I havent had anyone steal any boxes from me yet. With the exception of the Megasquirt. everything I buy seems to get left on the back steps. Its WAY off the road and hardly visable though. Things kind of hide in plain sight.

Look what I made! Thank God for my stupid over protective alarm dog. He woke me up just in time to sign for my stuff. Not that it matters. I was sitting in the living room tonight soldering this together.



This is called the JimStim. Its basically a device that emulates the engine running so you can check your work on the Megasquirt. It will do all kinds of stuff like show what the injectors look like firing. When I build the ECU I will plug this in, give it 12v. Then open up the tuning software and watch the gauges to see what the read. Then by turning the potentiometers the gauges should change. It can be reconfigured for just about anything so this will be a fun toy for a bit. Only one problem, its missing on diode. I grabbed the bag and it was empty. I'm kind of bummed but Radio Shack is ten min away. Tomorrow it will be powered up for sure.

This is what it started out as.


After 45 min I was to here. LOL Had to get my soldering skills working again. That is truly the point of these is to practice before the big game. Ten resitors in 45 min. My teacher would laugh.



Heres my work.


Finally this is the contents of the box. Does it look like $700 to anyone? Not me, it would have run well over $1000 if i had them assemble it.




Finally, these are the first two volumes. I printed them at work because the laser printer there is awesome. The pictures are like a book. This project doesnt come with directions either. Its truly DIY, I just happen to have the extra binders and stuff. I dont even have the full manual printed. I just got the assembly, wiring, and tuning sections mostly. I'm not complaining, I knew every bit of this when I ordered. I have been researching for over three years.


I'm hoping to start on the ECU tomorrow night. I hope I can get that diode. I know they will offer to send a new one but I dont feel like waiting a week to see if what i built works.

 

Congratulations! Gotta feel good to finally have something that you've wanted for so long. Didn't make it past the living room for assembly either eh? LOL! I have to go to Radio Shack today myself, need a couple LED resistors for the turn signal/tail lights in the truck. Hope you can get it buttoned up today and do some testing.

 

Crapped out at RS. They had about 12 different diodes. Non that I needed.

 

I didn't have any luck at the Shack either. That place is starting to really disappoint me as every time I go in there now it seems like it's a wasted trip. I need to get a couple of LED resistors to get my turn signals working again. Starting to think these LED bulbs are more trouble than they're worth. What are you gonna do now, have DIY send the diode and wait it out? It sucks that you just get a teaser for now.

On the way back into the driveway I saw a crazy looking package hanging out of my mailbox. It was the valve spring compressor that the mailman was too lazy to drive into the driveway to leave by the door.

 

There's a couple options better than a resistor. You can install an electronic flasher. (that's what I use for my LED lights) or you can put a regular lamp socket hidden somewhere in the circuit that loads the regular flasher and makes it work the LED's.
All the chain autoparts stores have the electronic flashers.

 

Yes I have to wait it out. I could order it from Digi Key. Thats the company that supplies DIY. The diode is 28 cents so shipping should be about ten dollars. I have to wait until Monday before I get anything from DIY. I wont argue if they say they wont replace it. I did build it on my couch and couldnt tell if it fel out of the package or wasnt there to begin with. The great thing about the pile of parts is they use small zip locks with the name of the part (diode, resistor, transistor) then if there are more than one in the whole thing they are all there and the locations of where they go are there. so I get a bag. It has R1, R3,R13, and R25 on it. I just look at the map and solder it on. Simple sounding but I went a marithon 6 hours straight tonight on the ECU. I can solder well and it took that long to get the resistors, all the caps, and all the diodes on. I also have the headers for the plugs and the main cpu header. I wore out my tip already. I have to tin the tip almost every time i go at a new component. The tip is no longer pointed either. I would have ground it to a point in the garage but the kids were in bed and if I went outside and one woke up they both go hysterical if they cant find me. I'm kind of proud of my work so far.

 

That's looks awesome, you should be proud! Well done on the assembly. Can't believe you're .28 cents shy of finishing (minus shipping) and that just sucks. The casing makes it look a little bit like an old school amp except the parallel port. A lot of tedious work soldering all those pieces in there I bet. No doubt the tip needs grinding with the miles you just put on it! Very cool. I need to start reading up on that stuff one of these days. Again, well done.

 

Good job man, you are clearly braver then i would be.

Ive been away from here for a long while. For those of you that were talking about rebuilding transmissions, it really helps to have the little o ring installation cards, and a special press for rebuilding the oil pump. (i think its the oil pump)

Ive helped my friend with multiple trans rebuilds, i do more watching then helping but i have seen it done. Hes a tranny guy so its pretty easy for him. As long as you can remember the order that you took everything apart, dont rip an o ring when installing things, its not to bad to rebuild them.

 

The are sending me a new diode first class mail. I have to get a new tip too. The main board is assembled except for a bunch of tiny transistors. I mean tiny. The traces are so close I cant solder them with the worn tip. I wind up jumping to the one next to the one I tried soldering. So I'm stuck until that happens. I have about 10-15 of those little guys left, then some testing with my meter and I should be ready. I ran a resistance test on a couple of the large transistors to the heatsink. The instructions say at least 60K, I hit 60.02 on both. Talk about knowing your stuff.

 

Indeed. And know .02 more than needed even! Way to go man. It'll be cool to see it all done for sure.