OpenFlash Tablet Update (Template and Tuning Alerts)
 

Hi guys,
The next time you update your OFT via WIFI and then connect to your car for datalogging, you will get a message asking you to "Update Template File." Do not panic :) You should still be able to do everything you were able to do before (flash ECU, monitor data, datalog, etc,.) You will just be missing a new icon button and the new Configure Tuning Alert function in the Diagnostic Selection Menu.

The new Template File was posted up on the website an hour ago. When you upload it to your OFT, you will see and get the new goodies. I'll be making a video later this week showing how to use the new Tuning Alert feature (it's a very powerful feature!). Until then, it's best you leave it alone or else you may find your OFT beeping and flashing its screen at you.

Cheers,
Shiv

So many vendors have come and gone. So many tuners have come and gone. You keep rocking.

:burnrubber: We certainly enjoy doing things that haven't been done before. In this case, as a tuner, I've always wanted a user configurable alert system since I can't monitor everything on the fly while I'm driving. Something that would alert me if the engine where ever to run lean, boost to spike too high, knock excessively, etc,. And I've never been able to find any such system which I've always found to be very surprising! So we created one and integrated it into the OFT :)

I'm especially happy with how easy the Tuning Alert system is to use. It will basically allow even the most novice users to upload new tunes and have comfort knowing that the OFT will literally alert them (beep and/or flash the screen) if engine doesn't perform safely like it should!

Sounds great Shiv. The only thing I more I would love to have is map switching, which I had with Ecutek. Is there anything similar on the horizon?

Thanks and keep up the great work :cheers:

@Shiv@Openflash Damn man, u busy.

Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately, things like map switching involves very ECU specific work. In other words, the work involved in developing map switching for the GT86 wouldn't carry over to our other OFT platforms (Porsche, BMW, Mazda, etc.). And currently, our software developers are only developing features, like Tuning Alerts, that are cross-platform compatible. I'm still quite optimistic when it comes to open source development seeing what has been developed for the WRX/Evo platform.

But I'll continue to develop new and improved OTS tune files for the GT86 (as well as our other supported platforms) :)

Yep! We have been working on this new feature for the past several months. It turned out to be a much more difficult job than we originally anticipated. But it was something that I felt we had to do.

Cheers
Shiv

Thank you Shiv and all the dedicated staffed at Open Flash.

Your continued contribution is appreciated by all your supporters and customers.

Wow... Awesome.

@Shiv@Openflash I know you said you will be releasing a video this week, but we want answers nowww!!! :p

How many data streams can it monitor simultaneously and provide alerts for? For things like AFR, will it watch the load as well to know that it shouldnt beep for high afr while off throttle?

Awesome work BTW.

You can configure up to 3 different Tuning Alerts. And each Tuning Alert can have up to 4 conditionals that can be set as an OR or AND condition. For available channels, it will be a subset of the up-to-14 channels you configured for data logging/viewing. So if you wanted to create a lean run alert, you would do something like this in one of the 4 Tuning Alert menus:

Throttle > 70%
Engine Speed > 2000rpm
Engine Load > 1.0
AFR > 13.0
AND

With these settings, the alert would trigger if all of those conditions were met. The throttle and engine load conditions would keep the alert from triggering during lean spikes caused by lift throttle or traction control intervention. And the RPM condition would keep it from triggering at very low RPM where AFR can be a bit unstable. The AND setting makes sure that ALL of these conditions must be true for the alert to sound. If you used an OR setting, only one of these conditions would have to be true for the alert to sound.

You must be in the Realtime Data screen for the Tuning Alerts to work. You can be in any one of the 3 viewing options (14 channel, 3 channel or graphic). One the alert triggers, the OFT will beep and the flash the screen. After that the triggered channels will flash. To reset the channel flashing, simply press the RESET button.

To create a good Tuning Alert for low Advance Mult, you can simply set up a second Tuning Alert using just one single conditional.:

Advance Multiplier < 0.5

For a good Tuning Alert for overboost, overheat and knock, you can set up a 3rd conditional like this using an OR setting (so only one single condition needs to be true for the alert to trigger):

Boost > 10psi
Coolant Temp > 240
Knock Correction < -3.0
OR

Pretty awesome, huh?

Cheers,
shiv

Why don't I have one of these yet!?!?

Finally pulled the trigger on the OFT last month after months of research and lurking on these forums. As as newb to the tuning game, all I can say is thank you for the wealth of information and value you've provided. Updates such as these continue to reinforce the value of OFT.

If you ever find yourself in San Antonio, there's a bottle of your favorite adult beverage waiting for you.

:clap:

I dunno! And yes, the OFT can be run on top of any other tuning solution (Ecutek, BRZ Edit, etc,.). Even if you don't use the OFT for tuning, this will give to you access to:

Realtime data displays
Digital gauge displays
On-board data logging
Code Reading/Clearing
and now Tuning Alerts!

Cheers,
Shiv

Man I've had my OFT for about a month now. I really need to start looking into how to really use this thing lol.

Honestly, the biggest drawback for me would be load time of the tune file with the OFT. Dyno time is at a premium and it would be hard facing precious tuning time being lost to file writing- even for the smallest changes. That's sorta the debate I'm having with the OFT. I am okay to drop ~$1000 for the Ecutek stuff but their business model stinks and would rather just avoid them entirely. I can't do a standalone EMS because of emissions laws in my region so I'm left with not much else. I guess I will continue to lurk around OFT and see what happens? But for real, OFT and it's monitoring and logging capabilities are worth the $500 alone.

Is there anyway to speed up file write times?

Speeding up writes times is easy. It just involves writing a small portion of the ROM (where the mapping data is located) instead of the whole ROM. This would reduce write times to 30 sec versus 5 minutes.

The problem with this is that it can be risky if the user doesn't know what he is doing. It's would be possible to write a portion of a ROM into a ROM file that isn't compatible. Which would result in a corrupt file and a possibly nonrecoverable ECU. This is not to say that we will never offer partial writing. But it is something that takes a good amount of time to implement correctly with sufficient safeguards for the end user.

:word: you should get one and I can set one up for you. :cheers:

Dont like contradicting anyone but taxtrix\ecuflash does complete rom write of 1280k bytes

tactrix\ecuflash does full erase first then writes complete rom its always 80 sec does not matter if your writing a couple of changes to an existing rom or a complely new rom ie different calid like updating from A01G to D00G. that has completly different structure so partial write would not work.in that case.

So its certianly possible to write a full rom in that timeframe.

Agree partial write would be a dangereous practice with all the different rom types structures, patches ect.

If they are writing the entire file in 80 seconds, that's great news. We should be able to do that as well as it would just be a matter of reducing the wait time between each CAN command. I'll CAN sniff a write through Taxtrix cable to confirm. Thanks for the info!

Cheers,
shiv

Seems like this would make using E85 without a flex fuel kit much less stressful. Very nice!

My god man, I got a chubber from reading that.

I'd like to see the OFT tablet become a "dongle" that could connect via BT or WiFi to a tablet or laptop. That would be cool.

n7777;2102108]So many vendors have come and gone. So many tuners have come and gone. You keep rocking.[/QUOTE]

And each tune only gets better as well.

That sounds like a dangerous proposition considering if you ever lost wifi or bluetooth connectivity with the device you'd be left with a partially written ECU. If you are looking for just something with a real time display of stats then torque with a bluetooth dongle will work somewhat but I cant imagine we'll ever see any tuning device offer full wireless writing to the ECU. The risks are just to high.

Just the kind of feedback I like hearing :lol:

I agree, wireless flashing sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

If one doesn't already exist, it likely wouldn't be too challenging or expensive to create an OBDII -> serial -> usb cable, and then a tablet app that could interface with it. Would enable some cool possibilities that aren't really possible on the OFT hardware.

*hint*hint* Openflash ;)

They have USB dongles that can interface with a laptop (Tactrix) and yes I realize that you are looking for a tablet app but I'm curious what cool possibilities do you envision that would be possible with such a setup that isn't possible with the current OFT?

If you can get the write times down a lot more, I'll be all over this. 80secs is good. But not the painful 5+ minutes it takes as seen in your OFT video.

Do you change hardware often enough for it to matter?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love an 80sec flash time as well but a few minutes is so far from a deciding factor for me.

You're not going to be saying that while on a dyno believe me. Especially trying to tune something more intricate like a turbo system. Street tuning, sure. But not on a dyno at $120/h and it takes 5-7min to load tiny changes!

already been messing with this, seems to work great.

Wireless tuning could be dangerous, but if the tunes were downloaded on the tablet, and then wirelessly transferred to the dongle, then the tablet really becomes just the display and data download device, much like my laptop that I wirelessly receive the tunes through now. The downloaded tunes then would reside on the dongle for upload to my the ECU. The weakest part of the OFT is the display.

It would be net to figure out how to integrate OFT with a current app like Dash Command or Torque. The OFT hardware would then look like an ELM327 that could stay plugged in. All the OFT brains would be in the little box plugged into the OBD II.

John

Got mine working yesterday finally. The old links were stuck in my cache or something i guess. Finally got the new links.

Interested in seeing a video with recommend alerts.

Sent from HTC M8 while in burnout mode

While I understand your idea in concept, it seems what your asking for adds much complexity (wifi on both devices, storage on the dongle, battery on the tablet) which would quite possibly add significantly to the cost and the only benefit would be the elimination of wires. If they were to develop an app and move to just a dongle and you use a android/iOS tablet then you add additional hardware that some would have to buy. One of the biggest selling points of the OFT is the cheap entry price and the value of what you actually get for that price.

I agree that it would be nice for those of us that already have tablets and the convenience of being able to utilize them instead of the OFT itself so one wouldn't have to swap out devices to switch between torque and tuning but at the price that such a device would command would most likely put it out of the bargain category and into a more premium market. That isn't necessarily a bad thing but I imagine the time and effort it would take to develop such a device could be better spent bettering the current device.

Chrysler does this already. Before my FR-S I had a 13 Ram 2500. They let ,e come in the bay while we were trying to figure out enabling DRLs and that's when I learned they use a WiFi interface for diagnostics and flashing. It plugs in to the OBD port and sits on the dash and then they talk to it from the computer. I was pretty impressed. They did tell me not all dealers have it yet, though (this was this time last year).

My buddy that does tuning on Ford trucks does the wireless thing as well. I was surprised when he told me about it.

I suppose you could buffer the entire firmware onto the dongle, and then have the dongle write it once it's been verified. That should be plenty safe.

I was thinking of as a second choice. The cost of manufacturing would be less as a patch chord and a display would not be needed. However, I seriously dought anyone tuning their car doesn't have a smartphone or tablet. Two years ago, the smartphone became more populous than the "dumb" phone, at least in the US.

John

The wireless thing is pretty cool, but it's a good bit more expensive and doesn't add a whole lot of benefits unless you are working on cars all day that require more complex diagnostic processes. I have personally only ever used wired scan tools but the cable was always long enough for it to reach wherever you were working. If you have a networked pc software package to go with the wireless scan tool you can have less experienced techs plug the connector in while working on a car and a more senior/experienced tech can easily run through diagnostics and freeze frame data on multiple cars from a remote location (even entirely offsite) and giving the less experienced tech directions. For a larger/high volume shop that can can be more efficient/profitable but for an individual not so much.

awesome update boys. thanks!!

now the only thing missing is the ability to store multiple logs!

we are out there. If my tracphone prepaid minutes didn't expire after a year, I would still be running on the ones I bought 4 years ago.