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[fe3tcourier]

(13:44:16) Bob: I had the misfortune of using a Hondata S300 the other day
(13:44:20) Bob: utter rubbish
(13:44:27) Fred: :-/
(13:44:33) Bob: the software is rubbish
(13:44:41) Bob: Crome is actually nicer to use
(13:44:47) Fred: :-)
(13:45:09) Bob: I couldn't get the car to start reliably
(13:45:23) Bob: maybe the ECU was faulty
(13:45:42) Bob: but the software didn't offer much help in diagnosing the issue

Bob is not the real name :-)

Fred. < this is, though.

[Minor Threat]

What software package out there teaches you how to tune, because that's what it sounds like he's looking for...

If you can't get a basic datalogging readout from Crome/the ECU to diag a no start, maybe "Bob" is doing something wrong? 

S300 has bugs, but it does get the job done, just maybe not done "right"

I've used Crome, eCtune, Neptune and S300. eCtune probably has the best GUI, but not by much. They're all very similar pieces of software, but if you're used to Chrome then everything else does take a bit of getting used to.

[Joseph Davis]

Hondata SManager is a GUI clusterfuck compared to other OBD1 tuning options.  That said, it basically does everything exactly like all the other options (except idle control) because it's all 95% stock code.  Keep in mind Hondata SManager GUI is better than 90%anyone of all engine management options for all vehicles ever made.

Moates Demons are unreliable, which is what sold to single user eCtune/Neptune owners.  . S300s never go bad. 


Bob's commentary  reveals him as having no appreciable tuning experience, and blaming a no start problem on a viable engine management platform also speaks worlds about Bob's mechanical ability - because there's a fuel/fire/compression aka
 basic problem with the car.

However, Doug @ Hondata is a huge prick.  If Bob wishes to bash the product I have no problem, but he should be a little more subtle if he wants to be convincing.

[Minor Threat]

Moates Demons are unreliable, which is what sold to single user eCtune/Neptune owners.  . S300s never go bad. 

You're not the first person to say that, that I've read recently. In my head, Moates stuff is usually top notch and I've never had a problem with any of the Burn or Ostrich products. What went wrong with the Demon?

[Joseph Davis]

They try new things with each design.  O2 are not bulletproof like O1, which can be reverse plugged or submersed in water without harm; O2 are very good, but failures with them do happen.  The Quarterhorse for Fords... or maybe just Clint Garrity's Binary Editor... can be a bit off to deal with, and I have had one go bad.

The nice thing about Moates gear is the warranty.  You don't even have ro have proof of purchase or anything - possession of Moates gear is your warranty.  Few companies are so excellent.

When supplies of D1 are exhausted, expect an improved D2.  Moates held off on making the Demon until all the original Neptune boards sold.  Thats how they roll.

[bigdaddyvtec]

FUCK the Demon... Ostrich V2 and Hulog. Woing fine since day 1 with no bullshit getting it to work in the first fucking place. Ive had the misfortune of fucking with 2 demon setups. Fuck them... And Hondata

[clwtwizted]

Hondata will get the job done, but I still prefer Crome or Neptune. Hondata is junk in customer service and wont help out with any sort of problems unless you want to pay. I have had more issues dealing with the people at hondata just trying to get them to be nice to thier customers and ended up getting banned off of thier facebook page. Fuck Them. Get crome.

[robus]

Hondata will get the job done, but I still prefer Crome or Neptune. Hondata is junk in customer service and wont help out with any sort of problems unless you want to pay. I have had more issues dealing with the people at hondata just trying to get them to be nice to thier customers and ended up getting banned off of thier facebook page. Fuck Them. Get crome.

To my knowledge most people seem happy with their S300. I thought you do get quick assistance through the Hondata forums? I've no experience with them, but I've checked their help forum, seemed pretty quick and helpful. Something you can't say about Crome of course, but hey it being free (or cheap) software just can't be beaten.
Other than that, Bob needs to get help, end of the story.

[PhilStubbs]

People like Hondata cause of the name. Like JD said, the GUI sucks. The people that nutswing s300's aren't tuners. They are kids that got a phat tax return check cause they are still with their babies momma. It works though, I won't knock that. Neptune is by far my favorite tuning software. It also has everything Hondata does plus more and it's almost $100 cheaper. You are also supporting James Holy who is a super solid dude that has never tried to sue pgmfi.org. Lastly hrtuning customer service is the best I have ever encountered in my life.

While I would never use an s300 on my own car, I agree with everyone else that tuning software doesn't teach you how to tune and "Bob" needs to do done research. I have never had s300 not start just like stock no matter the injector size

[fe3tcourier]

Bob's commentary  reveals him as having no appreciable tuning experience, and blaming a no start problem on a viable engine management platform also speaks worlds about Bob's mechanical ability - because there's a fuel/fire/compression aka basic problem with the car.

The thing is, I know for a fact that "Bob" has upward of 10 years tuning experience on all different types of systems, and tunes dozens of cars a year, sometimes dozens a month. I respect "Bob" very highly as he is one of those rare people with a global picture of things, code, electronics, mechanics and tuning theory/practice. So, SOMETHING was going on to cause him to say these things. Unsure what. Don't really care. Trust me on "Bob"'s credentials, though :-)

[Joseph Davis]

The consensus of this thread is that everyone from rank amateurs to folks with more experience than Bob thinks Bob is talking out of his ass.

[fe3tcourier]

I've linked Bob here, we'll see what he says :-)

[Minor Threat]

Bob's commentary  reveals him as having no appreciable tuning experience, and blaming a no start problem on a viable engine management platform also speaks worlds about Bob's mechanical ability - because there's a fuel/fire/compression aka basic problem with the car.

The thing is, I know for a fact that "Bob" has upward of 10 years tuning experience on all different types of systems, and tunes dozens of cars a year, sometimes dozens a month. I respect "Bob" very highly as he is one of those rare people with a global picture of things, code, electronics, mechanics and tuning theory/practice. So, SOMETHING was going on to cause him to say these things. Unsure what. Don't really care. Trust me on "Bob"'s credentials, though :-)

That "something" is likely outside or unrelated to a stock code based EMS solution being the issue. Or he had a bad S300 unit, shit happens.

also, fuck you Bob, you better make a n00b thread.

[92CXyD]

He may be dealing with CDM copies of the S300 

[Joseph Davis]

He may be dealing with CDM copies of the S300 

From all I've gathered those work fine.  The code for the PIC security chip, as used on the S100/200 anyway, has been offered to me several times in the last decade, so its a no-brainer a clone should work fine.  There's not a whole bunch going on there.

Besides, bad S300 should go down like a bad socket - can't get a datalog. 

[fe3tcourier]

(01:57:48) Fred: http://www.realhomemadeturbo.com/forum/index.php/topic,22534.0.html < You're Bob, btw. Thoughts?
(17/06/13 00:00:01) Day changed to 17 Jun 2013
(02:56:20) Bob: my thoughts is that the particular car started and ran fine with a different ECU connected to Crome
(02:57:08) Fred: you're up late
(02:57:15) Bob: I just got home
(02:57:18) Fred: :-)
(02:58:46) Bob: and the particular S300 does communicate and all
(02:59:00) Fred: doesn't?
(02:59:05) Bob: it does
(02:59:16) Fred: woops, read "at all" not "and all"
(02:59:41) Bob: but the engine just doesn't want to start reliably, no matter what fuel injector sizing I tell it
(02:59:56) Bob: and no matter what I do to the cranking fuel tables
(03:00:45) Bob: it sometimes does start but is very inclined to stall instead of idle
(03:01:17) Fred: ok
(03:01:21) Bob: the UI of Smanager just doesn't help
(03:01:35) Bob: and the data readout is full of shit
(03:02:04) Bob: for example, I couldn't see any indication of what the actual injector pulsewidth was
(03:02:07) Bob: while cranking
(03:02:42) Fred: that's pretty poor...
(03:02:50) Bob: which is the sort of information you need to know to diagnose bad starting behaviour
(03:03:16) Bob: since it's not easy to figure out what the ECU is doing by just reading the user configurable options
(03:03:26) Fred: of course not
(03:03:42) Bob: a direct indicator of what's going on is pretty essential to have
(03:03:48) Fred: +1
(17:03:07) Fred: can i "Bob" you out of the above and paste this into that thread?
(18/06/13 00:00:04) Day changed to 18 Jun 2013
(01:06:38) Bob: yes

[92CXyD]

Sounds like a similar situation I experience J1 having a dry joint, ECU solder job probably the problem. 

[Joseph Davis]

(03:02:04) Bob: for example, I couldn't see any indication of what the actual injector pulsewidth was

Not only can injector pulse be populated in the display bar by right click-->add new gauge, it appears by default as the sixth value down on the sensors tab at the far left.  It can also be made to appear in datalogs by selecting it via template options.



Bob needs to slow down, stop making assumptions, and start questioning the premises by which he has reached these conclusions.  Being cocky like that is old dog syndrome, and is a form of failure as it leads to cognitive breakdowns such as this.  This - tuning - is a hard way to make a living as the job is not simple, and every car is a problem car, but I'm free to be openly critical due to Bob's anonymity.  I've cleaned up a few cars in the last two years after a guy whose name I used to read in Hot Rod magazine as a teen, who has set some make-specific records.  Basic fucking errors.  In my mind he is still a legend, but he has old dog syndrome as well as the sin of pride.  I look forward to who I may one day become and I'm scared I'll turn out like him - a tired old man, a fraction of what I once was.  His polar opposite, inasmuch as I can claim any deep understanding of men met only in passing, is Bill Hendren who I met a few years before he passed.  Bill was as full of curiosity as he was knowledge.  A wise old man.

Enough philosoraptoring for this morning.  I hope you all die in a fire.

[rawr]

Bob is Ma$e

[fe3tcourier]

Sounds like a similar situation I experience J1 having a dry joint, ECU solder job probably the problem. 

Quite possibly.

(16:58:19) Bob: it wasn't so much that the values weren't there, it was that they obviously weren't updating
(16:58:35) Fred: OK
(16:58:52) Fred: I think you should get a new account "Bob" and have this out with them yourself :-)
(17:02:13) Bob: like I said, it's very likely that the ECU was faulty
(17:02:19) Fred: yep

[Joseph Davis]

Solder two 28DIP sockets together to fit Ostrich/emulator or chip in place of the S300, diagnose ECU.

[fe3tcourier]

If they weren't updating, then likely there was no stream of usable/un-corrupt data, in which case the UI should clearly indicate that the data is stale, such as by replacing a 4.56 with -.-- etc. If a solid value was coming from within the ECU, then the UI should clearly indicate that the commands to adjust fueling parameters were failing. If they weren't failing, and data was streaming, then it's totally fucked, and a complete piece of shit, in my opinion.

[Joseph Davis]

Ivory tower, yes.  Empirically, no.  If common sense notices the datastream freezing then common sense is there is a problem.

[PhilStubbs]

Bob is Ma$e

The shit that I have heard locally and read recently on forums.......... plus heard from JD, that could be the case. Lol

[Joseph Davis]

The sad thing is he had an unwarranted good rep for enough years to learn the ropes.  He was a dumb frat boy when I first met him, not your typical engineering student, and its a shame he's not matured and grown since then.

[Joseph Davis]

George Carlin said something about at some point a man either reaches an age of reasoning,  or remains a fool forever.  Steve Mason's clock is running out, and it does not look good.

[fe3tcourier]

Ivory tower, yes.  Empirically, no.  If common sense notices the datastream freezing then common sense is there is a problem.

I see three possible cases there.

1) UI/app has no data stream and displays stale data. BAD. (fault of UI/app)
2) ECU streams constant data despite seeming to take settings changes. BAD. (fault of either UI/app or ECU/architecture or both)
3) ECU streams constant data despite actually/really taking settings changes. BAD. (fault of buggy firmware, what a fucking piece of shit)

Do you see a fourth or higher order case that I don't see? There's no ivory tower, all three are practical things and failure in any of the three is a total fucking fail to me. But, I'm a professional software developer, and fucking good at it, so I do have high standards, which we may not share :-)

Fred.

[PhilStubbs]

In my experience with s300's, they either work 100% or they don't at all. I have yet to log data and not be able to update.

[Joseph Davis]

Ivory tower, yes.  Empirically, no.  If common sense notices the datastream freezing then common sense is there is a problem.

I see three possible cases there.

1) UI/app has no data stream and displays stale data. BAD. (fault of UI/app)
2) ECU streams constant data despite seeming to take settings changes. BAD. (fault of either UI/app or ECU/architecture or both)
3) ECU streams constant data despite actually/really taking settings changes. BAD. (fault of buggy firmware, what a fucking piece of shit)

Do you see a fourth or higher order case that I don't see? There's no ivory tower, all three are practical things and failure in any of the three is a total fucking fail to me. But, I'm a professional software developer, and fucking good at it, so I do have high standards, which we may not share :-)

Fred.

Yes, but you are a bit behind the curve on hardware development, sorry.  There are very few pieces of hardware on the market without some gremlins, many of which I deal with are designed by engineers who designed ECUs for OEMs.  The yardstick I measure by is the end result of how long it takes to tune, what level of difficulty I have using it, and how long the vehicle lasts running on it.  These are the things you, your efforts, and your product will be judged on. 

No one sweats a little obvious stale data except you, and whatever pod people you come from.  And few will take your concern with such as a testament to your character.  I mean, I will, and I do, but at the end of the day I am forced to make... professional... judgements based on merit of practical application.

[Joseph Davis]

As far as personal judgements go, I'm a big fan of anal retentive pod people.  More of them should tenant this forum.