MegaSquirt has competition Options

[JeffBowlsby]

Dave Carlson, fellow 914 owner, has contacted me to let me know he is developing an engine management system (EMS) for the 914 and other air cooled cars. He apparently has a working prototype on a T3 engine.

I know he would appreciate our input, guidance and collective wisdom in developing his EMS system to meet out needs.

Whaddya think boyz and girlz...?

Post comments here or email him thru his site:

http://home.mindspring.com/~dave.c/kitcarlson/

[KitCarlson]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

Thank's for all the comment's!

I have been dreaming, researching, developing in an endless loop since about 1997 on this EFI stuff. The commitment to actually do something has come recently. I have spent my career developing sucessful products for others, and neglecting to follow my dreams. Working for myself is a bit of a shift.

There are many more functions in the hardware that need to be implemented in software. The guts of the system is there, the dwell and timing control, the fuel calculation and timing, and the mmi. The system is interrupt based, there are sufficient timers and resources to keep things simple in the code. The calculations are done every 180 crankdegrees. The cold start, throttle enrichment, unloading, and other drivability things are roughed out, but not tested. The code is written in C. The code size is currently 12K bytes, less than 10% full (room for 128K). The code can be bootloaded over the communications connection.

The operator interface is all done on the EMS, only a VT100 terminal program needs to run on the Palm® or PC. Many pararameters are displayed at the moment. Parameters are easily changed by moving to the parameter, (inverted-video) then + or - to change the variable real time. Values are stored in eeprom if desired. The "VT100 Online" by Mark-Space ® enables Palm "keys" to be assigned to chars, the "Keys" are then easily used to make adjustments.

Having the system start up and run was bit of a surprise! I expected countless multiple bugs. Turning the distributor in a drill press and monitoring the ignition and fuel pulses with respect to the timing reference signals worked well to sort things out. Most all development was in my lab, (garage with A/C) off the engine. I seem to loose my head around a spinning engine on a stand.

By Monday I will have a 5 gas exhaust analyzer. This will help safely check out the fuel mixture. It is a portable unit. I hope to get the wife involved. It will be hard to drive, do the mmi, and monitor the Ferret14.

My website is new and many changes have been made recently. It will be a challenge keeping up with the e-mails, website, design, procurement, fabrcation, assembly, and check-out. The marketing thing will be new too. The good thing is I love what I am doing and I'm willing to spend countless hours. I have added a "Please Help!" link on the website, many you work at varied professions, please help me out in my many weak places. Comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Dave