Chapter 4. Installation, Upgrade and Maintenance
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Chapter 4. Installation, Upgrade and Maintenance

Table of Contents

4.1. Warnings

4.1. Warnings

Fuel injectors flow a LOT of fuel in a short time. You can fill the engine with fuel within only a few seconds of having the injectors fully opened.

This section describes several ways to destroy equipment, cause injury, etc. Do not try this at home.

  • Battery disconnect is the worst way to shut down power. With alternator running it will most likely kill something (ECM, radio, ABS, etc. Possibly all of them). Alternators can become very agressive when the battery is disconnected. Some raise the voltage to 80V. Always shut down the engine properly. The battery disconnect is only for emergency. A battery-disconnect switch installation is always improper without a powerful transient protection device (eg. 18V transient protection diode) on the engine side of the switch between GND and 14V so it hopefully eats transients from the alternator. Unfortunately the transient protection diode shorts permanently if the current exceeds a certain threshold and must be replaced. The best way is to mount a virtual zener that clamps without dying at 18..19 V and a 22V transient protection diode that will act if all else fails to stop the raging alternator from raising supply voltage.

  • Significant voltage across Sensor ground and Power ground.

    • Connect only the Sensor ground, not Power ground.
    • Shorting Power ground or GND to 12V.
    • Connect reverse supply voltage. This is guaranteed to destroy most of the board.
    • Forget heatsink. Works best with low-Z injectors and single IGBT that drives 8 cylinders (distributor) with long dwell. FETs and IGBTs are cheap, but you might easily end up filling cylinders with fuel. If you happen to make fire, it will be most spectacular (especially at night).
    • Forget to install and verify the flyback. FETs will be instantaneously killed.
    • With RS232 reverse TX-RX: thus connect the output of your PC to the Genboard RS232 output. This does not always kill the max232 chip, but if it does, it takes some practice to exchange the max232 with a new one nicely.
    • Connect the flyback rail anywhere other than the injector-common signal. You will see horrible results. Connecting the flyback rail to the wrong side of the fuse will kill lots of stuff (in the best case only FETs and not the whole board) when the fuse breaks. An absolutely stupid install can have the flyback rail from the wrong side of the kill-switch (not the injector side!), which is guaranteed to kill electronics.
    • Electrostatic discharge: before touching a board, always touch the surface it is on. Especially when you hand a raw board to your friend: touch her first, so any spark due to electrostatic discharge will not go through the sensitive parts of Genboard. Same applies when holding a board and putting it onto a surface: the surface must touch you first, than the board.
    • When ignition is used and Power Grounds are not separated, resets can happen, and the configuration data can be corrupted.
    • Swap the red and yellow wires of the WBO2 (pump and nernst/pump common).
    • Swap the yellow and black wires of the WBO2. That way the pump interferes with the nernst measurement, and the sensor is likely killed fast.
    • Using a powerful power supply and having current limiting over 7 AMP, and having no FETs installed yet. When a short happens near the power and ground area (pin 25-26 of EC36) it will first become hot, then smoke and bubbles come out of the FET drivers. USE A FUSE ON POWER SUPPLY.
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3.2. Standard Electrical Interface  Home  Chapter 5. Software