Tesla Brembo Electric Parking brake

vette427sbc

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I picked up a pair of electric parking brake calipers from a Tesla to use on another project, but after tearing into these, it seems like it could be a very simple and cheap parking brake option for anyone with different brake setups out back...
Anyway, there is a 4 pin terminal on each caliper, 2 of the pins are the motor wires, the other two seem like a temperature sensor (ohm reading between the two pins rises/falls with temp)
Im sure the Tesla has some kind of current sensing algorithm in their BCU that says x Amps = x clamping force but for simplicity I think im going to just use proper judgement with an amperage "overload shutoff" so that if I did hold the switch too long it would cut power to prevent burning something up. Does anyone know of any off the shelf parts that could accomplish this? I did some googling but Im not too sure I know what Im looking at with some of these current shutoff switches.

BTW, I paid $114 shipped (for the pair!) on ebay. If you have the depth needed for these calipers its a very economical option compared to the mechanical brembo spot calipers (not even sure where to get those) or the IPSCO calipers. They are setup for a 1.1" wide rotor, but its a split caliper, so a simple spacer could get it over a 1.25" rotor

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Tesla is really committed to making everything electric! Does that servo drive the the brake pad out on a screw drive or does it just turn a fixed amount (like 1 turn)? If it's a fixed amount that is like a mechanical Brembo (so it self adjusts for pad wear). If it's just turning a jackscrew than you will have to do current sensing.

I got my Brembo parking caliper from someone who converted a street Viper to a race car.
 
Its a jack screw, so the current sensing is going to be the way to go... My neighbor is going to make me a small processor with a shunt, Hbridge and some arduino code to give me soft start/stop and current based limiting. Should be pretty cool!

Nice score with those viper calipers! I was looking forever for a set and never found anything (besides the ferrari ones $$$$)
 
that would be awesome.....my wife had a knee replacement and pushing down is hard for her.....i love the idea of push button electric parking brakes
 
Just bought a new Ford Escape for my wife and it has an electric actuated or possibly electric parking brake. When I first read your thread I thought only Tesla would do something like that. It makes sense. Parking brakes sort of evolved from emergency brakes. They haven't been e-brakes for a long time.

That's what I get for driving a 20 year old truck. I get in a rental car these days and can't figure out how to start it.
 
Again -- I LIKE IT!

I have a set of spot calipers I got a while back. Seems you need an "E" Brake to be "street-legal," a silly objective I've kept on my build. I'd much rather run a set of wire - than try and set up a mechanical cable set! I was surprised how many electric parking brakes are on offer on eBay.

Thanks for the tip!

Cheers - Jim

So I posted - then -- started thinking. Why not use a solenoid on my Spot Calipers? Hmmm, there's another 6 months shot to hell!
 
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Some progress pics... these are going on our shop '55 Chevy, The calipers are heavier than I wanted to put on the corvette. Ill be using a traditional cable operated spot caliper.
I had a Tesla come into my shop recently. The parking brake *sounds* like it operates with far less current then we had planned for. (for those of you with electric parking brakes, you will understand the sound) I wish I could have pulled it apart and put a meter on the caliper to see how much current the engineers at Tesla have these clamping at but didnt have the time. I guessing the current will need to be less than 10A to lock the wheel up.
The switch is from a Mercedes S600... Oddly enough it fits the curvature of the dash very well, and also doesnt look too out of place with the piano black and polished billet-look.

The controller is programmed as follows:
One touch to actuate; cuts power based on current draw (variable parameter)
one touch to release; time based action (variable parameter) can release multiple times to pull the piston all the way in for easier removal and has a current based shutoff for when the piston bottoms itself
actuation is allowed ignition on or off.
If ignition is on, no actuation above 5mph
calipers are actuated individually to keep current loads on the controller down


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