MS Clone Historical Listing

[Fred]

I stumbled upon a link to this earlier today:

http://msextra.com/doc/clones/index.html

And found a few things in it quite comical! So I thought I'd give my commentary here.

EDIT: Also worth a LOL: http://www.megamanual.com/license.htm

Fred.

[Fred]

M-Tech Automotive V4 ECU is mentioned and the comment is this:

"Later, M-tech marketed an ECU calling it the 'V4 ECU' or 'V4 Engine Management'. This was a clone and uses MS2/Extra illegally. Apparently it is no longer for sale."

Which is funny, so I gave MTech a ring on their number, +441373303033, and they said "Yes, discontinued, 2 months ago, 2 new designs coming soon."! to which I said "And these are your own designs?" and he said "yes" and I said "unlike the old ones?" and he said "yes, that's right.". Which leaves me wondering... is the sentence "Apparently it is no longer for sale." accurate? I mean, was it only apparent, or did James threaten them with legitimate legal action and finally force them to stop selling clones? I can't think of why they'd bite the bullet and try to develop their own system given how difficult and complex it is to do that, unless they were forced to. It certainly wouldn't surprise me, however it's obviously pure speculation on my part. Link to ex product, soon to be pulled down, apparently. http://www.mtechautomotive.co.uk/engine ... nt/v4-ecu/ I grabbed a couple of pics from it, and a copy of that page, for reference here in future...

http://stuff.fredcooke.com/ms/clones/mt ... CUV4.4.jpg

http://stuff.fredcooke.com/ms/clones/mt ... CUV4.5.jpg

http://stuff.fredcooke.com/ms/clones/mt ... CUV4.6.jpg

[Fred]

Next up is KDFI, which has a fairly good looking module board using an 80 pin version of the MS2 CPU, which is what B&G should have done in the first place...

http://www.k-data.org/kdfi-1-4.html

It's also available in a carrier board, an enclosure, and a bunch of PNP setups.

http://www.k-data.org/kdfi-1-4-basic.html
http://www.k-data.org/kdfi-v1-4-with-enclosure.html

It's easy to see why this has the MSExtra crew with their tits in a tangle!















I also have some high res pics here, dated May 21st 2010: http://stuff.fredcooke.com/kdfi/pic1.jpg http://stuff.fredcooke.com/kdfi/pic2.jpg http://stuff.fredcooke.com/kdfi/pic3.jpg

Fred.

[Fred]

Next in the list is the UMS, AKA Ultimate Mini Squirt, this MS1-compatible board, as they call it, claims to run custom firmware that works with GPL'ed MegaTune. James on the other hand claims it's for running MS1-Extra. Either could be the truth, or both. If the board was built for custom firmware, and designed to be pinout compatible, it's not the maker's problem if a user decides to break the license on James' firmware and install it on the board.



Cached copy of it: http://stuff.fredcooke.com/ms/clones/UM ... C02625.JPG

URL for the product: http://www.m1n1.de/html/body_programmab ... sic_m.html

[Fred]

Next in line is the UMC from No Limits Motorsport, current product link here: http://no-limits-motorsport.de/shop/pro ... product=35

As James states, they claim it's generic, but the claim is pretty transparent and they were silly enough to use the same CPU as the MS2 rather than a superior and 100% compatible cousin. Last time I checked development boards don't usually have "fuel pump outputs"...

Pics:







They also have an UMC 1 unit here: http://no-limits-motorsport.de/shop/pro ... roduct=120















This looks very unprofessional IMO.

Cached pics here if required:

http://stuff.fredcooke.com/ms/clones/UMC1
http://stuff.fredcooke.com/ms/clones/UMC2