DIYEFI.org Forum

Hi, Young Cam made a good suggestion this morning after being prompted to comment on the bit count for VE tables. It wasn't relevant to that discussion though, nor any other existing one, so here is a thread where you tell the world what you want in a tuning tool. Feel free to include anything in any existing tuning tool that you want and also anything that you have seen that you would really like to avoid. This thread is for user interface/human interface material only.

I'll start the list with one from cam and one from me :

What do you want to see in the future main FreeEMS tuning tool?

• Coarse and fine adjustment of tabular values, eg, +/-5 or +/-0.5 so you can get close faster. (Cam)
• Ability to select an area of points and raise or lower them all by an offset of % (Fred)
• Your suggestion here!

What do you NOT want to see in the future main FreeEMS tuning tool?

• Incomprehensible configuration files 8 miles long (Fred)
• Your suggestion here!

Go for it.

Fred.

I have to say, I'm somewhat surprised that no one has any firm opinions on what they want to see in the way of an interface.

Perhaps that will change with time? It would be better for any devs contemplating it if they had a good idea what you wanted before they started as it will minimise rework.

Fred.

I am comfortable with numbers most of the time but a good visualization helps me much more - so here is my "pie in the sky" thought - how about a graphical representation of the "engine" in the tuner software - for example it can "playback" the amount of air moving through the engine or the amount of fuel going into the engine and the VE changes etc..... OK I am having trouble explaining this concept now - well - instead of having to think of a number and then having to "imagine" how that particular number will affect multiple things - how about a visualization tool that shows what *might* happen when a particular number is tweaked..... I am just trying to get the discussion started - if it seems like a good idea i will be glad to lend any coding support (VC++, VB etc etc etc).

shameem wrote:I am comfortable with numbers most of the time but a good visualization helps me much more - so here is my "pie in the sky" thought - how about a graphical representation of the "engine" in the tuner software - for example it can "playback" the amount of air moving through the engine or the amount of fuel going into the engine and the VE changes etc..... OK I am having trouble explaining this concept now - well - instead of having to think of a number and then having to "imagine" how that particular number will affect multiple things - how about a visualization tool that shows what *might* happen when a particular number is tweaked..... I am just trying to get the discussion started - if it seems like a good idea i will be glad to lend any coding support (VC++, VB etc etc etc).

I see where you are going with this: for example in Megasquirt the engine parameter wizard allows you to enter info about your engine in order to generate REQ_FUEL etc, but of course the ECU doesn't use this info due to unneeded complicated math. However, the tuning tool could use this information about your engine to calculate parameters like "g/sec", "fuel flow rate" etc real time in a nice graphical environment. Leaning more on the professional use side a bit, one could use "calculated g/sec" vs actual g/sec air flow rate from a MAF while tuning the VE table, then when they match in real time you know you have a good VE table. Once the table is dialed in, the MAF would stay with the tuner.

Overall I think it would help the user understand the "engine model" even if the firmware doesn't.

I just ran across these :

http://bellsouthpwp2.net/s/_/s_moseley/ ... index.html







And this which is from the new one that is being developed by the MLV author (closed source for profit) :



Just some ideas :-)

Fred.

A few ideas from various people :

With regards table axis values :

If the axis spacing on the tables is at user defined points, when you add the start and finish point does a box pop up and ask if you'd like it to fill in the rest of the cells proportionally spaced?

With regards table dimensions displayed and used out of maximum :

Possibly a menu option used to create the artificial table size limit could be of use? Allowing you to enter any value from 1 - 21 for the kPa axis and 1-22 for the rpm axis. (Or, just let people drag and drop the corners of the map to "reveal" new, free rows/columns) You see where I'm going here?

Note, it would have to work on 3 parameters : Max X, Max Y and Max Total (X*Y) to allow the best flexibility. Right now RPM is Max 27, Load is Max 21 and Total is Max 462 or 924 Bytes.

With regards manual automated tuning :

Fred, one thing I'd like to see is that the table data is easily exportable to Excel. Export as CSV, import as CSV etc. VEX works fine, but I haven't had much luck getting it into tabular/comma separated format without having to do way TOO much formatting.

With gigantic tables, some of the initial tuning work which could be a bit tedious in FreeEMS could possibly be easier in Excel (i.e. writing a formula to scale up several different KPA rows at one time). That said, i have no idea how you plan to have the in-table navigation work. i just know it's a little bit clunky in MS at times.

Thank you very much to those people.

Fred.

Alright, I'm gunna be a big presence here so get used to it. =]
I've currently used MegaTune with VEMS, MegaTune with MS2Extra, and AEM Pro with AEM'S EMS and am pretty well versed in all of them. I'd love to get my hands on a few others too but time will tell.

I've got strong opinions now on how things should be done because I feel I've seen some really bad stuff (MegaTune with VEMS) and some really nice stuff (AEM Pro with AEM'S EMS). I'll try to keep the suggestions rolling as I think of them. For starters, I'd like to elaborate on Fred's suggestion of "grabbing a portion of the map and applying a % change" (which might have been my idea to begin with =] ). There is a natural progression from that idea which would basically end up at the way AEM Pro does things. And I'll tell you, if you haven't tuned a fuel map with AEM Pro or something similar to it you're completely missing out. It is a completely different way of tuning that you get used to quickly, and should enjoy. If not, nothing of value is lost.

Here's the idea:

Every cell should be selectable using common keyboard shortcuts (holding Shift or Ctrl and clicking, or click-dragging a box area for Windows users) in any combination. Once selected one should be able to make relative changes (add/subtract discrete amounts, multiply/divide by factors), set the cell values to a new distinct value, or (and here's the fun part) do what AEM Pro calls "Calculate rows" or "Calculate columns" which takes the start and end value of a selected section of row (or column) of cells and fills in the middle cells with values such that there is a perfect linear transition in value between the first and last cell.

Something that AEM Pro has that would be a great asset as well would be a 3D map view for both fuel and spark and any other map that it makes sense for. I'm sure this is in the plans already, but I wanted to make sure it was voiced. Once again, if you haven't tuned with a 3D map, you're severely missing out.

This is a must as far as I'm concerned and one of the reasons I pleasure in tuning with AEM Pro and am beginning to loath tuning in MegaTune with VEMS, and can only barely tolerate MegaTune with MS2Extra.

I'll post some pictures of examples of what I'm talking about so you can see where I'm coming from. Pics coming tonight.

The more presence the better, esp if it involves contributing code and ideas and usage feedback etc :-)

I'm sure Aaron will love to hear about it!

Fred.

Oh yes, I am listening intently

One of the big things missed out from MT is the ability to have the VE and Adv tables open on the same page.

Also where MT has Auto VE tune it should also have to option to Auto tune Adv table based on feedback from knock sensing.

The ability to adjust the Auto tuning window would be good too if i want to risk having the WBO2 sensor determine AFR at tickover or WOT that should be my choice not the software's.

also what would be rather cool is an option to control auxiliary outputs based upon a map where you select the axis from existing input variables, E.g. MAP,TPS,CLT etc etc not just having and on or off conditional arrangement like MT.