Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Discuss MegaSquirt, VEMS and other non-free hardware and software here.
DonTZ125
QFP80 - Contributor
Posts: 57
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2013 5:43 am
Location: Scarborough, ON
Contact:

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by DonTZ125 »

*snicker* Now we'll have people making YouTube videos with O2 sensors and paint thinner ... :lol2:
HelmutVonAutobahn
LQFP112 - Up with the play
Posts: 109
Joined: Fri Nov 29, 2013 12:10 am

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by HelmutVonAutobahn »

Carbon fouling could be an explanation for long term failures. But, I see complaints of the "error 8" problems popping up with brand new sensors, out of the blue. To me, that says fractured element / thermal shock.

Also, any chemical that could remove carbon buildup would likely poison the platinum catalyst in the sensor. Maybe better to purposely run the sensor at maximum temp for a few hours to burn it off ?
turbotech
TO92 - Vaguely active
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Dec 04, 2013 4:23 pm

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by turbotech »

Fred wrote:I have a question, when you say "accurate" how accurate meats the definition of "accurate", when you say inaccurate you give a number eg 0.5 or 1.0 (:-o!!!), so is accurate <0.1 or <0.01 or?

May I interpret your post to place a "would buy" against your own, techedge, innovate and plx, a "would not" against the others you listed, and nothing against any others that are there (if any)?

Another question, when you say you value reliability, do you mean failure or do you mean consistency of results?

Personally I want it to be accurate and fast, and not fail, in that order. If it does fail, that's OK, as long as I know about it and can replace it with a superior device. Having it slow is a huge problem while trying to tune based on logs with any dynamic content. Have you ever driven anywhere without moving your right foot for significant periods of time? I doubt it :-)

With respect to accuracy, on the rich side, I'd want it to be wrong saying leaner than reality. Any amount richer than reality invites you to tune your car leaner than you think, and melt things. On that basis 0.5 AFR richer than reality is an utter utter fail for me.

FWIW, I only put current things in the list. If I was putting older stuff, your old JAW units would have got a negative vote. No favourites here either :-)

I really value and appreciate your input on this! Thanks :-)

Fred.
I have three JAW units that I have used since they first were available. One has about 15K miles on it. All 3 seem to read/report 1.0 leaner than actual AFR since day one.
Why would you not recommend them?
Is the AFR reporting in error?
Too slow?
Do not control sensor temp properly?

How do they compare to the SLC Free?
Should I upgrade to SLC Free?
When will SLC Free be available? I don't see it on the 14point7 website
toalan
Wideband Wizard
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:53 am
Location: Toronto Canada
Contact:

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by toalan »

turbotech wrote:
Fred wrote:I have a question, when you say "accurate" how accurate meats the definition of "accurate", when you say inaccurate you give a number eg 0.5 or 1.0 (:-o!!!), so is accurate <0.1 or <0.01 or?

May I interpret your post to place a "would buy" against your own, techedge, innovate and plx, a "would not" against the others you listed, and nothing against any others that are there (if any)?

Another question, when you say you value reliability, do you mean failure or do you mean consistency of results?

Personally I want it to be accurate and fast, and not fail, in that order. If it does fail, that's OK, as long as I know about it and can replace it with a superior device. Having it slow is a huge problem while trying to tune based on logs with any dynamic content. Have you ever driven anywhere without moving your right foot for significant periods of time? I doubt it :-)

With respect to accuracy, on the rich side, I'd want it to be wrong saying leaner than reality. Any amount richer than reality invites you to tune your car leaner than you think, and melt things. On that basis 0.5 AFR richer than reality is an utter utter fail for me.

FWIW, I only put current things in the list. If I was putting older stuff, your old JAW units would have got a negative vote. No favourites here either :-)

I really value and appreciate your input on this! Thanks :-)

Fred.
I have three JAW units that I have used since they first were available. One has about 15K miles on it. All 3 seem to read/report 1.0 leaner than actual AFR since day one.
Why would you not recommend them?
Is the AFR reporting in error?
Too slow?
Do not control sensor temp properly?

How do they compare to the SLC Free?
Should I upgrade to SLC Free?
When will SLC Free be available? I don't see it on the 14point7 website
To put things into context about JAW:
-JAW was my first wideband controller
-JAW was my first electronics project
-Prior to JAW I had no experience with widebands and no practical experience with electronics, I am an EE but I never practiced my EE craft in any serious way until JAW
-I priced JAW very cheaply, it was half the price of "the other" DIY wideband controller from Australia, the display was an additional $25

The primary issue with JAW was that it used a LM117 linear regulator to deliver power to sensor heater, the heat created was high and in cold environments it might not be able to deliver enough current to keep the sensor at proper temperature. The 5v regulator may overheat when you daisy chained more than one display on it. There are probably other issues, like I made the wrong choices for component tolerances, used electroylitc caps when I should have used solid caps, not putting in ground planes on the PCB and not isolating digital traces from analog ones.

SLC Free is essentially a trimmed down version of my current SLC products, you can do a google search and look as what people say about my SLC PP2 and DIY2 products. Though there is no track record for SLC Free as it is a new product, I expect it to be as well liked and as reliable as SLC PP2 and SLC DIY2, well as reliable as a kit that you solder yourself can be.

I am getting my website updated, I expect the new site with SLC Free will be available in 2 days.
toalan
Wideband Wizard
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:53 am
Location: Toronto Canada
Contact:

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by toalan »

HelmutVonAutobahn wrote:Carbon fouling could be an explanation for long term failures. But, I see complaints of the "error 8" problems popping up with brand new sensors, out of the blue. To me, that says fractured element / thermal shock.

Also, any chemical that could remove carbon buildup would likely poison the platinum catalyst in the sensor. Maybe better to purposely run the sensor at maximum temp for a few hours to burn it off ?
I only spoke about the carbon fouling in the context of temperature control and showing sensor temperature to the user. The primary culprit of error 8 is not carbon fouling.

Fractured element due to thermal shock is also not the primary cause of error 8, I have experienced error 8 with my own LC1 with new sensors right out of the box, the sensor sitting on the table and never been in an exhaust. I have had a few people send in their low mileage sensors with error 8 code that I have tested on my on controllers running lab gas and they all work as well and are as accurate as a brand new sensor.

I have no idea if running the sensor at high temp for a short time will work.

Can you easily open up the LC2 and look at the PCB? if so can you open it up and take a few photos of it and post it up? I wonder if they just took the existing LC1 pcb and stuffed it into a new case and called it an LC2.
User avatar
Hentai
LQFP144 - On Top Of The Game
Posts: 302
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:35 pm

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by Hentai »

Toalan any plans on making a wideband that can read even richer than .63 lambda?
HelmutVonAutobahn
LQFP112 - Up with the play
Posts: 109
Joined: Fri Nov 29, 2013 12:10 am

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by HelmutVonAutobahn »

Yes. The LC-2 housings are held together with 4 screws. Looking at the PCB ( both sides) , it is almost component-for-component the same as an LC-1. The exceptions seems to be :

1. The 5v regulator is now a switcher. This makes zero sense to me. It adds all kinds of noise. There can't be enough current draw to justify this ?

2. The DAC has been replaced with PWM output ( opamp ). Usually another source of noise.

3. No more individual ground paths. Which, adds, yet more noise.

4. The cal button/LED wire is gone. The LED is now integrated.

I see about 100mv of DAC noise with the sensor in free air. The signal clips at 22AFR ( i think ) So, there should be no measurement noise. That is just the electrical noise from the switcher, the DAC PWM and the heater drive bouncing the one ground line. I bet I would get a cleaner signal using one of the serial line grounds as a DAC reference.

As a side note, the LC-2 does not have the "instant mode" DAC output, like the LC-1. It is limited to the 1/12th second update rate. That puts t90 response times to about 180ms. This was too slow for me. So, I went back to the LC-1. With the LC-1, I get about 20ms-25ms
Attachments
inside.jpg
toalan
Wideband Wizard
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:53 am
Location: Toronto Canada
Contact:

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by toalan »

Thanks for the picture.

Did you check the underside of the PCB? I have a strong feeling there is a tonne of components on the underside.
User avatar
Fred
Moderator
Posts: 15431
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:31 pm
Location: Home sweet home!
Contact:

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by Fred »

Thanks for the picture, +1 about the other side picture. it'd be nice for the record.
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!
User avatar
Hentai
LQFP144 - On Top Of The Game
Posts: 302
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:35 pm

Re: Widebands That You Would or Wouldn't Buy

Post by Hentai »

NGK AFX
Image
Image
NGK TC-6110 D
Image
Post Reply