Triumph Sports Cars

Derick, a 24 year old member of WVBCC, fixed my heat pump, then got a ride in my TR7. He shot video with his phone.

[www.youtube.com]

Sweet!

What are the two items sticking out of the dash, below the radio?

That is just a 2 fer for the cigarette plug.

One issue I have been dealing with is control for the electric fans. We installed Volvo relays for the caravan fan. Originally those were connected to the Megasquirt controller which Jim modified to be used that way. We enabled the ports in TunerStudio and set the parameters for the fans and Voila!, they worked as expected. This was on a weekend in late April.
Not being ones to leave well enough alone, we looked at each other and said, "I wonder if we can get Megasquirt to drive the tach...."
So, we proceeded to do the mods to the board required in the mega manual for that. Plugged the controller in and nothing worked. After spending 4 or 5 hours messing around with it, turning ports on and off, plugging, unplugging, etc., we tried turning all the ports off and going back to the restore point in the software and got the car running.
So, being frustrated, I said, "hey, it already has a temperature switch, I can just use that." So I wired in the original 1uz temp switch and sure enough, when the car warmed up the fans came on. Great solution, I say. NO.. because they do not turn off with the ignition. They turn off when the sensor cools down or the battery gets below 11.5 volts (not enough to start the car). So since then many have seen me pop the hood and unplug the fan wire.
Last night I enabled the external ports on the megasquirt. The car will still start and run, so it has not blown up the controller program like it did before, at least not yet. I have not changed the wiring back yet, but it looks promising.

Being that I am running the Boxster Fans on my Wedge I am curios why the fans don't work being controlled by the MS. I'm intriqued as I plad on using it to control the 2 fans in my set up

It's because all that electrical stuff runs on smoke and magic. Since we didn't let out any smoke, clearly we somehow managed to cross up the spellwork. I have no clue how, everything was fine until we hooked up the tach. But then I'm no magician, how would I know?

But hey, that's great news Dan. Next thing is to hook one of the MS output wires back up to one of the Volvo relay inputs and see if the car will still start. If it does, I bet the MS will turn the fan on and off too! Then you can hook up the second one.

Jim

You might want to put a diode into the relay input Dan.
Those Volvo relays are big enough to send a substantial voltage spike back to the MS.
Possibly gave it a serious "headache".

Thanks for the tip, Fred. Will do.

Could already be installed on the board on the spare output circuits, might be worth checking. Called a flyback diode, it is there to prevent the counter-emf spike from reaching the controller. Usually done one of two ways, either:

Directly inline, passes normal energization current but blocks reverse currents or,

zener to ground, conducts high voltage spikes away from the circuit.

Wouldn't hurt anything to add one inline even if the controller already has one.

Jim

Apparently I didn't reset the controller when I tried it last night because today the car wouldn't start. I went back and disabled each port one by one with no success until the last one was off. Here is the error message I got each time.

Ouch. Here we go again...
I don't know how to fix that.

Jim

What ports are you using for ignition and fan control Dan?

I think the issue may be with the WLED and ALED outputs, since the message refers to spark output. I am not sure how this got crossed up, because we had it working before we tried screwing with the tach signal.
PT6 and PT7 are the ports we are trying to use if I remember correctly, and Jim performed the modification to the board recommended by DIY. I bought the kit from them.

From DIY Autotune:
"Programmable On/Off Outputs
There are several ports available for on/off outputs. These supply ground to a relay, and may be used to activate cooling fans, variable intake solenoids, and other basic devices that are just on or off. Which outputs to use depends on your plans. WLED and ALED also function as spark outputs, so if you need spark outputs C and D, these are already taken. The MS2/Extra 3.x code can also use PT6 and PT7 for sequential injection output. Plan which outputs you use accordingly.

The IAC, WLED, and ALED outputs can all drive relays directly through FET transistors on the MicroSquirt Module. Simply connect these headers to the appropriate pins on the adapter board.

The other outputs (PT6, PT7, and PA0) require a transistor circuit. Jumper the output port you have selected to the IN pin on RELAY1, RELAY2, or RELAY3, then jumper the the OUT pin on the same relay circuit to the desired pin on the adapter board.

The 12 volt output can take a ground trigger output from IAC, WLED, ALED, or one of the relay circuits, and use it to supply 12 volts to a solenoid or relay. Use this for features like VTEC or GM fuel pumps that are powered from the ECU instead of grounded."

Here is the mod we did, Adding a Relay Circuit:

[www.diyautotune.com]

Beyond the physical circuits this stuff is indistinguishable to me from magic. Sometimes I manage to muddle through but I have no idea how it really works.

But if you have a conflict between the aux outputs and the ignition outputs one or the other needs to be turned off, so maybe it means finding out how to turn off the ignition outputs.

That's just a guess because you still need the SAW signal to run your EDIS.

It seems to make some sense, since it was all working before until we enabled the tach output.

I know we disabled (tried anyway) the tach output before but didn't get it working again until we disabled the aux outputs. So maybe we were not successful in disabling the tach output? (Or some other related spark output that we might have turned on in attempting to get the tach to work?) At this point that seems like the most likely scenario.

You could try disabling anything that looks like it is remotely associated with the ignition system and see if the error goes away.

Jim

Quote:

These supply ground to a relay, and may be used to activate cooling fans,

Didn't say anything about turning them back off. ;)

Right, Carl, but since it goes through the controller which switches the relay and the ignition turns the computer off then it goes all the way around the barn to close the gate.

Point is, we did have it working.

Until we enabled the tach output.

So.... going the long way around the barn to do it, how about reloading the firmware then reloading the tune from scratch? Lots of work I know. Means printing out screen shots of every single configuration page and then using hard copy to put it all back in, creating an entirely new "My Car" project, but it seems to me that would work even if nothing else does.

That's option "D". The error message tells us there is an option "A". If we knew how to do it.

Any luck with the MS forum?

Jim

I posted the msq file to the thread I started when we were messing with it.. Still waiting on a reply.

Hi Dan,

How's the troubleshooting coming along?