Fred's firmware development diary

[Fred]

Day 19: More discussions on various things, some progress on the DDL, some fine tuning of the basics in the dirty side project, got that working. Yay. Lapped valves some more, still leaking a little.

Tomorrow: Final lapping of valves no matter if they keep leaking, clean head fully and apply to block and begin reassembly. I've got some testing of SeanK's loader to do, and need to get MTXMAN to build me a windows MTX to play with 3.1.0 of ms2extra with on my friends car. If SeanS has anything for me to test, I'll be into that too, very keen to try out his stuff :-) If the weather isn't horrible I'll slice the flange off the fwd sump, finally. (It's been raining for a few days...) If it's still horrible and wet I might go looking for some fittings for PCV goodness.

The DDL needs some serious work put into it. A draft file with some of the basics in it seems like a good idea now. Actually doing it should help us flesh out how it needs to be done... Hopefully I/we can nail that over the next few days. That file/format is the last thing stopping MTX from having full support. Once the file/format is produced I need to create an XSD to verify that it is valid and an XSLT to churn out C/H and restructure things slightly to allow a generic approach to including that code.

Marcos got ECUManager back up to working spec today too, so I moved his forum to the front page next to MTX. I might have to build and try that too.

Fred.

[Fred]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQd5VMvBqQY

A Spin 1 Puma partly assembled and reading the crank wheel correctly on a vehicle with 60-2 VR setup.

Well done Marcos! :-)

[Fred]

Day 20: Coded, argued about code, lapped valves for the last time, etc, the head is sitting on the block ready for a final clean and torquing down. Caught up with a friend and met his lovely lady, gave him an in person git lesson, broke the IRC channel by drinking wine and typing commands that I didn't understand, laughed a lot, fixed it again. Slept on the couch.

Day 21: Picked up some PCV fittings and modified the cam cover to accept them. Another piece of the ute puzzle complete :-) I'll probably do some more coding tonight, and may post more about that if/when anything interesting happens. Dave told me to set him up with info about the tables that I want tunable in the interim before the XML stuff is done, so I should probably do that first so he can carry on.

Tomorrow: (and maybe tonight) Start reassembling the engine, cut the flange off of the fwd sump, think about posting a turbo/mani to ozzy that I've had here for WAY too long (how embarrassing...), get dave his info, work on the XML, code on the side project, code on the sched, code on the decoders. Note, I overfill these lists on purpose so I never run out, and always have an idea what is happening the day after.

I'm looking to have the ute running again (on some other really crap EMS) by the end of next week. That gives me a month (before my goal end date) to get it running FreeEMS, post that turbo to Oz, talk to the IRD (IRS for yanks), clear out my storage and get the ute into it again, and kiss my beautiful country goodbye again :-( At least I'll be on my way to nice places with nice people and I'll get to seem my good woman for the first time in several months eventually, yay. The things a man will do for love and pride. FreeEMS will benefit greatly from this move, I promise.

Fred.

[Fred]

Just a little treat for everyone, commit graphs for all the major components over the last year. Each bar is a week. Blue is the owner doing the work, grey is not. BUT, if you have your stuff setup wrongly, you'll be grey.. Marcos!!! fix your commit details or github setup.

Me:



Marcos:




SeanK:




Dave mtxman:



SeanS / EssEss



Note, everyone is working their arse off to make this happen. Six people at the moment (Jared not listed because his commits are done by Marcos at the moment). Pretty cool in and of itself IMO.

More to come!

Fred.

[Fred]

The second engine to run on FreeEMS? It probably will be unless Marcos beats me to it! Would it be unprofessional to sabotage the code temporarily to stack the odds? :-)

http://stuff.fredcooke.com/f8dohc/

Fred.

[Fred]

Day 22 - Spent some time reading up on antlr.org about data format processing and document generation. i honestly can't remember what else I got up to other than the usual IRC dev chatter and testing, but I was busy doing *something* of use!
Day 23 - SFA - party at the house, all day. Hacked on side project in the evening till i got tired.
Day 24 - Cleaned and torqued down the head (to 100nm!). Washed and installed the cams with assembly lube. Assembled the top end of the engine and fitted the new well ventilated cam cover.
Day 25 - Torqued/locktighted cam pulleys, adjust screws and main pulley on. Stayed up all night and did a little testing on the loader at some point.
Day 26 - Went to pick a part and found myself a spare sump and the much needed pickup tube, maybe more later this evening.
Tomorrow: Obtain my welder, and a bottle of gas, and have dinner with some people I used to work with that I haven't seen in 4 years +.

[Fred]

Day 27: The plan in the last post was executed perfectly!
Day 28: Unloaded the welder, assembled it, cleaned it, cleaned up the garage, including organising all tools, marked the damage to the sump for repair, helped on another car, educated someone (you know who you are) about reliability in turbo cars, cleaned the oil pickup tube, etc. Mainly preparing for battle today! Also updated the puma site. In the evening I restructured the firmware slightly, but didn't test it on winblows.
Today! Welding/cutting/grinding/assembling/testing build on winblows, making some more structural changes to clean things up a bit. Having a visit from a friend with a truck very much like mine :-)

I'll post again later when I know what I achieved and have a plan for tomorrow.

Fred.

[Fred]

Day 29: cutting, welding, grinding of sump parts, structural changes to code base, visit from friend, just as I planned.
Day 30: R&D @ 4&R Nationals. 18 hour day, some sunburn...
Day 31: Cleaning of sumps and fitting of flange, welding, making spacer, etc.
Today: Assemble engine, clearance chassis, attach clutch/flywheel, clean bell housing, clean engine mounts, install engine, buy fittings for oil pressure/temp sensors, weld bung into sump, etc. Something freeems in the evening.
Tomorrow and next few days: install accessories, turbo, exhaust, plumbing, mounts, etc etc. Modify intake manifold and coil bracket and clean up coolant pipes, buy hose for breatheres, buy hose for radiator cross pipe.
Soon: solder one wire in cab, install boost, oil pres, oil temp gauges, adjust req fuel in ms2e box by 10% and test drive the ute.

[Fred]

Day 32: Searched through spare parts for several things, found them, went shopping for fittings, got weld in NPT female, and NPT to BSP T for pressure, and hose for breather, welded bung into sump for oil temp gauge/sensor, cleaned sump bolts, attached sump to engine with sealant/bolts, cleaned up tools/parts etc. Engine is ready to go in!
Tomorrow: Clearance chassis, attach clutch/flywheel, clean bell housing, clean engine mounts, install engine, etc. Something freeems in the evening.
The next few days: install accessories, turbo, exhaust, plumbing, mounts, etc etc. Modify intake manifold and coil bracket and clean up coolant pipes.
Soon: solder one wire in cab, install boost, oil pres, oil temp gauges, adjust req fuel in ms2e box by 10% and test drive the ute.

[Fred]

This is the 400th post in this thread! Hopefully I'll be posting with some good news in a few weeks.

Day 33: Clearanced chassis, attached clutch/flywheel, cleaned bell housing, cleaned engine mounts, dropped engine into the hole, but didn't bolt it up.
Today: Install some plumbing and other hard to reach items then bolt up the engine, starter, alternator, braces, ex side stuff, etc.
The next few days: install accessories, turbo, exhaust, plumbing, mounts, etc etc. Modify intake manifold and coil bracket and clean up coolant pipes.
Soon: solder one wire in cab, install boost, oil pres, oil temp gauges, adjust req fuel in ms2e box by 10% and test drive the ute.