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BBlue,
That was my experience also. I read over the assembly manuals many times then tried to make my own by removing the sections that my engine would not need and adding in the things it would (such as VR input and PWM Idle control) and after careful assembly I still left out a couple of jumpers from the VR circuit as the directions were not clear (at least to this old man).
I must say that DIY was very helpful in getting my issues resolved and I look forward to getting the system on the engine and firing it up.

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John - Slow and Steady. . . Well slow anyway
Build Loghttp://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=6245

I'm using the V3 board. Yes, I have a stimulator. I have been through the MS Extra Forum several times, it has been a big help. Why can't that info be incorporated into the instructions? This will be used on a Duratec 2.5 out of a 2010 Fusion.

In my opinion, the problem with the instructions is that they were written by a VERY knowledgeable fellow. As a result, he does not understand the confusion and questions that arise in the mind of a first time builder. This is a very complex piece of gear, usually described very tersely, such as "The MB 15". What the hell is an MB 15? 30 minutes later you find out.

I would like to say this is not my first dance in the electonic device assembly ballroom. Assembled a couple of stereo receivers back in the day, so I thought I had a good handle on what to expect. I certainly was wrong about that. What I learned was how good the 1970 instructions were. Oh yes, the receivers were my first project.

Bill

Heck, I ~taught~ electronics for 7 years. I found the MegaSquirt instructions difficult to follow at times.

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The Lethal Locost
The Lethal Locost 2 - Even More Lethalerer

Thanks for that post Greg! I feel so much better. Really was questioning my choice of ECU and my grey matter condition when re-reading the ignition section for the 20th time and still not quite getting it.

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Larry in Seattle

Heath electronics kits, I remember doing those

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"There are times when a broken tool is better than a sound one, or a twisted personality more useful than a whole one.
For instance, a whole beer bottle isn't half the weapon that half a beer bottle is ..." Randall Garrett

These were not Heath. Eico. Nice kit, still have one of the receivers, use it in the shop.

Bill

I have spent a career in electronics and IMO, the Megasquirt instructions were, well, sort of adequate, if you followed only one writeup. If you ventured out and gathered info from all points of the compass (inter-web), then all confusion ensues. I built mine to run a rotary which was off the main path at the time. Fortunately, I had good people over on the RX7 board to guide me, including one person who was a contributor to the MS Extra firmware development. The toughest part for me was determining just what circuits I needed and what I could leave depopulated. there is a lot of decision making required. And even then there were different approaches to solving the problems.

I never built a Heathkit, however I have repaired many Heathkit and Allied Radio (Knightkit) pieces of equipment and built a few Southwest Technical audio amps. I have also built from scratch, FM tuners, a pay-TV decoder (remember those?) and designed various pieces of manufacturing control systems, and some other commercial equipment. Electronics is not foreign to me. But to successfully implement a Megasquirt takes some determination.

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Chuck.

“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766

I have always felt that the part that makes MegaSquirt somewhat challenging is that it is one platform designed to address every possible engine configuration. I found it very helpful to download the schematics and understand each section and to keep them separate in my mind. Each circuit is really simple on its own. The rest of the documentation is hardly needed except to know where the parts go on the board. Simulator is absolute necessity for testing. Tuner Studio is the way to go for software.
Try to keep things simple. Every problem I ever had with MegaSquirt came from one of 5 sources. Ground loops or inadequate grounding...its amazingly fussy about proper grounding, inadequate shielding of inputs...shields get grounded at the same point as everything else or they are not effective...oh the noise!, incomplete removal of flux which becomes conductive enough over time to make the transistors short out...I use an LED probe to follow signals around the board, Low voltage in the car from sitting around...some circuits work, some don't. And lastly, incomplete solder joints which eventually failed after years of service...cant blame anyone but myself for any of the above issues.
I will say that if its your first MS build and if you don't take the time to really understand the unit, your odds of success are much lower. Its not rocket science, but its not a light switch either.

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Parts left out cost nothing and cause no problems!!

Why should it be necessary to understand the unit in order to assemble a standard kit? Or to setup spark, injectors and such?

Bill

Hi Bill,
The whole Megasquirt scene is touted as an educational experience. The first page at megasquirt.com says "In general, the MegaSquirt® family of EFI Controllers by Bowling and Grippo is not designed to be a 'no hassle' solution to user's EFI needs. Instead it is intended to be an educational process. As a result, a large amount of reading and study is required. "
They are up front about the fact that there are some complicated bits.
There are many systems on the market that are fully packaged right from the vendor and are truly plug and play. This is most definitely not MegaSquirt. You can buy a plug and play MegaSquirt, but if you change one thing on the motor, you are back in the soup with the rest of us.
On the other hand, what I was pointing out is that electrically, its really all very basic circuits. None of it is really hard to understand. But!!!, if you don't take the time to understand it you will probably really struggle.
Anyone that can build a car can do this! You just have to look at it as another project.
Paul

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Parts left out cost nothing and cause no problems!!

^^^ What Paul said!

The MS "kit" (not the plug and play units) is a universal ECU with a lot of options to choose from. You can pick and choose based on your specific engines needs or your particular wants. For instance, if you run an idle air bypass circuit, you can add a circuit for that. But there are several types of bypass valves and you must determine which type you are using and then implement that style. Or you can build the unit based on whether you are driving the coil(s) directly or just sending a signal to their external igniter(s). Want to get rid of that big ugly OEM MAF sensor in the intake? Just remove it and then change the software to run as "Speed Density" (intake vacuum vs RPM). If you have an engine that has little to no prior reference implementations, you can load a fuel table or ignition table from scratch. The capability of the single MegaSquirt "kit" to run any particular engine far exceeds that of almost any other ECU system. People are using the same basic MS "kit" to run everything from simple Briggs and Stratton engines, to Motorcycles, 3 cylinder gas engines, diesel engines, race cars and more. And the capabilities are constantly expanding.

Once up and running, if you want to do an engine swap? No need to buy a new ECU, you just modify your existing MS circuits and firmware as necessary and away you go. Try doing that with OEM proprietary or other 3rd party EFI controllers. Want to change your engine from a single Throttle Body to ITB's no problem! Run throttle position based fuel control or a weighted hybrid mix.

The advantage to the MS "kit", is that you learn a lot along the way. The disadvantage is that you have to learn a lot. If you are not into learning this much, you always have the option to purchase a MS plug and play system or some other mfg'rs controller.

If you understand the circuits, you can easily save a lot of $$. For instance, my system is the base MS-II kit. No adapter boards, No relay boards, no interface boxes of any kind. I chose the options for my engine and just wired up directly to the unit's connector. I had to build it to drive my special rotary ignition system. I also added a few on-board drivers to control my 1)cooling fan, 2) Auxiliary port pump and 3) my 2-speed fuel pump; all by simply adding external 2-dollar 30 amp relays and without purchasing extra Megasquirt add-on modules. The open source Megasquirt project allows for such customization.

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Chuck.

“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766

I built a MSII v3.0 to control the fuel and ignition on the Triumph Spitfire engine in my car. I am certainly NOT an electronics guy. As far as I'm concerned, electronics are indistinguishable from magic.

That said, I built the computer from a DIYAutotune kit. I printed out the assembly instructions from the Megasquirt website. (I must add that they were easy to follow and seemed to be complete.) The parts from DIYAutotune were all in labeled packages so you simply removed the part you needed and soldered it onto the board. As a prelude to the CPU assembly I built the relay board and a stimulator kit to hone my soldering skills. I also had a lot of advice from a friend who repaired electronics for a living.

Before building the CPU though, it is necessary to determine the basic layout of the system you will use. Like Chuck said, you can modify the CPU to meet your needs, but you must know what those needs are.

I will confirm that a lot of study is needed and that is the difficult part. Many of the answers on the MS website are answered, but assume a level of knowledge that the questioner may not have. They thus may be somewhat incomplete. It takes a lot of reading to put all the pieces together.

So far, I have had no problems resulting from the construction or wiring of the MS system. I am quite pleased with the installation. I figure if I can do it, certainly anyone who can pay attention to details should be able to do it as well.

Bill B.

You don't have to learn everything about it, but you do need to learn the input and output circuits and the related sensors etc.

Not that complex, just work on one at a time.
Plenty to read and lots of folks who can help.
And there is a great support forum.

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Honey anyone?

Update on my progress.

"Finished" the board assembly. My eyeshight has deteriorated to the point I need a lot of magnification to see anything in detail. When I use magnification, my right eye shuts down and I see in 2 D. As a result, I had a lot of brown racing stripes on the larger caps. But I figured I'd go for it.

My son was contacted to install the firmware. I knew there was not a chance in Hell I could do that. He could get the laptop to "see" the MegaSquirt, but not open any ports. Damn! No idea what the problem might be. Fried component, bad soldering job (not likely) or components installed incorrectly. Seeing as how I wanted to get the job done not only in this lifetime, but in this spring, I opted to buy an assembled MS3.

Got the new unit, which had firmware installed. Son got TunerStudio installed, using Windows. When I asked my son about the instructions, he said the information was all there, you just had to figure out how to use it. He could not get it to install it using Ubuntu.

Plugged MS into the Alpine. It would not accept changes made to TunerStudio. Went to the Forum, determined the system was operating properly, so I checked out my wiring. Found that MS was not powering down when the ignition was turned "Off". MS has to experience a power cycle in order to "burn" changes. I had 4 volts at the MS relay at all times. Not enough to turn it on, but enough to hold it on. Problem solved.

Next up, MS could not "see" the TPS, even though I had the correct change in resistance on the correct leads when measured at the MegaSquirt harness connector. Back to the Forum. This time, the solution was to load the newest firmware. That ticked me off. The unit had been shipped two weeks after the release of the newest firmware, but with the old firmware. Son installed the new firmware. Made all the settings - things were looking good.

Time to test crank. MS would not sync. I was getting a tach reading but no sync. Double Damn! What to do? The Duratec is a very tight fit in the Alpine. Just getting to the VR sensor requires removal of a motor mount. So I dug out the stimulator. Set it up to simulate a 36-1 toothed wheel, but MS could not see it. Fiddled with MS, found the pots had not been adjusted for VR, even though it was properly jumpered. So I had a tach reading while on the stim, but still no sync. Back to the Forum. Answered some questions about the setup, determined the MegaSquirt is properly configured and the stim is generating a beautiful signal. But it still will not sync and have gone 36 hours with no further advice.

By the way, I see these problems as part of the learning experience. I still see no excuse for the tangled web of build instructions.

Bill

Unfortunately your story is more the norm. I've many more horror stories than stories about it "just working".

I almost bought a Eunos (Miata) the other day, but it had a Megasquirt on it. We talked & talked and while he began talking about how good it was by the end of the conversation he was talking about how easy it was to make changes. And it seemed he had to do that all the time. It seems to take more fiddling that ponts and carbuerators. I had enough of that growing up. No more points or carbs for me - and no megasquirt either.

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mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.