Megasquirt Software Failings
Discussion
During the discussion on Aftermarket engine management systems it was mentioned that one of the failings of the Megasquirt system is its mapping software:
So, my question to you all is - what features of the "paid for" systems do you feel are missing from Megasquirt? What changes would enable you to map MS in 2 hours instead of 7?
All being well I might try to do something about it when I get around to installing MS over the winter.
trackcar said:
that's the thing .. they're designed for the home user not a rolling road operator. My record for mapping ms from scratch is 7 hours. for an emerald the same thing is typically 2 hours .. the emerald is so user friendly 
So, my question to you all is - what features of the "paid for" systems do you feel are missing from Megasquirt? What changes would enable you to map MS in 2 hours instead of 7?
All being well I might try to do something about it when I get around to installing MS over the winter.
Main problem with the ms for live mapping is the live map screen and "follow the dot" system which is
1) difficult to see
2) difficult to keep exactly on the right art of the 3d map if it has serious peaks/troughs in it
3) if you're struggling you have to go back into the ve map, change the values, upload it to the ecu (which never seems to work propery, especially if you're trying to change a whole row and only say 3 out of all the map site get updated which happens regularly when i've been mapping grrr!!)
4) very often you can hit to send a updated number to the live map and it doesn't go, so you try again, and again by which time the combustion chamber temp has rocketed, the car is pinking and you have to start all over again
It's not just awkward, it's infuriating! You can typically spend 4 times longer on any one load site on MS than you do on any of the other market ecus like emerald, mbe, omex etc That also means that you have to start mapping on acceleration runs sooner on higher loads .. and if the car is fitted with a MAP sensor rather than throtle vs speed that causes all sorts of headaches and generaly means interpolating far more of the map than you'd like, simply because you can't guarantee to be passing through exactly the same load sites on MAP sensed on two comparative runs.
what i generally end up doing is mapping everything from the tables, uploading it to the ecu several times to make sure all the info actually has gone, then checking through the sites to see if i'm close or not, then changing areas of the map based on notes i've made from the dyno .. uploading it several times again to make sure it's all gone to the ecu, going back running it on the dyno to see how close i am this time, making notes . going back into the tables, making changes, uploading it several times into the ecu to make sure etc etc etc...
hope that's of some use to you
1) difficult to see
2) difficult to keep exactly on the right art of the 3d map if it has serious peaks/troughs in it
3) if you're struggling you have to go back into the ve map, change the values, upload it to the ecu (which never seems to work propery, especially if you're trying to change a whole row and only say 3 out of all the map site get updated which happens regularly when i've been mapping grrr!!)
4) very often you can hit to send a updated number to the live map and it doesn't go, so you try again, and again by which time the combustion chamber temp has rocketed, the car is pinking and you have to start all over again
It's not just awkward, it's infuriating! You can typically spend 4 times longer on any one load site on MS than you do on any of the other market ecus like emerald, mbe, omex etc That also means that you have to start mapping on acceleration runs sooner on higher loads .. and if the car is fitted with a MAP sensor rather than throtle vs speed that causes all sorts of headaches and generaly means interpolating far more of the map than you'd like, simply because you can't guarantee to be passing through exactly the same load sites on MAP sensed on two comparative runs.
what i generally end up doing is mapping everything from the tables, uploading it to the ecu several times to make sure all the info actually has gone, then checking through the sites to see if i'm close or not, then changing areas of the map based on notes i've made from the dyno .. uploading it several times again to make sure it's all gone to the ecu, going back running it on the dyno to see how close i am this time, making notes . going back into the tables, making changes, uploading it several times into the ecu to make sure etc etc etc...
hope that's of some use to you
Edited by trackcar on Thursday 14th September 15:39
trackcar said:
Dax and i spent hours trying to get it to work reliably in my workshop once .. we gave in.
I wonder if this is noise related? I imagine with the HT and the alternator whizzing and clicking constantly, the environment must be pretty dirty (electrically speaking). Screened cables (Screen only grounded at one end !) and looped through ferrite cores could work wonders? Add to this some error correction(presumably the code would need developing for this) and there should be no reason to have flaky/untrustworthy comms.
If the other marketed ECUs can do it then surly it's not beyond the wit of Pistonmankind?
Edit to add some punctation to make it readable
Edited by leorest on Thursday 14th September 18:06
leorest said:
trackcar said:
Dax and i spent hours trying to get it to work reliably in my workshop once .. we gave in.
I wonder if this is noise related? I imagine with the HT and the alternator whizzing and clicking constantly, the environment must be pretty dirty (electrically speaking). Screened cables (Screen only grounded at one end !) and looped through ferrite cores could work wonders? Add to this some error correction(presumably the code would need developing for this) and there should be no reason to have flaky/untrustworthy comms.
If the other marketed ECUs can do it then surly it's not beyond the wit of Pistonmankind?
Edit to add some punctation to make it readable
Edited by leorest on Thursday 14th September 18:06
YHM
trackcar said:
Dax and i spent hours trying to get it to work reliably in my workshop once .. we gave in.
Were you using a usb<>serial convertor? - I (any many others) had all sorts of problems with USB such as your'e desicribing - using a laptop with an old-school 9 pin serial connector all those problems went away. (Would of thought that would be the first thing Phil would of tried)
As for MT, i never use the follow the dot mode - i just move around with the cursor keys.
From what I understand Eric (Megatune creator) has a new job and doesn't have as much time to work on it, I think I saw in a thread of at msefi that they might let others work on the code.
annodomini2 said:
It uses RS-232??
It would be better using CAN (Controller Area Network), but as its a lower cost device I'm guessing the £400+ for a decent CAN Card for a PC.
You can get USB ones for around £100 but they're not very good for high speed operation.
It would be better using CAN (Controller Area Network), but as its a lower cost device I'm guessing the £400+ for a decent CAN Card for a PC.
You can get USB ones for around £100 but they're not very good for high speed operation.
Yep, good old rs232.
Some squirters even bitch about having to install a few pence worth of electronic components when there particular ignition input option doesn't need it.
trackcar said:
Main problem with the ms for live mapping is the live map screen and "follow the dot" system which is
1) difficult to see
2) difficult to keep exactly on the right art of the 3d map if it has serious peaks/troughs in it
3) if you're struggling you have to go back into the ve map, change the values, upload it to the ecu (which never seems to work propery, especially if you're trying to change a whole row and only say 3 out of all the map site get updated which happens regularly when i've been mapping grrr!!)
4) very often you can hit to send a updated number to the live map and it doesn't go, so you try again, and again by which time the combustion chamber temp has rocketed, the car is pinking and you have to start all over again
It's not just awkward, it's infuriating! You can typically spend 4 times longer on any one load site on MS than you do on any of the other market ecus like emerald, mbe, omex etc That also means that you have to start mapping on acceleration runs sooner on higher loads .. and if the car is fitted with a MAP sensor rather than throtle vs speed that causes all sorts of headaches and generaly means interpolating far more of the map than you'd like, simply because you can't guarantee to be passing through exactly the same load sites on MAP sensed on two comparative runs.
what i generally end up doing is mapping everything from the tables, uploading it to the ecu several times to make sure all the info actually has gone, then checking through the sites to see if i'm close or not, then changing areas of the map based on notes i've made from the dyno .. uploading it several times again to make sure it's all gone to the ecu, going back running it on the dyno to see how close i am this time, making notes . going back into the tables, making changes, uploading it several times into the ecu to make sure etc etc etc...
hope that's of some use to you
1) difficult to see
2) difficult to keep exactly on the right art of the 3d map if it has serious peaks/troughs in it
3) if you're struggling you have to go back into the ve map, change the values, upload it to the ecu (which never seems to work propery, especially if you're trying to change a whole row and only say 3 out of all the map site get updated which happens regularly when i've been mapping grrr!!)
4) very often you can hit to send a updated number to the live map and it doesn't go, so you try again, and again by which time the combustion chamber temp has rocketed, the car is pinking and you have to start all over again
It's not just awkward, it's infuriating! You can typically spend 4 times longer on any one load site on MS than you do on any of the other market ecus like emerald, mbe, omex etc That also means that you have to start mapping on acceleration runs sooner on higher loads .. and if the car is fitted with a MAP sensor rather than throtle vs speed that causes all sorts of headaches and generaly means interpolating far more of the map than you'd like, simply because you can't guarantee to be passing through exactly the same load sites on MAP sensed on two comparative runs.
what i generally end up doing is mapping everything from the tables, uploading it to the ecu several times to make sure all the info actually has gone, then checking through the sites to see if i'm close or not, then changing areas of the map based on notes i've made from the dyno .. uploading it several times again to make sure it's all gone to the ecu, going back running it on the dyno to see how close i am this time, making notes . going back into the tables, making changes, uploading it several times into the ecu to make sure etc etc etc...
hope that's of some use to you
Edited by trackcar on Thursday 14th September 15:39
I have to say I was really fed up after reading this thread, but 15mins later a young guy with a 106 Rally turned up at my door. He had spent an evening wiring in his MS ECU and had driven 80 miles with it to see me. After 30miles of driving we had it tuned to perfection, he was soo pleased it was really satisfying to see his face beaming! Ok, the software that is used isn't particually user freindly, I have to agree with that, but it is perfectly feasable to use, I guess it depends on what your used to using. but the tuning software is more designed for tuning without a rolling road, it is for tuning on real roads, which I have to confess is probably the best way of doing it in my opinion and I have to say in a lot of experts opinions.
The problems we had with it not updating and not sending the data were down to the ECU resetting all the time, which turned out to be the spark plugs! These issues are now sorted and have been documented to help people with their installs.
I was wrong to use MAP as the load for that particular engine and I have to agree TPS would have been the better option, but at least with MS you have the option, I personally like MAP, but TPS can be used just as easily, I should have used it for a rolling road as it is a lot easier to tune! Im certain if we TPS and if the plugs had been ok then you would have had no problems with it like the thousands of other users of it. Also rememeber that the engine we tuned had 3 throttle's on it that all opened together at once creating a massive throttle responce, Id love to have seen another system on it to see how it coped with the sort of characteristics that engine had,
Phil
No need to feel fed up Phil, as you know I'm a big fan of MS 
it just needs some reworking of the mapping interface to make it rolling road friendly .. however i know that isn't a high priority as most will be fettled on the open road like you do (and obviously well) .. i was just looking at it from a mapper's point of view but maybe it didn't come across clearly enough.
it just needs some reworking of the mapping interface to make it rolling road friendly .. however i know that isn't a high priority as most will be fettled on the open road like you do (and obviously well) .. i was just looking at it from a mapper's point of view but maybe it didn't come across clearly enough.Gassing Station | Engines & Drivetrain | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff