Now, it'so interesting that the 10-speed gearbox is smaller than the 8-speed gearbox. Yes, for some you have to be a little careful. Because the crankshafts can be a little too big. That's all-wheel drive variant. So it has an adapter on the back, what explains why it's a little bigger and more sparing than the 10-speed gearbox. Yes, yes, in fact. But that's the 8-speed gearbox. Eh, that's a Ford with 6 gears. Sorry, 6 gears. Yes, so that's a 6-6 engine. Generations of these two are about 10 years between the two. But in many ways they are quite similar in the interior. And you may notice, what logo we see here. That's a small distribution pipe for the cooler, the Mark Bola delivered and that we used. They are all used for tests and development. You have one on the engine test stand here. Yes, yes, we have one or actually two on the engine test stands. That's the ZF-8 gear transmission, w In addition, it is used in Toyota, BMW and Audi by rear-wheel drive. Each computer is different and depends on w That's the interesting challenge. That's why I try to understand. Do you set each one? No, so that's the t If you are a manufacturer and you have an OEM concept and the costs are really important, you will build your own computer for each transmission family. Because you build 10 or 100,000 of these. And the costs are the most important. So you can afford to make the construction work for each transmission as low as possible. And that's for t But we are talking about flexibility. The controller we are building is generally flexible enough to use all these functions. The difference lies in the cable tree, w So we have solved the general problem, to design our controller so that it can function all these functions. We sell two families. There is the so-called sport controller and the pro controller. M, the sport controller, aims on the market for 4 and 5 gear transmission. W Everyt The software is the same as the pro controller. Of course there are some differences with the cable trees, because it is with all the different manufacturers here and they know what we see here. Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, Ford, Chrysler and Lamborg The cable trees even come from the same brand. But the different car models are all different and can be very different. One of the biggest challenges is actually to get the parts for the construction of these cable trees. Because it is often just about finding the compatible connector that can be connected to the gearbox. To find t And therefore the supply chain is often limited for the parts of the cable tree. And in some cases you can't even buy the connector. Can you make these parts into 3D? Yes, it's funny that you ask that. We make a series of different connectors ourselves into 3D and even produce the connectors ourselves. Wow, partly. Are they also part of the kit? Yes. So we probably don't have any, but there is a product that we can't get for older Chrysler gearboxes. And we make the connector ourselves. That's the advantage if you have someone who takes care of it. There are fewer hands, fewer participation, w If you see that, you can judge for each individual customer what he needs, w You should try out any case. And if you don't fit, then it's okay. We have to send t If you use an LS3 however, you don't need it. Yes, that's right. It's very, very personal and individually adapted. We tried to put all these questions in front of our website. So if you run through the process of buying our product, we usually show you pictures and ask you the questions. And if we know the answers to these questions, our website configurator can put the right t So that you can get the kit or ask us to call us directly and talk to us. Because sometimes people mix and combine. And there are combinations that work and others don't. And again others increase the possibilities of the website software. To configure them correctly. I will show you the website together with the description on the screen. So it's very user friendly. You just have to enter the car, the engine, the gearbox. Step by step. I t Because we are not all technically tested. And here you see many boxes, obviously parts and products that flow into t Yes, the funny t So these are all parts for projects or the original prototypes that we built. So I can follow a few generations of gearbox controls and show you how the original prototype looked That all has to be in a tracer. No, no. I'm not sure, I'm not sure if I want that. I'm not sure if I want to pay the rent for the tracer. But as an example, we talked a little bit about gears beforehand. And yes, so here, that's quite interesting. The all first prototypes for the existing controls, the existing controllers that we see today. I have all original prototypes. Wow, so we originally thought about making a enclosure in black. M, but we have all original and master in the essential components that we originally built as patterns. That was a early demo. This one that you saw is, hey, T Okay, but with the production models that you saw, the window is actually set from the outside. And we finally changed t But we kept it up. We kept the design up. So basically we have all original controllers, the first prototypes. Hey, that's one of the first controller patterns that was made. Never been parted on to make a window out of a sprayer, you have to of course have to throw it away, let the test pressure be made, make sure that it meets the specifications, test it and yes, that's it. It's not just normal glass. No, no, it's not. No, actually not. And that enables wireless bluetooth connectivity. Yes, that's right. Yes. The windows consist of polycarbonate or lexan. So that's the same t So a very strong, small tone, just to be artistic somehow, but very strong in a perfect application here because it has to be waterproof. So yes, we have all kinds of HGM stories here. Some t Now you have the two products on the website, the pro and the sport. That's right. That's just for the general drive control. But of course there are also a n Truss flap position, truss flap position sensors, all kinds of combinations for the cable tree, each other branch, the electronic branch develops constantly. And so share. Designs are held. And if you want to stay in business, you have to at least keep up with t Yes, okay. Second, you have to keep your market in sight and understand that it develops constantly. And t It was basically very significantly oriented and probably powerful for its time. Comparable with a printer that you could have bought in the 80s or 90s. But of course the technology develops further, the cars develop further, the gears develop further. And that's why you have to stay on the running. When we saw for example the development of the current computer, we said, What is the problem with customers? Some customers feel comfortable with laptop tuning. But what is that? What do you really need? Yes, they use their phones. That's right, they use their phones every day. So what is the most meaningful solution? Well, the iPhone came out in 2008 or so on the market. And for a long time it was a closed ecosystem. A few years later Android phones came out on the market and Bluetooth was originally only for headsets. Right? So you could have a Bluetooth headset, but at some point Bluetooth could also be used for communication with other t And then it was for us completely natural that we. . . At the beginning of the 2000s with the computer boom and the change of technology, we sat down. We took the development step. You developed and said, OK, now we need another product that belongs to it. That's right. But you have kept the original, because in our beloved Hot Rod Community there is Alzheimer's. Sure. And you have to keep up with that. And that'something that I really The speeds and the PS are rising. That's right, that's right. People who deal with t I mean, people are becoming more and more technically versed. And they have in my opinion a justified expectation that the products that they buy also support that. So we can also work laptop-based if you want. You can also develop mobile apps. You can take them on your tablet and actually get another user experience on both devices. The version that you see on the tablet is optimized for the tablet. The version that you see on the laptop is optimized for that. And if I'm already there, I would So we are talking about Android, iOS, Mac and PC. So, no matter what computer religion you have, we support you. That's great, let's go on. And while we're going, I'd You have already built the computer in pretty old-fas In fact, yes. Tell me about some problems that could arise. Well, strangely enough, that's probably the biggest problem that we have with customer service, the transmission in the ve People are trying to build modern controls in these older cars. And many of these older cars didn't have the electric system to operate a power supply injection or a large electric fan. To operate a driven-in device. If I were to ask you what our most frequent supporter call is, then it would always be an electric problem. It's an electric problem in the ve People call us now and say, oh, I have a diagnosis here that says that my magnetic valve is defective. Is that really a defective magnetic valve? Sometimes, but it's often just because the controller wasn't properly inherited or supplied with electricity. That would be a big problem if it's about the integration of newer technologies in older cars. We have gotten quite good results, be it with switch w Let's take a look at how they solved a problem recently. Yes, that's a funny example. As I already mentioned, I Yes, they are great. Nice, you already have a partner. Yes, yes. So there is a very traditional Ford Small Block installed. With a somewhat modern fuel injection. And it is a 6-speed transmission from Ford with one of our control devices installed. And we are currently conducting the last tests for t Okay. So we are quite confident. We are only trying to set a few basic values. We have run t And we are trying to make sure that the basic calibration that we send to the customers is suitable for a large n But as you say, t Originally, it had a 4-speed transmission and the customer wanted to install it. That was originally a 3-speed transmission. Oh, it's a 3-speed transmission on the tree. Yes, that was the original 3-speed transmission. 3-speed transmission, I t So we have already planted the Ford 6, w One of the challenges is that when you have the original steering col For the tests, we now have to be able to make sure that the transmission is able to s That means that the transmission must be able to s And the steering wheel so we don't have additional gears The lever on the side of the transmission moves, but it only moves a sensor at t Hydraulically and mechanically, so only PR and D of importance are in t As already mentioned, we sell a switch. To have an original steering col So I simply printed a switch lever for this steering col T It is not particularly practical, but it is available. You will see the similarity with our series switches, but it has t And what we have done is that I have designed it and it is simply clamped around the steering col It only has four screws through and that's it. Yes. That's why I had to show that. So, yes, we can switch. We can switch t Because the customer will keep it in the old-school style. Yes, they keep it completely in the old-school style. We could actually set up a group selection switch for it, maybe be You already know, in the area of u200bu200bthe cigarette lighter or something No, but you have solved a problem. You had to test the additional spades. Let me briefly handle the switch. Yes, that's it. Let's go on, buddy. I don't know, such t Yes, so, as I already said, we are in two different buildings. We expanded during the pandemic into t In some cases, we have a part of our manufacture to manufacture partner, Some of them were built differently, but we have built the majority internally. I just mentioned a switch. That's one of our traditional. And it's available on the website now. Yes, that's right. It's available in different colors and directions. M, t And yes, it is screwed to a standard GM-sale, so to its Flaming River or ID-sale. And then they have the choice between different steering wheel adapters, w And we only use a granite wire here. M and Y, we also put a strong 3D print here. I thought we needed a stand for it. I just have the feeling I want a 3D printer in my house. Yes, they have their limits, but they are super useful. We have talked a little bit about accessories. That's actually a very popular accessory that we manufacture. That's t If you have an old school gas station, but an electronic transmission control, you have to be able to deliver the throttle valve position. Because the throttle valve position is two t So you're on the gas pedal. What should the car do? Now, you want it to accelerate. Maybe it has to switch back a gear. So you have to have a throttle valve sensor in the system. So that the system can recognize what the driver tells Easy enough, right? But to build a throttle valve sensor, w That's why we developed t It's called Akulink. We sell a whole series of it for our own systems, but also for the systems of applicants. The Akulink kit is suitable for a variety of different gases. So that's your basic holly. And here you see the connection again. So that's the sensor, on w And here your throttle is traditionally attached. And you see that the whole mechanism works and the sensor moves according to the position of the throttle valve and then the computer signals how exactly your throttle valve position is. Wow! And how does the fuel injection come into play? Yes, so if it's an electronic fuel injection, almost all electronic fuel injection systems already have a throttle valve sensor. In t But most motor management systems that you would buy today either from work or in the accessories shop. CanVAS is a controller area network that was developed by Bosch to enable the network wit So our controller has integrated CanVAS. And today we have, I t VW, Toyota, the whole accessories market. Holley, Edelbrock, ehhh, so pretty much everyt There are also work-based systems. Compatible, very universal. Yes, and CanVAS is the easiest to use, because it consists of two turns. It has a very simple connecting system. You connect these two turns together, you take the configuration in front of both ends and they communicate with each other. They transfer throttle valve position, motor rotation, torque and whatever, everyt Much easier than t I would not have thought that the throttle is compatible, because I thought with the computer, the controller, but no, it is. It depends on the transmission, but most older 4-speed transmission can be certainly compatible with the throttle. And although it is not a big deal in t And ehhh, and the same there we sell diesel. So if it is about common rail diesel or old injection p M, even in the USA we sell somet But I would say that it is probably 90% more But in Europe, Australia or the Asian market diesel is still a big deal. And yes, people can deliver. Yes, yes, we can do that. Please, people. Thank you.