The MegaSquirt Project has experienced explosive growth other the years, with hundreds of new MS installations occurring every week - a phenomenal success! MegaSquirt has been successfully used in all aspects of Internal Combustion engine applications including R&D, Industry, Race, and Research. The MS project has transformed itself from a simple R&D project into a full-featured mature engine control system. To reflect this the support structure has also changed to meet the needs of MegaSquirt Users.
Moving forward, the R&D forums for MegaSquirt project are in a read-only mode - no new forum posts are accepted.
However the forums will remain available for view, they still contain a wealth of information on how MegaSquirt works, how it is installed and used. Feel free to search the forums for information, facts, and overview.While the R&D forum traffic has slowed in recent years, this is not at all a reflection of Megasquirt users, which continue to grow year after year. What has changed is that the method of MegaSquirt support today has rapidly moved to Facebook, this is where the vast majority of interaction is happening now. For those not on Facebook the msextra forums is another place for product support. Finally, for product selection assistance, all of the MegaSquirt vendors are there to help you select a system, along with all of the required pieces to make it complete.
Forum for discussing how to install MicroSquirt(TM), choose and troubleshoot sensors, wiring, and communications for MicroSquirt (TM) and MicroSquirt Module(TM).
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Read the manual to see if your question is answered there before posting. If you have questions about MS1/Extra or MS2/Extra or other non-B&G code configuration or tuning, please post them at http://www.msextra.com The full forum rules are here: Forum Rules, be sure to read them all regularly.
That's true, but the bike is in my garage in Spokane Washington, and right now I'm sitting in a hotel room in Southern California. I'm a captain at Southwest Airlines, and unfortnately I'm a low-seniority captain which means I end up flying on all the holidays (today is our Thanksgiving). Later today I'll be flying from Southern Cal to Las Vegas, then on to Pittsburgh. I've been on this trip since Tuesday morning and it finishes up back in Oakland California on Friday night after flying Pittsburgh to Chicago to San Diego to Oakland.
My next chance to work on the bike will be Saturday afternoon.
Running off the coil trigger is going to follow the timing curve of the stock cdi box. If you use the squirt for ignition, you will have to change your microsquirt timing table to accomodate this. By the diagram it looks like you have inductive coils. (12v) so thats fine. It will also change injection timing with either ignition route. If you run the stock coil trigger removed from the coils, you may not need the resistor as you don't have to deal with any coil flyback voltage. You just have a negative crank signal. I'm not the guy to answer this exactly if you would still need the resistor or not, but i would think not.
A setting of 0 across the whole timing table should give you the stock timimg curve. You will have to play with the injection delay a bit to find the best compromise. As injection timing will advance around 30* or so after about 4000rpm. I am sure there is performance to be had by using the squirt to control the timing above the stock settings. (full advance sooner and more of it)
Okay, Thanks again to 24c for pointing out why my Kawasaki EX-250's VR signal is unusable for tach input to the MicroSquirt.
Yesterday I cut out the wiring to VRIN1+ and VRIN- and re-wired using a setup suggested by Bruce Bowling on another thread here in "Wiring and Sensors" http://www.microsquirt.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=22959. It goes like this: OPTOIN+ is connected to the same wire that runs from the bike's ignition control box to the #1 cylinder negative coil terminal, and the OPTOIN- is connected to 12 volt power with a 4.7K resistor.
Here's the good news and the bad news: The good news is that the bike now runs with this setup (it didn't run at all when I was trying to use the VR signal for tach input). The bad news is that the MicroSquirt is suffering a bunch of ignition resets.
If I understand correctly the red lines you'll see in my datalog are indicators of resets, but they're "ignition resets" not "processor resets." I'm saying they're ignition resets because every time one happens the tachCount on the datalog resets to "0". If they were processor resets the datalog time counter would reset to "0", right?
That's some "outside the box" thinking. A bit of a convoluted approach, but very interesting.
Help me get oriented and make sure you (and I) understand my situation.
My EX-250's CDI coil negative is a computed output. It has a pre-programmed spark advance curve that begins at 10 degrees BTDC at 1,300 RPM, it then graduates to 42 degrees BTDC at 4,500 RPM, and remains there at 42 degrees to the 13,500 RPM redline. It has no "load based" adjustments like TPSdot or MAPdot, just straight RPM based.
In your solution I would let the MicroSquirt recieve this tach input (with it's pre-computed spark advance) and fire the coils without any further modification to the spark advance, just run the signal straight into the MicroSquirt and out to the coils? You wouldn't want to mess with a signal that isn't an exact "known" value, would you?
Well, if my problem with the ignition resets is indeed "noise" in the tach input generated by the bike's coil, this would probably fix it.
Some parts look OK, but your RPMs are still very high, I wonder if this is alternator noise? When you are recording ridiculously high rpms 35000-58524, your trigger± goes wacky too, which is to be expected. At steady RPMs your MAP is erratic, your trigger± looks stable, but your tachCount keeps resetting to zero, briefly causing a dip in revs, but the engine still runs. I cannot see any correlation with vBatt, MAP or TP with your tachCount resets.
Hope somebody else can offer some pointers for you.
PS In the datalog bar, I have just noticed...there are now a series of small red vertical lines/dividers...these are your tachCount resets.
"exact known value"? You just told me the values. And with a light, its easy to trace a 2d curve. Just check at each rpm up to full advance.
- but does it really matter if you know the exact numbers? Many people install computer and have a blank timing table to stare at. Ita alot of work to come up with a good timing curve. Now add 3d to the mix. (load vs rpm). Your actually kinda lucky in that the timing curve is already done. But you have the ability to adjust it. (just don't get carried away.)
with the timing table at 0, this would give stock cdi curve. you could advance from the stock curve 2 or 4 degrees if wanted. Since you are working off the stock curve, its hard to mess it up.
You also can retard the overall timing and set the table so its back to stcok. -now you could have a high speed retard. (if you motor benefits from it?) set delay teeth at one and back up with trigger offset.
Just don't forget how the stock cdi works. - it doesn't advance. it retards the timimg. The stock flywheel teeth are set up at 42* btdc. The cdi just retards while at lower rpms. and the cdi is basically bypassed at max advance rpm and above.
I've stumbled onto something that I can't explain.
I was just out in the garage this evening, first time today I had a chance to start the bike up and try to tune it a bit.
I'd just installed a vacuum restrictor in the MAP line in an attempt to smooth it out a bit. Even though I knew I hadn't addressed my main problem of the ignition resets, I wanted to run the bike anyway to see if the restrictor had any effect on the MAP signal.
I really don't know if it smoothed the MAP signal because while I was running the bike at idle in the garage I realized I was hearing an occasional clicking sound. I could just barely hear it through the bike's exhaust note. Every time I heard this click the bike would stumble slightly in it's idle. I thought that whatever this click was it must have something to do with my ignition resets. I eventually tracked the click down to the bike's fuel pump relay. Every so often it (the fuel pump relay) would make a clicking noise that indicated the relay had quickly cycled off then back on again.
While the bike was still idling (and the fuel pump relay was still clicking away) I closed MegaTune and unplugged it from the MicroSquirt. Immediately the clicking of the fuel pump relay stopped. I took it for a short ride around the neighborhood and it ran without any of the little stumbles it had exhibited two days ago when I rode it with my computer attached (so I could datalog the ride).
Do you have any idea what's going on between my computer and the MicroSquirt?
EWflyer wrote:Do you have any idea what's going on between my computer and the MicroSquirt?
No idea, but is it possible to have a corrupt .ini or such in Megatune that would cause a fuel pump glitch. I assume the only connection between the computer and MicroSquirt is via the serial port and you would get the same behaviour if you just unplugged this cable.
I think I'm well on my way to a properly tuned motorcycle. It starts and idles nicely, runs okay, and I've been slowly improving it by tuning and test-riding around the neighborhood.
I'm encouraged by the fact that all my numbers are right where the MicroSquirt tuning information idicates they should be. For example, when I did (three) injector flow tests I came up with 213 cc/minute as my individual injector flow rate answer which gave me a 4.1 in ReqFuel when I put it into MegaTune. That's what I've got in there right now and my Cranking Pulsewidth is about 88% of that and it starts right up even though it's been 20 degrees (F) the last few mornings here in Spokane.
I know I'm supposed to leave the ASE and WUE tuning until after I've got my VE table tuned pretty well, but it's been so cold I've had to use a little of both just to get the bike up to operating temp. I wait until after they (ASE and WUE) turn off and the bike is completely up to normal temperatures before I begin tuning the VE table.
I've been ignoring the resets issue. I've just been connecting the computer and inputing revised VE numbers, then disconnecting it and riding the bike to see what the results are. So I guess I'm "dodging the question" of what to do about these resets. Maybe I'm fooling myself but there seem to be less of them now. I'm thinking of switching to TunerStudio to see if I still get the resets with that program. The big drawback is that if I can't keep the computer connected to the MicroSquirt, I'm limited to "seat of the pants" tuning. I was looking forward to using the Autotune feature of MegaTune to help me fine-tune the bike.
I've been a little surprised by the fact that I'm having to revise the numbers in my whole VE table lower to get the correct AFRs. The "wild guess" VE table I started out with was a mash-up of a couple of VE tables from other people's motorcycle projects (bikes with similar cylinder size was my criteria). This guess was apparently way out there on the rich side.
There are still some other issues I'm going to have to address. Like a lot of other small engines the MAP signal isn't very good. I'm in the process of trying to determine if it will work or whether I should just go Alpha-n.
EWflyer wrote:If I understand correctly the red lines you'll see in my datalog are indicators of resets, but they're "ignition resets" not "processor resets." I'm saying they're ignition resets because every time one happens the tachCount on the datalog resets to "0". If they were processor resets the datalog time counter would reset to "0", right?
Yes, the tach count resets to zero is an ignition reset - you will also see the RPM drop to zero briefly as well... The code checks to see that the next tach pulse comes in within a specified window, otherwise it will reset.
I suspect that the coil primary is "ringing" such that the voltage exceeds +12V after the initial flyback pulse..
You can verify this easy enough.. get a zener diode, say 12 volts or thereabouts, and put in series with the optoin+ lead that now goes to the coil negative terminal. Point the band end towards the ignition coil. What this will do is raise the trigger voltage up - when you hooked the optoin- wire to +12V this introduced a 12V bias, now with the zener there will be another 12V bias on top of it. The initial flyback pulse is a few hundred volts so you can even go much higher with the zener diode - try a 20 or 30 volt diode or more. The goal is to let the initial flyback pulse thru then suppress the subsequent ringing.
