Spark settings won't save when car is turned off. Why? Help

R.J. · Post by **R.J.** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:54 pm

After tons of problems I finally got the car running and tuned but now the spark settings won't save. When I turn the car off and then back on the spark table and settings won't save. All of the other settings and the fuel table saves but the spark won't. Also, when we send the spark table by itself to the ecu, we get a message that says " controller voltage too low to send to ecu. try anyways?" we hit yes and everything worked ok. When we send the 'spark settings' to the ecu it works ok. But, no matter what the spark table and settings won't save when the car is turned off. Is there a setting in Megatune or Megasquirt n spark that would cause this to happen? Is there something in the config file? Please help.

1985 toyota corolla with silvertop 20v.
Running MSnS with ford edis.

eightvalver · Post by **eightvalver** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 5:16 pm

I think I am having the same problem, spark settings wont save when the car is turned off, everything else works fine.

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 6:25 pm

If you're using megatune make sure you are hitting the "Burn to ECU" or similar button after settings spark settings before doing anything else. You didn't mention the firmware you're using whether its MS-II or MSns-Extra or one of the older spark ones (MSnS or MSnEDIS), but on MSnS-E there's the chance of not getting settings saved when sending data to the ECU if you happen to modify things in different pages. (spark is NOT on page0, it's some higher page) and if megatune forgets to burn the settings to flash on a page change this would make settings fail to "stick". MegaTunix doesn't have this problem as I've coded it to track page changes and burn when appropriate automatically. You might want to check for a newer updated version of megatune (if this IS the problem), or try megatunix to see if it exhibits similar behavior. NOTE in megatunxi you can backup the ecu settings in ASCII (megatune uses a binary unreadable msq format) which can be useful to do a before/after comparison if your chip keeps loosing it's data. This way you can pinpoint if it's a specific memory region, or something more general.

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R.J. · Post by **R.J.** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 2:04 pm

Since we are getting "controller voltage too low to send to ecu" it would seem that for some reason MS isn't getting enough voltage. Where is the voltage regulator on MS? If the voltage is too low how can we go about fixing it? How do we increase the voltage to the MS so that it burns into the flash memory?

Post by **jsmcortina** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 2:43 pm

R.J. wrote:Since we are getting "controller voltage too low to send to ecu" it would seem that for some reason MS isn't getting enough voltage. Where is the voltage regulator on MS? If the voltage is too low how can we go about fixing it? How do we increase the voltage to the MS so that it burns into the flash memory?

Do the checks that Lance suggested two posts ago.

Do you get any other error messages? e.g. when opening Megatune?

James

R.J. · Post by **R.J.** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 2:08 pm

My tuner switched computers and tried to save the spark settings and this time he did not get the message, "controller voltage too low to burn to ecu." This is a little confusing as now I don't know where to go. Since we aren't getting this message now I don't know if its a wiring problem or not. Any help is appreciated.

eightvalver · Post by **eightvalver** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:52 pm

In order to do a successful "burning" of the settings onto the Megasquirt chip, power going to the megasquirt needs to be sufficient enough. "Controller voltage too low to burn to ecu." means your battery or the power going to the megasquirt is below the threshold for a proper "burn" of settings.

boost junkie · Post by **boost junkie** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:56 pm

Do you happen to be using a USB->Serial converter? The other laptop that worked, did it have a real serial port?

Daryl · Post by **Daryl** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:38 pm

**In order to do a successful "burning" of the settings onto the Megasquirt chip, power going to the megasquirt needs to be sufficient enough. "Controller voltage too low to burn to ecu." means your battery or the power going to the megasquirt is below the threshold for a proper "burn" of settings.**

This is not entirely true. I get the same message while the MS is on a decent power supply @ 13.0 Volts (MS shows 12.94 Volts). I am not able to change map/rpm settings on VE or Spark tables (haven't got to the actual settings).

I get one of two messages "Controller voltage too low...." or "could not connect to controller" even though it's running on the stim and shows fine on my laptop? ( using a usb-serial converter )

I have recently switched to MSnS-Extra (2.25b514 with 024s9 and Edis) and am still trying to figure things out.
Haven't read through all the related threads to find my problem, but I suspect either I've got something set up improperly (in the software) or there was a problem loading (corrupted?) the code and I'll have to "reload". I was having problems with communications and loading the code, but that "seems" to work now.

I don't get to spend much time with this over the holidays, but come the new year I'll figure it out!
R9 on my stim is a very nice milk chocolate brown, but everything still working,...... sorta.....

Not trying to hijack the thread, just pointing out that there could be something else going on.........

Daryl

Posted by email.

R.J. · Post by **R.J.** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:43 pm

I have a hunch that it isn't going to be a wiring issue. The last problem that I had (MS not advancing the ignition timing with EDIS) turned out to just be a setting problem. I'm gonna get the car from my tuner, take it home and see what I can figure out. For now, I'll just have to carry my laptop with me everywhere so I can send the settings to the ecu everytime I turn the car on.lol

rs2000 · Post by **rs2000** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:28 pm

i started getting the voltage warning after i upgraded to MSnS using a usb serial adapter.. my voltage isn't low so i suspect the usb serial converter..

hachirocket · Post by **hachirocket** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 9:45 am

RJ

What MS are you running? Reason I ask is because I am having the same problem with EDIS not advancing timing. Do you mind posting your settings? I reviewed my settings but cannot figure out what is it that I am doing wrong. (I actually have the same swap that you have) If you could help me with this I would appreciated.

Thanks

Raf

Post by **jsmcortina** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:30 am

Settings not saving or messages like "controller voltage to low" or "lost connection" are all indicators of a serial communication problem.

Megatune only knows the voltage by reading the serial data - if the data gets messed up it thinks the voltage is low and prints a warning.

USB serial adapters are the biggest cause - you may need to tweak the settings. There is a post about this in the Megatune subforum.

These communication issues are a serious setup problem and need resolving before you try to proceed further. Otherwise you may inadvertently send some bad data to the Megasquirt and break your engine.

James