The Saga of Innovate, v: LC-1 & XD-16
 

For the past few months, I've had hella trouble out of my Innovate Motorsports Standalone Wideband System. The system consists of the LC-1 wideband sensor/controller, and the XD-16 digital gauge.

The first issue I had with the LC was one of the analog outputs stopped working. The 2nd output still worked, so for a while it was ok. Until the 2nd output stopped working. It was also intermittently dropping serial connection with the XD-16 gauge, and sometimes it would forget the fuel type and set itself up for some crazy ass multiplier. This would give totally crazy, bogus a/f numbers.

Innovate RMA'd the LC-1 and sent me a replacement. I installed the replacement, and it worked while idling in the driveway for a good 15 minutes. I turned the car off and back on again, and my XD gauge lost serial communication again. I switched the power again, and the gauge was working, but my A/F numbers were totally unrealistic. I want to note that both devices have great connections to power and ground. I did not have a wiring issue.

I disconnected the serial connections and cleaned them all with alcohol (swabbed alchol on the male ends of the plugs, plugged them in and rotated them around, unplugged again to allow to dry). This includes the terminator plug as well. After cleaning, I connected to both devices individually with LMProgrammer to make sure everything was cool, then reconnected everything. So far, it's now working great--knock on wood.

I was reading on Innovate's forum that hot-swapping the serial leads will sometimes confuse the devices into thinking that they need to go into a programming mode, which will then screw up their memory. My hypothesis is that dirty serial contacts, making and breaking connections while the units were powered on, caused the serial communications problems and the eventual failure of my original LC-1. So my recommendation to anyone who either is having serial communications problems is to give the jacks a light cleaning with alcohol. If you need to plug in your computer to reprogram one of the devices, it might even be a good idea to clean the jacks as preventative maintenance.

you could put some of that contact grease on there too just precautionarily.

mine's been flawless once it was wired in properly.

This is my 3rd car with Innovate gear, and until recently my experience is the same as yours.

Contact grease is a good idea; I'll make a trip to Fry's sometime soon.

I've had the same PLX wideband for years, on two separate car and have never had any problems. After reading how hit and miss people are with the Innovative, I think I'm going to stick with PLX.

Wideband system worked great for 200 miles and a half dozen flips of the ignition switch today.

10 miles from my house, serial communication was lost and I got the -.-.- again. :vash: Made a quick, scheduled stop, and when I restarted the car the gauge was displaying numeric values again, but the values it was showing while driving were totally unrealistic. This prompted 2 pending codes from the stock computer. I turned the ignition off and on again, and the gauge read sensible values again. The pending codes went off.

BOOO! :jerkit: