all my stupid MS questions will go in this thread
 

I assume that loading new .msq files will not change my spark settings for trigger angle...correct?

The spark settings for each MSQ can be different and you can change your spark setting trigger angle by loading a new MSQ. If the spark settings are the same, and they have they same trigger angle. Then no you won't be changing the trigger angle.

uh yeah it will. sharing complete msq's is a recipe for disaster. there are a lot of settings that can be vehicle and situation dependant. that's why I am not in the habit of sharing msq files.

something went wacko and my rpm scaling on the VE table is all crazy whacked out, and I was going to reload the DIY basemap.

import the fuel and spark table.

yep. you're getting smarter!

I've read through the manual a few times, again yesterday, but it never really made sense until I started working with it. I've given up on road tuning the car for a few days.

new topic:

Can someone explain PWM to me in lay-man's terms? There is much in the manual to define it. I always interpreted the VE values to be PW considering they adjust the amount of injector pulses open. I know what pulse width is, but now with the "modulation" idea thrown into the mix. I don't understand why the manual suggests setting the PW time threshold to the same value as %. I can't grasp it for some reason.

fuck, I overlooked that page. I'm still stuck though on the concept...why would I want to chop up the injector pulses to begin with? Why not run 1 full squirt per cycle. As long as the fuel atomizes, I don't see why chopping up the PW is beneficial, aside from cutting fuel.

its for low ohm injectors. so you don't fry them. PWM quickly pulses them, so there isn't as much current flowing into them. that's about it.

so by setting it to 100% we're essentially disabling it.

This shit is much more simple than I was making it out to be.

100% PWM means it's not limited, so a full 12v would flow to the injectors.


low ohm injectors need some some of current limiting....so they will fry or not flow correctly.

PWM of 50% would make the 12v signal, 6v.

so pwm reduces voltage (which I don't care about since I have high z) and duty cycle is independant, and adjusted through the VE table?

Pulse width modualtion is simply taking a set frequency and changing the length of time something is "on" during each period. The amplitude of it, or voltage in this case, remains the same no matter what the pulse width (pw) is. This in turn is used to determine the Duty cycle (DC) of the solenoid, the injector in this instance. The DC is simply the amount of time it is on divided by the entire period.

So say you have a basic square wave at 50% DC, which is what your injectors "ideally" run on. One period of it looks like this:

|^^^^^^^^^|_____________| Pretend the ^^^^ form a flat line.

You can then change the DC by changing the pulse width. A low pulse width produces a smaller DC, like this:

|^^^|______________________|

As you can see, the frequency remains the same because the period of the wave has not changed. The time it is "On" however is about half, and therefore it now has a DC os 25% or 1/4 of its period.

To get a 75% DC the wave would look like this:
|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|______|


So hopefully you can SEE now what exactly it means to MODULATE a pulse width, and how it can be used to control any type of solenoid.

PWM is a method for approximating an analog voltage using only digital switching. It's much more efficient than linear regulation, assuming you can tolerate some switching noise.

The idea is that averaged over a period of time, flipping a lightswitch on and off very rapidly produces the same amont of average illumination as setting a dimmer to the mid-level position. If you were able to flip the switch several hundred thousand times per second, you'd never notice that it was happening- the light would just seem dim.

In this application, PWM is used to limit the average current going through the injector to a safe level after the initial (full-power) opening period has elapsed. Let's say we want to open a low-impedance injector for 5 milliseconds. You apply full power to it for the first millisecond or so (causing it to draw a lot of current and open very quickly) then you PWM the line for the remaining 4 msec, limiting the amount of power that the injector consumes to a level sufficient for holding it open without burning it up.

The above response breaks my rule of not posting in your threads, soley because you actually asked an intelligent question. It is an exception of the rule, I don't plan on it being a normal thing so you shouldn't either :P

PWM = a concept, not a value
PW = net time period solenoid is activated per activation increment of DC
DC = net activation period throughout the cycle

I think I have it. If not, I give up.

PWM is more just a name to call a method of controlling something on and off using a waveform rather than a constant voltage/current supply. Its not a "unit" of anything.

The PW is the length of time it is ON during the period.
Ton = Time on = PW

DC is Ton/Ttotal.

so essentially PWM is set per injector type as a constant, then PW is the independant variable.

Thank for breaking the rule. I'll do my best contribute more here. This concept has been a roadblock for me all week.

PWM is just a name of how to do something, it has no mathematical value.

DC is dependant on PW. You CONTROL the PW with MS.


I'm just busting your balls on the rule thing, I just wish you would install your turbo kit already and stop fucking around. Once you put it on I guarantee you will regret that you took so fucking long to do it.

The period (time for one complete on/off cycle) is typically a constant. There are exceptions, but in this case consider this rule to be true. It is sometimes specified as a frequency, and sometimes as a duration. They are interchangeable.

The duty cycle is the % of time during each period that the signal is "on" vs. "off." That's the variable.

In this picture, the green trace has a duty cycle of 75%, the red trace is 50%, and the blue trace is 25%. They all have the same period. So all else being equal, modulating at the green level will effectively give you 75% of whatever the maximum available power is, and so on.

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/6059/pwmht6.gif

I planned on taking November off which fell through, then december and now I'm packing to go out of town again. This car will be ready for track season in March, and I want the street car lap record at Hallett.

thanks. This drove the point home. Suddenly all the cold start shit makes sense again.

Joe and I are saying the same thing, so don't get confused. He just has prettier pictures of a more real world wave.

It's amazing what you can do quickly with MS Excel. :bigtu:

new topic!!!
 

new topic:

I can't get my MS dashboard to show any lc-1 signal. I changed my grounds to the same point on the throttle body...but can't seem to find the ground from the ecm there. I did another free air calibration hooked it up, and still get nothing. I changed the configurator how according to DIY's manual.

Kinda stuck here.

Thanks


edit: going to garage armed with multimeter.

you may need to program the lc1's output, and make sure you're using the right analog out (there's 2). and make sure the analog out is actually hooked up to the MS, either through the correct pin on the aux connector or by splicing it in the nb wire, per the manual.

ps, thanks for creating a "build thread" instead of starting 100 new threads as your typical custom. :)

I'm connected through the wideband through the brown wire...both ouputs are programmed at 0-5v = 10-20afr. I just checked with the multimeter, and its showing a full 5v with the car off, but the gauge in the ms dashboard reads nothing. :confused: It makes sense that I could have extreme interference from the grounds, but the multimeter says full rich at the stock wire going into the firewall.

yeah, working on the car is nice for a change. I'd like to tune some tomorrow before I go out of town until the new year.

and has anyone seen me middle connector? I put it somewhere last month where I knew I wouldn't lose it.

Should i go out there tomorro and run two wires, soldered at one ring connector? Where specifically on the TB should I put the gnd...I think a pic would help, because I can't seem to find the gnd strapping for the ecm. Anyone have a link to the pinouts for the factory ECM so I can do some multimeter work?


and just for the record, I have a perfectly flat open loop idle currently...lol.

grounds are at the back of the head by the fuel rail. pinouts are at madracki

I had this setup earlier today with the signal wire on the ground strap, and the heater on the valve cover. I'm thoroughly confused, and going to discuss this with my bartender now.

You want ALL the ground to go to the place, but you want to seperate the ones it tells you to by like an inch so you don't get any interference. If you ground them apart like you have then you are gonna have big ground disparity problems. For example, mine are both grounded to the 2 black ground wires at the harness. They both go to the same place, but I have them seperated by just putting them on the 2 different wires.

shouldn't the o2 read full lean after doing a free air calibration, outside the exhaust? MS says its at 21.99 when the range should only go up to 19.99. "front bank o2 voltage is 3.04. Me thinks I didn't configure something properly in ms.

how will I know if its working correctly? I broke the rules and ran both leads to the same lug...so I expect a bad reading...but at least its reading something at this point.

You wont get a bad reading running it to the same lug. I had the same problems you described and called inovate about them. They told me to put the heater and system on the same lug,connect a MS ground to that lug as well.

Also, put the terminator into the IN plug on the LC1 for good measure.

how is you lc-1 outputing? 10-20:1? or default?

how is your configurator setup? 10-20:1 or default?


during freeair, it should show 20% O2 (in logworks), which it should not be ouputting any signal to MS at that point.

thanks, this is very useful so I don't have to waste time taking the o2 in and out.

noise or shitty tuning?
http://i9.tinypic.com/72zvayg.png

did you unplug your ignitor during install?

yes.

:mad:

is there an easy way to turn off enrichments...because for some reason autotune refuses to cooperate.

The autotune won't work unless you make some tweaks to the code. The VE Analyzer in MegaTune works well. Enrichments won't affect it.

Did you adjust your custom.ini file?
https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/sho...42&postcount=8

thanks, but still sys I'm out of range, or 0%. I've obviously fucked this shit up. autotune would be nice, but I'm just going to tune by hand now.

i think the lc-1 is still fucked up considering I have AFR's out of the voltage range I set up in the controller:
http://i4.tinypic.com/6kylson.png

Change your MS settings in the configurator.
I'd be more worried about your RPM readings than the WB readings.

HAHA, rpms are off the charts. Must be all that sugar in your tank :greddy:

yeah, I don't know why this shit is all crazy in the loggr. They read fine on the dashboard.

it is a miata.

okok, will autotune still work if my open loop settng menu says to go open loop at 53kpa? I should change it to 101kpa, or 0 like it says in that window for autotune...right?

did everyone else go through shit like this?

trying this tomorrow:

The autotune sucks balls. VE Anaylzer is the way to go.
No clue on the RPM situation. How did you take the log, on your computer, or on a Palm?

on a computer. I'll play with ve analyzer tonight before I get on the plane. Is there a writeup on using the ve analyzer...I can't seem to find much with google.

The Log Viewer will read voltage from the log and convert it to AFR, so make sure it's set up for the Innovate 0-5 rather than LC-1 default. Also, could you post your MSQ?

It is set at 0-5. I'll post the MSQ when I get home from work.

Thanks so much for the help. Sorry to be an annoying customer.

does anyone have any thoughts on why the MS is set to "lc-1 default," the lc-1 controller is set to 0-5 : 10-20 for both outputs...and I'm getting super rich 7.0AFR readings in MS? Also, to make things worse the LC-1 is showing 6volts at idle. I'm thouroughly confused.

This is why I'm stuck. It makes no sense to me.

you don't use lc1 default, you use lc1 0-5V linear

Can you elaborate on VE Analyzer, is it part of Megatune?

I was going to scream profanity, but I'll wait until I get home to check this.

http://www.megasquirtpnp.com/models/...093_manual.htm
It never occured to me that the lm-1 used a linear output. At least I can claim this mistake is counter-intuitive with a lack of simple instructor for fucktards like myself.