Configuration issues

[Sprocket]

 *EDIT*Title edited to be more representative



I cant get the thing to run, and i cant get several outputs to work.

Im getting a spark, and the injector is squirting.

Need some confirmation on injector settings, h[0] 0 set to 15, divider set to 1, alternate banks fom h[0] set to 0 only, fire banks while cranking set to alternate. The injector is a Throttle body injector, low impedance, 6.8 ohm 50w resistor fitted between ECU and injector.

The primary trigger is set up for trigger tooth 85 before tdc with cold crank degrees at zero. (timing light method, the timing light in question is one where you can zero in the tdc marks, set to zero). sensor is picking up 45 rpm while cranking.

I cannot get the aux outputs to work, which is holding off the power to the coil , EGO, and injector. Temporaraly energised the relay by removing the pin from the EC36 and connecting to ground. I have tried to enegise the outputs with the Terminal program, the commands that are shown at the bottom of Robs guide. the only command that works is to energise P259 chanel 0 same chanel de energise does not work, no other works. The relays in the coil pack work when the elavent pin is removed from EC36 and grounded. Fuel pump relay works a treat, no problem with that. I have swapped the drivers and pins around between Injfets and P259, but still no joy.

My head is bashed, Ive been at this since 10 this morning, cant think straight and probibly missed loads of info i should have mentioned. I may be using the terminal wrong?

I need a snapshot program to take screen shots of all the config.

I'll post back when i think and remember more.

I need this running by thursday, cos if its not im going to have to put all the OEM stuff back in for sunday

[rob@vems.co.uk]

I'll need to know what version of the firmware you're using and to see the .msq file

Rob

[Sprocket]

Firmware version 1.0.38

msq in an email on its way to you Rob

LOL, ive been at this for so long to day, my head does actualy hurt

[rob@vems.co.uk]

I've not received this yet

Check that your misc, RPM and WOT triggers and all that sort of thing are disabled, these can sometimes hold things low or high or places you wouldnt want them to be. If the fuel pump is running off P259ch5 then that should show that the chip is not dead (they die horribly in grounding incidents).

Rob

[Sprocket]

Minior Minor progress tonight, but still not got it running.

With the new firmware installed there are now some more confusing things for me to contend with.

I have managed to work out that there is a mistake in the terminal commands to turn on and off P259 chanel '0' listed at the bottom of this page http://www.vems.hu/wiki/index.php?page=MembersPage%2FPhatBob%2FUserGuide  under the heading 'Low current drivers', the 'mdh307' should be 'mdh07'. This has cost me about an hour in the car just trying to figure out why i can turn the output state on, but cant turn the output state off using the terminal program. I can now confirm that the output i am using for the main relay is under switching state under the control of Vems, I will ome back to this in a bit.

Using this http://www.vems.hu/files/refcard.pdf and this http://www.vems.hu/wiki/index.php?page=GenBoard%2FManual%2FDigitalOut%2FTable
it can be found that the real meaning of the code is 'm' for 'menu', 'd' for 'debug', 'h' for 'hardware test' and the hex digits denote the output state for relative outputs. Just for any ones future refference . I like to know what things mean, rather than just accept them

Ok back to the outputs. Main relay P259 chanel '0', known to control by Vems through terminal program, will not change state when using the RPM trigger set to '0' RPM, nothing. When does this output change state in this situation. Zero RPM with the ignition on? it doesn't. It doesn't change state while cranking either.

The P259 chanel 1 is being used for the manifold heater relay. I have now found that this will not have +ve until the main relay is energised. Despite manualy energising the main realy by removing the pin from the EC36/4 and connecting to ground, using the terminal program, the P259 chanel 1 will not energise the heater relay, wiring fault in the relay pack maybe? but was fine with the OEM ECU, further investigation required.

Onto the difference in the firmware. I am no longer getting a spark. could for many resons. What is the 'cranking threshold (rpm)' A brief explanation of its logic so i can understand what its for, please

Also what is the H2 table in the Advanced menu, whats it for and what would happen if some of these are blank. Its a little confusing when this appears in the review mode, the title is not very helpfull and is different to the menue description in the Advanced menu, which is actualy far more helpfull, and now realise, now that i have found it, that all the entries in this table need to be zero. Mine are not I will rectify this.

How do we work out the value for the 'Constant for RPm calc' in the Standard Constants table or is it a fixed known value?

Setting up the injector outputs for a single throttle body injector. I have set the h[0] output '0' to 15 as it would be for batch fire, this as far as i can see is the only satisfactory method?

Oh, going back to the review mode. The 'ignition outputs dual' table is shown yet in the Settings drop down menu it is not a selectable table.

I had been miss lead in the calculating of the Primary trigger settings 'Crank Min Period' http://www.vems.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=75.0 Please can some one confirm that for a max RPM of 8000 on a four cylinder engine, that a crank min period value of 3744 is an acceptable value

Trigger tooth and next trigger tooth. On a 36-1 wheel, if the trigger tooth is '0' (the missing tooth??) then the next trigger tooth is 18??, so, if trigger tooth is 1, then next trigger tooth is 19?? I only want a confirmation on this as i have asked before and just need to make it clear in my head. is the next trigger tooth just a count, IE this value of teeth after the first trigger tooth irespective of which tooth is the trigger tooth?



I think thats it for tonight, second night down and not any closer to getting it to run, Bollox!!!

Ill get it working so its not a problem, maybe just not for this weekends racing

Its looking like i may be putting the OEM stuff back in on good friday. We shall see, not giving up yet.

[rob@vems.co.uk]

I have managed to work out that there is a mistake in the terminal commands to turn on and off P259 chanel '0' listed at the bottom of this page http://www.vems.hu/wiki/index.php?page=MembersPage%2FPhatBob%2FUserGuide  under the heading 'Low current drivers', the 'mdh307' should be 'mdh07'. This has cost me about an hour in the car just trying to figure out why i can turn the output state on, but cant turn the output state off using the terminal program. I can now confirm that the output i am using for the main relay is under

switching state under the control of Vems, I will ome back to this in a bit.

I've rectified that typo.

Ok back to the outputs. Main relay P259 chanel '0', known to control by Vems through terminal program, will not change state when using the RPM trigger set to '0' RPM, nothing. When does this output change state in this situation. Zero RPM with the ignition on? it doesn't. It doesn't change state while cranking either.

In MegaTune, try changing P259 channel 0 to P259 i0, this inverts the output so its always on.

The P259 chanel 1 is being used for the manifold heater relay. I have now found that this will not have +ve until the main relay is energised. Despite manualy energising the main realy by removing the pin from the EC36/4 and connecting to ground, using the terminal program, the P259 chanel 1 will not energise the heater relay, wiring fault in the relay pack maybe? but was fine with the OEM ECU, further investigation required.

What is its resistance when measured between the pin and ground?

Onto the difference in the firmware. I am no longer getting a spark. could for many resons. What is the 'cranking threshold (rpm)' A brief explanation of its logic so i can understand what its for, please

Also what is the H2 table in the Advanced menu, whats it for and what would happen if some of these are blank. Its a little confusing when this appears in the review mode, the title is not very helpfull and is different to the menue description in the Advanced menu, which is actualy far more helpfull, and now realise, now that i have found it, that all the entries in this table need to be zero. Mine are not I will rectify this.

This is to overcome the issue we've been having with no-spark on firmware upgrade.  From the firmware release page:

h[2] sematics changed, now allows the use of stepper outputs as ignition outputs (for instance to drive an stock/oem external amplifier/ignition module).

    * YOU WILL LOSE IGNITION DURING FIRMWARE UPGRADE, FROM ALL CHANNELS EXCEPT ignch00 UNLESS YOU CAREFULLY READ, UNDERSTAND AND APPLY THIS SIMPLE CHANGE TO h[2]: i259 IGNITION outputs ignch0 .. 7 are 00,10,20,30,40,50,60,70 respectively (that is ign259 channel moved to the upper nibble, bit 6:4, while bit7 and bit3:0 must be zero). Eg. if you had h[2]=00 03 02 01 .. .. .. .. than use h[2]=00 30 20 10 .. .. .. ..

How do we work out the value for the 'Constant for RPm calc' in the Standard Constants table or is it a fixed known value?

Setting up the injector outputs for a single throttle body injector. I have set the h[0] output '0' to 15 as it would be for batch fire, this as far as i can see is the only satisfactory method?

Oh, going back to the review mode. The 'ignition outputs dual' table is shown yet in the Settings drop down menu it is not a selectable table.

Are your injectors connected to Injector channels 1, 2, 3 & 4?  If so then yes as the h[0] table uses binary masks - 1+2+4+8 = 15
If you wanted to fire 1&4 (1+8=9) then 2&3 (2+4=6) together h[0] output 0 = 6, h[0] output 1 =9

I had been miss lead in the calculating of the Primary trigger settings 'Crank Min Period' http://www.vems.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=75.0 Please can some one confirm that for a max RPM of 8000 on a four cylinder engine, that a crank min period value of 3744 is an acceptable value

I'll put my hands up and say that I've never set it up.  3744 sounds acceptable, I've seen values in the 3000-4000 range.

Trigger tooth and next trigger tooth. On a 36-1 wheel, if the trigger tooth is '0' (the missing tooth??) then the next trigger tooth is 18??, so, if trigger tooth is 1, then next trigger tooth is 19?? I only want a confirmation on this as i have asked before and just need to make it clear in my head. is the next trigger tooth just a count, IE this value of teeth after the first trigger tooth irespective of which tooth is the trigger tooth?

The trigger tooth you want to use is the closest tooth to 60deg BTDC, then use the TDC after the trigger value to trim the value when you set the timing later

[Sprocket]

Setting up the injector outputs for a single throttle body injector. I have set the h[0] output '0' to 15 as it would be for batch fire, this as far as i can see is the only satisfactory method?

Are your injectors connected to Injector channels 1, 2, 3 & 4?  If so then yes as the h[0] table uses binary masks - 1+2+4+8 = 15
If you wanted to fire 1&4 (1+8=9) then 2&3 (2+4=6) together h[0] output 0 = 6, h[0] output 1 =9

I have only one injector therefor one output, so, going from what you are saying, i have the injector set up wrong.

If i set h[0] chanel 0 to 1, will this be correct?

Cant find any config for single point injection, as most would be running four injectors at least, lol, me and my lonely injector

[Sprocket]

    * YOU WILL LOSE IGNITION DURING FIRMWARE UPGRADE, FROM ALL CHANNELS EXCEPT ignch00 UNLESS YOU CAREFULLY READ, UNDERSTAND AND APPLY THIS SIMPLE CHANGE TO h[2]: i259 IGNITION outputs ignch0 .. 7 are 00,10,20,30,40,50,60,70 respectively (that is ign259 channel moved to the upper nibble, bit 6:4, while bit7 and bit3:0 must be zero). Eg. if you had h[2]=00 03 02 01 .. .. .. .. than use h[2]=00 30 20 10 .. .. .. ..

Ok I understand this, but how do i do this, i am totaly at a miss with this as there is nothing in MT where i can change this, or is there?

I now have all the p259 outputs working as i want, lol, again i'll come back to that. I also have h[2] chanel 0 firing coil 1 (cylinders 1 & 4), but as layed out above h[2] chanel 1 is not working.

This and the injector set up, as well as a flat battery, lol, are now holding me up, but it doesnt look like it will be too long before its running .

Oh and one other thing that might be important for you to know, when installing firmware 1.0.71, i downloaded config, made config, uploaded firmware, uploaded temp sensor, but when it came to upload config, i got an error. Oopsie, i cant remember what it said. Carry on regardless, as the Beutiful South sang

As far as i see at the moment these are my only 'getting it running' issues.

Going to pull the battery and stick it on charge over night, only thing is i need to go and fetch the charger from my dad

[Sprocket]

Ok back to the outputs. Main relay P259 chanel '0', known to control by Vems through terminal program, will not change state when using the RPM trigger set to '0' RPM, nothing. When does this output change state in this situation. Zero RPM with the ignition on? it doesn't. It doesn't change state while cranking either.

The P259 chanel 1 is being used for the manifold heater relay. I have now found that this will not have +ve until the main relay is energised. Despite manualy energising the main realy by removing the pin from the EC36/4 and connecting to ground, using the terminal program, the P259 chanel 1 will not energise the heater relay, wiring fault in the relay pack maybe? but was fine with the OEM ECU, further investigation required.

Tonight i have deduced that if you set the RPM value to zero '0' it disables the output irrespective of what driver and chanel you configure  it with. This is the same if you try and inver the output as well.

To over come the Main relay problem, I set the RPM value to 8000 and inverted the output. The output is then 'energised' untill the rpm reaches 8000. As this value on this engine is well above the red line, i can see it being usefull on trackdays if i miss a gear, kind of another rev limiter ontop of the other dozen or so that Vems has, lol. Hard cut dropping the +ve to the coil and injector. There is no reason why the RPM value could not be set to a higher value so its always on.

Going over this, i feel that it would be benificial to have maybe three other selectable RPM values below the current lowest value of 100 RPM, say 075, 050, and 025 RPM. This would then enable you to match up the cranking RPM to bring on the main relay, which most cars seem to have these days. My lowley starter only cranks the engine over at about 50 rpm so a value of 100RPM is useless. I feel that a dedicated output and config should be included in a future firmware version, much like there is for the fan, water pump, and fuel pump. As these Vems iare starting to be installed on what are basicaly modern engine management systems, this feature requirement will be a good adition, easing instalation and overall better control of the system as a whole. At the end of the day it need not be used specificaly for this Main relay, again much the same way that the fan and water pump outputs can be used for other things using simmilar actuation parameters.

Yes having the main relay on all the time works, but its not ideal. With the ignition on, there is power to the coil, injector and anything else fed by it. Where as with the OEM ECU, this relay is only energised when the ECU detects activity on the Primary trigger, much like the fuel pump control is currently.



After speaking to my dad, we came to the conclusion that this wound not be such a simple firmware mod, suspecting that the current acceptable values must have at least three digits  and the value of which must be anything other than 0 wen the last two digits are dropped, IE if you currently input 050, then upload, the download returns a value of 0. Baisicaly the last two digits '00' are dropped, in the case of 050 '50' is dropped resulting in '0'


Im going on a bit about this and its probibly in the wrong place and its probibly all rubbish,i'm just brain dumping

[Sprocket]

    * YOU WILL LOSE IGNITION DURING FIRMWARE UPGRADE, FROM ALL CHANNELS EXCEPT ignch00 UNLESS YOU CAREFULLY READ, UNDERSTAND AND APPLY THIS SIMPLE CHANGE TO h[2]: i259 IGNITION outputs ignch0 .. 7 are 00,10,20,30,40,50,60,70 respectively (that is ign259 channel moved to the upper nibble, bit 6:4, while bit7 and bit3:0 must be zero). Eg. if you had h[2]=00 03 02 01 .. .. .. .. than use h[2]=00 30 20 10 .. .. .. ..

Ok I understand this, but how do i do this, i am totaly at a miss with this as there is nothing in MT where i can change this, or is there?

I now have all the p259 outputs working as i want, lol, again i'll come back to that. I also have h[2] chanel 0 firing coil 1 (cylinders 1 & 4), but as layed out above h[2] chanel 1 is not working.

This and the injector set up, as well as a flat battery, lol, are now holding me up, but it doesnt look like it will be too long before its running .

Oh and one other thing that might be important for you to know, when installing firmware 1.0.71, i downloaded config, made config, uploaded firmware, uploaded temp sensor, but when it came to upload config, i got an error. Oopsie, i cant remember what it said. Carry on regardless, as the Beutiful South sang

As far as i see at the moment these are my only 'getting it running' issues.

Going to pull the battery and stick it on charge over night, only thing is i need to go and fetch the charger from my dad

Bump

[rob@vems.co.uk]

In MT you change the h2[] in the Ignition output table as normal.

You will need to check the h2[] after its been set so...

After setting the ignition up:
Close MT
go to root directory of your VEMS installation
click on download-config.bat
once its finished its business (the window will shut on its own) go to the config directory and take a look at the tables.txt file
If h2[] has 00 10 for the first two entries then all is well.

If not change them, save the file.
go back one directory
click on generate-config.bat
then upload-config.bat

Test again.

Rob

[Sprocket]

Thats just it mate, the tables text is blank. Every time.

The tables log file shows...............

Warning: table t has less than 8 items
table l contains too many rows, it should have no more than table k has columns

Which means nothing to me

Oh and ive uploaded firmware 1.0.53 to try and get it running without this problem

Ive run out of time, I'll give it one last go tomorrow and then friday the OEM stuff is going back on, I dont want to be rushing round on sunday getting running anywhere decent, theres a lot still to learn and do.


This wont go away though, i'll be back when the 16v engine in

[rob@vems.co.uk]

please send me the tables.txt

Or paste it up here.

Thanks

Rob

[Sprocket]

Scratch my last post, I worked out what i was doing wrong

I said the tables text was blank so there is nothing to post up.

I have fixed it now Just me not really knowing what im doing

When using the download config files, i did not leave the batch file long enough to do its thing. It came to the end of downloading the config text and stopped, no sign of any life, i closed the program

I have just gone through the whole thing again and succesfully downloaded all the config and tables files, looked at the h[2] values and found the first two to be 33 an 22, edited to 30 and 20, saved, uploaded 1.0.71, and uploaded the config. all worked well. Shall have a look at it tomorrow now in the car.

The only thing I need to confirm now is the single point injector output and settings. I have now currently got them set at, Alternate set to 0 only and h[0] 0 set to 1

Thanks for your time mate. it is much apreciated

[Sprocket]

I have had the engine running but, i had to swap round the ignition outputs in h[2], even then it was firing ATDC. This was not right, remembering that the h[2] table is traversed backwards. I set up the primary trigger, but it now apears that it is 180 degrees out, verry odd as nothing is loose, i made sure of that. Anyway, i have re adjusted the trigger and set it to read zero degrees by adjusting the degrees before TDC using the timig light and zero degrees cranking.

The engine will now not start. Im presuming its either to do with the fact that the battery is now flat again, or the pulse width is incorrect. Im assuming that the default VE table is double the norm and i should set required fuel to half the norm. I have adjusted the cold crank PW to 88% of required fuel and warm crank PW to 23% of required fuel.

One thing was aparrent when i had it running and that was that it died when you pressed the accelerator, and then it died when the advance changed from 10 to 14 degrees, presuming that it was way to retarded.


This following bit i did ask but got no answer, i have searched the depths of the wiki and found nothing, not even in the so called VEMS manual.

HOW DO YOU CALCULATE THE CONSTANT FOR RPM CALCULATION?.......

The RPM is reading roughly 250rpm when idling at about true 1200rpm. How do I work out the Constant for RPM calculation in the 'Constants' settings. One reason maybe why im only seeing 50rpm on cranking