Wideband controllers
Turbo Mini Forums

I have an Innovate LC-1 (as yet untested) that I bought (imported from the USA) when I bought the Megasquirt.

As my project/understanding has grown, I realise I now need two widebands for testing.

I could buy another LC-1 and try to daisychain them together but TechEdge do a nice dual controller.

Anyone have any experience with TechEdge stuff - it's quite pricey (even with the Australian dollar exchange rate being in our favour) ???

Are there any other dual controllers (Google has NOT been my friend today....) or should I just use two singles ???

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

hmmm,

im not over enamoured with my lc1, and i belive John Kimins has had issues with them too.

i'd sugest flogging the lc1 ang going for somthing else AEM spings to mind. but techedge may me a good altenative too,

when I did some research back in the day techedge was supposed to be better then the inovate stuff, but this is 2-3 years ago.

When I faced the same dilemma, I bought an LM-1 and AuxBox in addition to the LC-1.

I can now daisy chain the two to give direct serial input to the laptop for logging. The Aux Box also logs rpm, map etc.

When my testing is done I'm left with an LM-1 that I can use as a portable device as designed.

Innovate now do an LM-2 that can have two sensor inputs.

I don't know about TechEdge but Innovate have seemed to be suffering qulaity issues of late. My kit is working OK but there are lots of complaints on the forum.

Edited by Paul S on 5th Nov, 2008.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Hmmm, hadn't thought to look at the handheld devices (LM-2) but it's pricey even for a single channel.

I've read comments on several forums, especially the Innovate one when I was searching for sample rates, and there are bad comments. Similarly with TechEdge, but forums only tend to have people post about the bad, not the good.

Most of the problems seem to be down to wiring, people not following instructions, and basically not understanding what they are doing.

AEM - my mate with the 400hp MR2 went AEM (for everything).... I wasn't that impressed with it either....

Why is there nothing UK to consider (ignoring EMSs with wideband built-in...)

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

fAIR COMMENT ABOUT THE WIRING OOPS CAPS.....

but i would expect mr Kimmins has got his wiring fairly tied down.

This thread details my setup.

http://www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.p...id=190001&fr=25

I notice that TD was not happy with the logging capability of the AEM kit.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I have been using a techedge kit for about 3 years with heavy use this year and its still going strong! It is a diy 2ao that i think is no longer available. But if the other kits are of the same quality then they will be good! I lso have a lc1 that has been sent back for repair!!

If I was doing this again, I would seriously consider buying a couple of TechEdge 2Y DIY kits and sensors and then eanbling the second wideband input on the Megasquirt.

http://wbo2.com/2y/default.htm

http://www.msextra.com/ms2extra/MS2-Extra_...re.htm#secondo2

You then have all the data that you need to log on the MS. Although if you wanted to log CHTs or EGTs then you still have a problem.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I have the old TechEdge one channel kit with digital square screen. Works well, an open architecture that you can use in DIY projects. Good stuff.

std 998 A+, g295, MD266, RHF4, 109hp @0.8bar/5400rpm

If you fancy a go with one (cheap enough)- go to Trigger Wheels.com - they are UK importers of them

We have one to try - just haven't got round to giving it a run yet

K

If Carling made Mini engines
it would probably be like this one!

Yes JK, I've seen that triggerwheels dot whatever are the TechEdge "approved" supplier in the UK but their mark-up is a little high considering the current AUS$ exchange rate. Also the dual channel one is "special order".....

So if I choose TechEdge, I'll try to import direct.....

Rod.

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

One for Paul......

You ended up with an LM-1, an LC-1 and an Aux box (LMA-3 I presume).

From their specifications (as far as I can see) for additional inputs, you can have a few random 1-5v signals straight to the LM-1 and the LMA-3 gives 5 "device specific" inputs.

But only two of the "device specific" inputs are thermocouples.

Now I thought your plan was ultimately to try and see if their was a meaningfull correlation between Lambda and EGT on the inner and outer cylinders while N/A (on the basis it's only possible to measure the individual AFRs on an N/A exhaust manifold and not on a turbo one).

If I'm right so far, you're limited to two thermocouples only, and it looks like the cold junctions are pre-determined to only accept one low temeperature range and one high temperature range so you could only actually log one exhaust runner ???

Now the TechEdge "DIY" controllers have 3 dedicated thermocouple channels, each accepting up to 1,200C on a K type so I could have 6 inputs from a pair of controllers - this seems to contradict what you said above, unless you were specifically referring to logging through MS rather than TechEdge's software ???

At the moment, by using two "DIY" TechEdge controllers, it looks as if they can offer much more than Innovate equivilants.

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

Rod,

I also have a TC-4 in the daisy chain to log 2xEGTs and 2XCHTs.

I was referring to logging through MS.

I am not sure if you can daisy chain two TechEdge units.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

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

Logging to read later is OK but you want a live display to help with setup. Preferably a rolling display so that you can see the effect of changes.

You may be able to get round this by connecting two WBo units by USB to your laptop and then running two instances of the software. May not work though. You will want a USB hub if you also want to run Megatune at the same time.

I currently run two USB/serial converters to Logworks and Megatune concurrently. But you then need an inverterr to keep the laptop battery alive as the power use is high.

Not easy.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

We think alike.... before reading your post, I managed to download it (it's called TEWBLOG) and I managed to get two seperate windows running...

Task Manager shows two seperate processes so, as long as I can seperate the configuration files into two seperate directories to instruct each session to use a diferent COM port, it may just work.....

Experimentation continues.

EDIT - looks promising....... I can run two sessions at once storing two seperate log files in different directories. My limitation at the moment is I only have one COM port (only one USB adaptor) and both sessions want to use it as there's only the one, so I've ordered a second to check each session will use a different port OK.

EDIT 2 - I have an in-car "cigarette lighter" power supply unit for my laptop (the laptop has a low voltage power feed with an external mains adaptor for home use so the in-car one just replaces the mains adaptor).

Edited by Rod S on 6th Nov, 2008.

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

Well, I got my second USB/serial cable, couldn't get it to work on the laptop but it was fine on my desktop.

Set up the two leads with different COM ports and ran two sessions of TEWBLOG but, even though XP task manager shows them as seperate sessions and they were writing logs in different directories, whichever COM port I selected in one session, it immediately changed the other session to the same.....

Back to the drawing board, or, read TechEdge's site properly

There is a newer, better version of logging software called WINLOG.

I wish I had read it all properly before - it logs up to 64 devices simultaneously, not just TechEdge but several others including Megasquirt.

They aren't daisychained like Innovate, each one is simply assigned it's own COM port so it's a case of lots of USB ports on the laptop or a hub and a USB/serial cable for each one.

I've downloaded it and tried it on the desktop, it sees the "real" COM ports and as many USB/serial cables as I plug in and if I load two wideband controllers, it just numbers them "1" and "2".

Very cute bit of software....

It looks like I'll be ordering from TechEdge - I've already had an email from them confirming they will ship direct to me despite now having a UK agent - so I just need to convince myself on the cost.

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

Good work Rod.

That looks like a cheaper solution than the Innovate system.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I bought the TechEdge direct from them despite the european agent, that was much cheaper.

std 998 A+, g295, MD266, RHF4, 109hp @0.8bar/5400rpm

Oh well,

After a few beers/wine/whisky to justify it, I just put AU$ 699.30 on my credit card...

And that's all DIY kits, not pre-built, so out with the soldering iron again...

I got away with no import charges for the Hypatecs, I doubt I'll be so lucky this time....

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

do you want to put some money on it for me? because i just calculated mt engine build costs and i feel i am going to need either a better job or someone elses credit card!!

Edited by James_H on 9th Nov, 2008.

o/t a bit but spotted this last night.

http://www.symtechlabs.com/catalog/megasqu...odule-p-49.html

Interesting but quite pricey for one chip and 5 SM resistors/capacitors. It will obviously only handle one TC as well and I've used up all my spare inputs/outputs on the MS....

What I've ordered from TechEdge (two of their 2Y1 kits with displays, LSUs, cables and whole load of extra connectors and cable) will give me up to six TCs as well as a whole load of 0-5V inputs to log and provided the new TechEdge logging software can communicate with MS (they say it can but it's still in an "experimental" stage), I "should" be able to log everything I want.

Theoretically I should be able to route the Innovate output as a 0-5V signal through one of the TechEdge controllers for logging. This will give me (in N/A setup) AFRs on inners, outers and "common" where the final sensor will be when the turbo is installed.

What I'm thinking of doing is taking Paul's theory/experiment a stage further than EGT relationship to AFR and seeing if the Innovate kit is as sensitive as they claim, and able to measure individual gas pulses (up to a certain engine speed) on the "common" part of the exhaust.

From their claims on sensor and controller repsonse times, it should be able to segregate the individual pulses until at least 3.000-3,500 rpm.

I have also got hold of a 6066 sensor (the earlier one) which, depending on who you believe, may be less sensitive in terms of accuracy, but faster responding. Hence me ordering a load of connectors and other bits as the plugs etc. are all different....

I have yet to figure out if the logging software is fast enough for this experiment, I may end up using just a scope, and, even if it does work when N/A, I don't know how much the turbo is going to destroy (ie, mix up) the individual pulses once it's installed.

If any of this is viable (and it's a big "if") it may be possible to monitor inner vs outer AFRs (to a limited extent) with a turbo installed.

Edited by Rod S on 10th Nov, 2008.

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

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."