When i got EFLive, i set up 24 parameters to log. When i go to actually log items, it complains and limits me to 12. Is this right? If so, what 12 should i log?

 

a have no probs logging 24

 

It will log 24 pids, some parameters require more than one pid. It may change this if you dont have the connection option set to auto, you can set the connection for dynamic, slow, a few others. I would look, but not writing this on my laptop.

Gary

 

I can log 24 pids on my truck, but if I have the control panel turned ON, I can get 12 more to log too. I use that for when I want to log misfires. It is still 100x's faster than AutoTap even when logging that many!

 

"EFILive scan modes 101":

EFILive implements 4 different scan modes:
1. Generic OBDII
2. GM Slow dynamic
3. GM Medium dynamic
4. GM Fast dynamic

1: Requests a single PID per message, is limited to 256 select PIDs. Slowest scan mode for multiple PIDs. Fastest scan mode when only one or two PIDs are selected (see note 1 below).
This is the same scan mode used by AutoTap.

2: Requests 6 channels of synchronous information per message, up to 48 channels.

3: Requests up to 36 channels of synchronous information per message. This mode is also used for bi-directional controls.

4: Requests up to 24 channels of asynchronous information.

Note 1:
"Fastests scan mode" for modes 1, 2 and 3 is realised only if/when message throttle is set to <=10ms.

channel = single byte of information. Some PIDs require 2 bytes to hold their value, so depending on how many two channel PIDs are selected you may only be able to select fewer PIDs than channels.

synchronous = PCM returns data each time scan tool makes a request.
asynchronous = PCM returns data as fast as it can - scan tool is passive and just "reads" the data being sent by the PCM.

Regards
Paul

 

EFILiveV5, I was only able to use "GM Medium Dynamic" when I had 24 Channels used up. With "Fast", I got sporadic error messages. (I set the Throttle to 10. My laptop is a 600MHz HP Pavilion running Windows 2000.)

A friend of mine said if I use more like 16 channels, I should be able to use "Fast Dynamic" successfully. It will be a couple days before I can try this... I'm doing a crank pulley swap right now and waiting on tires.

What do you think of this? I thought I could use up to the channel capability without degradation in performance.

I need very good resolution because I go thru 1st gear SO quickly.
With Autotap, I only loggedan avg of two or three datapoints between 1500 and 6800 RPMs.

On another note (for comparison of what red ws6 99 said), I think O2 Sensor uses one channel while a parameter like Delivered Torque requires two.

 

What year is your T/A? Early models only support 1 set of 5 frames per second. Later models support 2 sets of 5 frames per second which can be interlaced to achieve 10 frames per second.

As you select PIDs the "channel meter" at the top shows how many channels you have used.

Look in the column headed "size" to see how many channels a particular PID uses.

When using "GM fast dynamic", selecting 1 channel or 24 channels will make no difference to the data rate. Just for interest, EFILive fills up the remaining unused channels with throttle position.

If you are interested in faster samples then try this:
Set scan mode to "GM Slow Dynamic" (ok so the name is a little misleading). Set the message throttle to 10 ms.
Select no more than 6 channels. This allows for example the following PIDs to be selected:
RPM (2 channels)
SPARK ADV (1 channel)
KNOCK (1 channel)
TP (1 channel)
MAP (1 channel)
or maybe swap out TP and MAP for MAF (2 channels).

With only 6 channels you should get 13 frames per second.

If you use 7..12 channels, try setting scan mode to "GM Medium Dynamic" you should get 6-7 frames per second.

P.S. What are the error messages you are getting?
Send me a copy of the "console" text window that shows the errors, send it to support@efilive.com I will look for it.

Regards
Paul

 

On some vehicels you can, but a few reports have come in from reliable sources that say on certain vehicles, with more than 16-17 channels selected some frames start to get dropped. We are investigating - I believe with the help of "your friend"

We'll post more information about this on www.efilive.com/forum

Regards
Paul

 

Sorry, I forgot about the original question...
What exactly is the error message (complaint) that is displayed by EFILiveV5?
Regards
Paul

 

I'll log it again in GM Fast Mode and give you the error message tomorrow.

It still came even when I lowered the PIDs down to like 16 or so, in GM Fast Mode.

GM Medium Mode I use 23 or 24 channels with no problem. I just would like to increase the resolution if possible.
This is what I log (more than absolutely neccesary, because it seems to log fine in GM Medium Mode and I seem to want to know one of these at one time or another) :

TPA
LOAD
GEAR
RPM
MPH
Tmg
KR
gCyl (Calc01)
LTFT1
LTFT2
O2B1
O2B2
IPW1
IDC (Calc03)
gMAF
fMAF
RWTQ
RWHP (Calc02)
MAP
FTCell
ECT

I'll get back with you.

Thanks for your attention on this stuff. I've sen you post responses before and am VERY impressed with your attention to customer's questions on the forums.

 

OK... it blips so fast, that I can't read the message, so over a few error instances I made out something like:

"Connection with vehicle lost - operation suspended?"

 

That message will pop up after a preset period of no data received from the vehicle. It will stay visible until another frame is received from the vehicle then it will disappear - hence why you don't have time to read it.

Basically the GM Fast Dynamic scan mode is controlled by the PCM. EFILive is passive during this scan mode, just waiting for the PCM to send data when it has time and when the bus is clear.
If the PCM is too busy or to many higher priority messages are on the bus then the PCM will probably drop some of the frames that it would otherwise send to EFILive. Obviously, sending scan tool data is not as important to the PCM as running the engine.
At higher revs the PCM is required to do more processing due to having to calculate operating conditions more often.

The "communications lost" message is a bit misleading - it's not really communications lost but rather "I haven't seen any messages from the PCM for a while - I wonder if the cable has been unplugged". Without sending extra queries to the PCM, EFILive can't tell the difference between the PCM skipping some frames and the cable being unplugged.

Regards
Paul

P.S. EFILiveV6 does do these "extra queries" so the "lost comms" message will only appear if/when comms really is lost.

 

I had just run EFILive with my Medium Scan Mode setting just fine, with the cable not being touched. I switched it back to GM Medium Mode and drove for about a half hour to work, doing some WOT's with no problem... all this without removing or moving the cable.

This error pop-up occurred each and every time I've tried to use GM Fast Mode. GM Slow and GM Medium Mode worked flawlessly each time.

Something else is going on. The cable is not the problem.

 

You're quite right the cable is not the problem.
B&amp;B make a very high quality cable and it works extremely well - that's why we chose it for EFILiveV5. We know the cable is not the problem

There are a number of possibilities that we can think of for why this is happening (Could you contact me offline to discuss a course of action paul@efilive.com - thanks)

The three "dynamic" scan modes are different in the way that they request data.

GM slow dynamic requests a single dynamic packet per request, which means EFILiveV5 must make requests to the PCM as quickly as possible - this uses a lot of available bus bandwidth.

GM Medium dynamic requests up to 6 dynamic frames per request, which means EFILiveV5 must make requests to the PCM as quickly as possible - this uses a lot of available bus bandwidth but not as much as GM slow dynamic.

GM Fast dynamic makes only one or two requests, then the PCM just keeps on sending data to EFILiveV5 without EFILiveV5 having to request the data continuously. The exception is that every 5 seconds EFILiveV5 must send a "heartbeat message" to the PCM so that the PCM continues to send the data. If EFILiveV5 is disconnected the heartbeat will not be sent and the PCM reverts back to it's normal message schedule. (This is similar to the way bi-directional controls revert to calibrated defaults when EFILiveV5 is disconnected).

If a packet is dropped or bumped off of the bus by a higher priority message (more likely under high engine rpms) then the first two modes (slow and medium) will only miss 1 message out of about 5-13 per second - you would not notice and the "lost comms" dialog box will not appear.

When using the last mode (fast) the PCM may be too busy to send data at that high speed - or more likely the heartbeat message is being bumped off of the bus and the PCM is reverting to it's normal message schedule. EFILiveV5 takes some time to "realise" that the PCM has reverted to it's normal message schedule and needs to restart and resynchronise the GM Fast Dynamic scan mode. During this time no data is logged and the "lost comms" is displayed.
We have invested a lot of time in the new V6 software to mitigate these problems.
We have also made the Medium dynamic scan mode more useful by allowing PIDs to be prioritised.

Regards
Paul

 

I mis-read your post when you mentioned the cable... I see the quotes, now.

michael@mlbuie.com

Feel free to give me any trouble-shooting to do.

Thanks!