MembersPage/DavidBlades/SenTest (2006-05-27 06:41:18)

Fitting sensors


Testing the Sensors

I've bench tested the NTC sensors and they work in pots of water at varying temperatures. Here's a picture of my "lab" (kitchen)

sensor_cal_sml.jpg

I need to add a IAT sensor to the plenum somewhere. Found one in a scrappy for £1. It works nicely. Here's a shot of it installed in the plenum.

iat.jpg

Coolant and IAT sensor tables have been calibrated manually.

For some reason EasyTherm always produced the wrong answers

AREF for my Genboard is wrong - Fixing it

The value for AREF was wrong, so I fixed it using instructions on BuildProcedures/SectionThree.

Q: However in doing so I clumsily disturbed capacitor C5, so had to replace it. Should it be 0.22uF? (Or does it not really matter?)

  • yes, 220nF originally (but as you say, 100 nF would be just as good) at position 35.53, 1.3 mm from the fiducial point:\nÿ1ÿ

At least I can believe the EasyTherm answers now.

The Steinhart-Hart equations were solved (by hand in one case!) and they give the correct temperature for the resistance according to my measurements.

S-H CLT IAT
A 1.22E-036.12E-04
B 2.76E-043.90E-04
C 7.26E-08-4.99E-07

I recorded the temperature reported by the ECU for a selection of known resistances with the original GM curves compiled into the firmware. This let me know what A to D bin each resistance fitted in, so I could then build correction tables using an excel workbook for my sensors and compiled these into the firmware.

[To add: Excel workbooks for calibration]

Recently, I found that the IAT sensor was getting heat soaked. It has been moved from the plenum to the drainpipe where the MAF sensor used to be. The car is much happier with this - and it doesn't get heat soaked as much now.


Wideband Lambdas

I have done some work on the exhaust so the widebands will fit. Two new bosses have been welded in as the LSUs are bigger than the old sensors.

I've fitted two - one for each bank.

We need to modify the firmware for the 2nd to be supported.

[Add pic of modded exhaust]


Firmware mods for 2 widebands

We have some code in the round to be backported (mostly prepared for 2 channels, but some more changes still needed)

Calibration of WBO2

This is well documented in the wiki and manual, but the q & a here is interesting to keep.

The cal resistor in the wideband sensor is NOT connected. We use the wbo2_calibration setting in firmware instead of the cal resistor. Just measure the cal resistor for verification

A: The calibration resistor is not used in the v3.x wideband controller implementation, calibration is done trough adjustment of the calibration constant until your free-air o2% matches 20.95%. However, measure and document Rcal (allows verification of wbo2_calibration value). Don't forget that wbo2_calibration value is sensor dependent.


First show-stopper?

For no good reason, battery calibration has gone wrong. Two days ago, cal value of 187 read correctly. Now, the same cal value gives 18.6v. The only change has been to fit some bigger injectors. (Same sort of HighZ injectors, so should be no different)

All the wiring has been checked, and it's OK. So what's caused the change?

The wideband lambda has also given up. Megatune says it is turned off, but the LCD shows changes to EGO correction, but never displays a lambda reading. This problem appeared at the same time as the battery cal. I suspect a connection between the 2 - most likely A to D related.

Going to try a firmware update tonight to make sure it's not a memory corruption issue.

The ECU is 6 months old. Number 326. I did the required AREF mods a month ago and there have been no issues with it until now.

The mod is intact. Component values all look OK, but voltage is nothing like the expected 4.9ish (much lower).

The ECU voltage reading, WBO2 free air value and the TPS maximum point seem to drift around a bit - implying something somewhere is left floating.

All I can think of is that the AVR chip A to D has died or a track problem has shown up on the PCB. Either way, it doesn't look good.

Could really do with some help on this one :( Got to get the car back on the road ASAP - I don't think it'll be happy running with this problem.


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