Lambda AFR Monitoring
Turbo Mini Forums

Robert, you have a good memory....

No, I have not changed my opinion about TechEdge, they are one of the better makes.
It's simply that the ones I have have reached their technical limit for what I now want to do and there is no obvious way around it with my setup and not that I can see with any of their products.

All wideband controllers can supply a 0-5V analogue output to drive displays/gauges and/or data logging by an EMS ECU.
The better ones also provide a digital output which is much better as it avoids all the inaccuracies involved in the wideband convering its internal digital data to 0-5V and the EMS ECU having to convert the 0-5V back to its digital requirement to process.
And if you want more than one to give digital data the best way is if the data can be "daisy chained" so the EMS CPU only needs to tie up one serial port.

The TechEdges provide digital data but it can't be daisy chained.
The only obvious ones that do are Innovate (for historical reasons) and some of the 14point7 range. Both allow up to eight to be daisy chained, Innovate by RS232 and 14point7 by I2C (a different protocol but same end result).

You also need an EMS that has code to read the data.
In my case it is one of Jean's IOx's (Input Output eXtenders) coupled to my MS2 and his code supports the Innovates and the 14point7 SLC OEM units. I doubt he will ever support the TechEdge protocol as it can't be daisy chained so would require a serial port per unit and the IOx CPU only has two.

So, given the choice of Innovate vs 14point7.....

My single Innovate (after the turbo) has been erratic and unreliable. Their unreliability is widely reported on the Web. Graham T has had one go erratic too (he uses one of Jeans IOx's as well as me for digital data).

Technically the 14point7 SLC OEM is considerably superior anyway, it can run the original factory gas calibration rather than rely on free air calibration and it can monitor the Nearnst cell temperaure which is essential for accuracy (I bet a lot of after turbo installs on this forum will be innacurate because the cell is running too hot).
Also, they are only $40 each....
But don't get carried away, the $40 is just the controller module. You need the LSU (sensor) and a carrier PCB (I made one for up to four, Jean sells one for up to eight) and an IOx and MS2/3.
There may be other ECUs configured to read them but obviously I'm only familiar with the IOx / MS2 combination which I already have so my costs are all marginal and I want four in total (I want to do cylinders 1 and 4 independantly as well as 2/3 and after the turbo.

So, back to customer support.

At the time of this photo I had three



Running remote displays with digital data (I don't just mean digital displays, but displays supplied with highly accurate digital data, not supplied by 0-5V) - again, because Jean has written some code for me to test this out.

So I ordered the fourth over three weeks ago along with an SLC Free (the "baby" one to see how well it performs).

All this despite my previous experience....

So I ran with the devil and guess what, he left a trail of excuses....

Many emails later, the package finally arrived two days ago.

I'll assemble the SLC Free in the next couple of days and report back.

So, my comments earlier about good product, potentially crap customer service still stand.


But nothing against TechEdge, the ones I have just can no longer do what I now want.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???