UltimateTuner Comments Thread

Reference implementations of various tools for use with FreeEMS. Written in Java for my personal use, they're 100% cross platform, 100% compatible and 100% reliable with thorough test coverage.
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ToxicGumbo
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UltimateTuner Comments Thread

Post by ToxicGumbo »

As the title says, this is the comments thread for Fred's progress on UltimateTuner, which can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=2646

Questions, criticism, words of encouragement...all are welcome.


-Jeff
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Re: UltimateTuner Comments Thread

Post by Fred »

Critique: Why the hell didn't Fred do this at the start, and why the hell hasn't he started yet??? My 2c. Not sure you can start a comments thread without making a comment, though. Might have to ban you for that? :-D
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Re: UltimateTuner Comments Thread

Post by ToxicGumbo »

Development of a new FreeEMS tuning application is a welcomed announcement. I'm thankful to have been a small part of earlier projects and to those who have addressed (and attempted to address) bugs in the other tuning app of late, but with the primarily developer exercising his interests elsewhere and with some of the issues discovered running fairly deep, I'm eager to see something 100% focused on FreeEMS and safety.

Safe to say that this will be Java-based, portable, and to Fred-spec?

My biggest disappointment with earlier tuning options has been the lack of labeling or simply "good enough" documentation in some fashion. I always had to look up how (usually in my own notes or scattered across posts) to adjust fuel delivery & spark on an installed ECU, for instance. Concerns of such things wrong or not trusting my own notes often deterred me from setting aside time to work. A user-cotributable support wiki, a bundled readme, or built-in Help menu option that parses a text file or URL would be nice for quick tips like this. Documentation always starts small, but saves everyone time and engines.

The other shows stopper for me was: incorrect cell highlighting behavior, simple path issues for reading in the gauges (which seemed to be a disparity in directory naming and case sensitivity between operating system builds).

If you can promise access to labeled graphs and common memory blocks while delivering stable visual feedback, UltimateTuner lives up to its name. Bonus points for dealing with bogged down comms on old EeePCs like mine.


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Re: UltimateTuner Comments Thread

Post by Fred »

What are "labeled graphs", or is this referring to log viewing?

+1 on stuff like cell highlighting and much much worse. These sorts of issues really kill the fun, waste oodles of time, and make it scary to do anything.

I would tend to favour intuitive and obvious behaviour over extensive docs, however some simple tool tips certainly aid in learning something faster. I'll be taking usability feedback most seriously as it's easiest to get wrong, esp for a dev like me: http://blog.codinghorror.com/this-is-wh ... create-ui/

In fact, the strip of numbers at the bottom of this one reminds me of my terrible scatter plot view in ULV: http://weblogs.asp.net/alex_papadimoulis/146784

Ok, cancel that, I'm not this bad... http://okcancel.com/comic/4.html

Yesterday morning something that I've been working on all year (since 4th Jan...) came to its natural conclusion, so I'm down to house cleaning, garage cleaning, Volvo WOFing, and caravan phase 1ing. Some of that is still urgent as the land lord would likely kill me if he visited right now. But I can interleave some coding into the scheme as time and desire allow. I was working on reconciling some issues with ULV source over the last few days, but didn't quite finish that yet. Hoping to soon, so I can progress it a little more immediately afterward.

Fred.
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Re: UltimateTuner Comments Thread

Post by ToxicGumbo »

I'll rephrase "labeled graphs" to "memory location cells" as I recall table views all being labeled. I kept losing my place as to what values I need to change for flipping on/off injectors, changing timing info, etc.

I never investigated the mechanics behind MTX's gauge designer, but almost wish gauge design could be as easy as a zero-bordered table with color-changeable gauge needle & tickmarks, bit with a transparent background for a user-changeable image in that cell. Perhaps two scale levels (full size, half size) so one can cluster gauges in a snap-to-grid way, lock the arrangement, then save to cluster profile.

Whatever comes of the gauge display--if there is one--I'd love for it to be polishable enough to double as a dash-display. Ie. invoke UT with a command line argument to go straight into fullscreen gauge mode.

Edit: That last part sound very pro-tablet in a way. Would be ideal with a touchscreen and a one-tap logging red/green button amongst the gauges.


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Re: UltimateTuner Comments Thread

Post by Fred »

A picture is worth a thousand words. I'm guessing, though that you meant the memory/tunable data list that has names for each coarse chunk and an array of meta data in tabular form? lambda, ve, timing, fixed 1, warm up, etc? If so, it's kinda hard to mask this except through some sort of preset "tuning view" with various components shown and not shown to suit the particular task at hand. Although things not taking effect should be greyed out, impossible to do well without extensive meta data.

Gauges and dashes are a certainty, but not a priority. They might happen at some point soon in the cycle due to need, or not.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
FreeEMS.org - the open source engine management system
FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
The ever growing list of FreeEMS success stories!
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