Troubleshooting Communications Issues with the MegaSquirt and MegaSquirt-II

1) Remove the power from MegaSquirt.

2) Put a bootloader jumper pin (a bent piece of snipped off lead from a resistor, etc. will work fine - bend it into a U shape) across the two holes labeled "boot" on the V2.2 PCB or V3 PCB (short R6 for V1.01 PCBs),

3) Hook-up a serial cable (DB9 tune cable) from the computer to the MegaSquirt box and fire up HyperTerminal (Hypertrm.exe).  The easiest way to do this is to click Start > click run> type hypertrm > hit enter.  The application should launch, if HyperTerminal does not launch  - use a "find-file" function to search for "hypertrm.exe"

Note: you do not use MegaTune to perform the firmware upload - this is done with the terminal program HyperTerminal (or similar, see below), and you should not have MegaTune, or any other serial data application running on your PC (Best practice is to close all applications before starting step 3). At this point, leave the MegaSquirt unit un-powered.

4) You will see a HyperTerminal screen when you execute - type in any name you want in the box, and make sure the Red telephone with the little yellow telephone next to it is highlighted.

5) A new window appears. On the "Connect Using" selection, select the proper COM port that your serial cable is attached to.

6) Then another window with COM port settings pops up. Select 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, and set flow control to "None"; - this is very important. HyperTerminal is now up.

7) Apply power to the MegaSquirt.  This can be done by giving it power from your car if its already installed in a vehicle or by plugging in a powered stimulator into the DB37 connection.  You should see the "Boot>" prompt appear in the terminal screen.

8) Type "H" and you will be shown the options available in bootloader mode. (This is not mandatory but is a good test to prove you are properly in the bootloader)

9) Hit "W" for "Wipe" - this erases the old firmware and settings.

10) Hit "U" for "Upgrade," which will respond with the text "wait ...".

11) Then at the top of the HyperTerminal window click the "Transfer" dropdown menu, select "Send Text File..." (do not use the "Send file" mode - you are sending a text file).

12) Set "Files of type" to "All files" and select the .s19 file containing your assembled code (The .s19 is the last 3 characters of the file name and there should only be one file with this extension in any version of the firmware code you download) You will see no activity on the screen for about 40 seconds.

• MS1/Extra firmware can be found here: MS/1Extra Manual  These files may need to be unzipped and the .s19 file is located inside
• Standard B&G Megasquirt firmware can be downloaded here Download the MegaSqurt megasquirt.s19 File Here.  (You will need to right click this link and click 'save as'). You will need to select the path to save it to but the filename will be populated as megasquirt.s19.  You will not need to change the name.

13) Then the prompt will come back after 40 seconds or so, which means the operation is finished.  If you have the stimulator plugged in you can hit X in HyperTerminal and you should see the lights on the stimulator board start to work    

14) Turn off power to MegaSquirt and shut down HyperTerminal.

15) Remove the bootloader jumper from the 2 boot holes that you inserted earlier , and you are ready to go.

• Make sure you have the FINAL release of Megatune 2.25, not one of the beta versions. I'd uninstall all versions of MegaTune and install this one: http://not2fast.wryday.com/megasquirt/mt/2.25/mt225_setup.exe
• You'll need to use the MegaTune Configurator (Click START>PROGRAMS>MEGASQUIRT>MEGATUNE CONFIGURATOR) to configure the car1/settings.ini/settings/CODE_VARIANT to MSNS_EXTRA like this:

Use the drop down box at the top right to set the CODE_VARIANT to MSNS-E.

• Then open Windows Explorer (or My Computer) and browse to C:/Program Files/MegaSquirt/MegaTune2.25/mtCfg/
  
  You're looking for a file called  C:/Program Files/MegaSquirt/MegaTune2.25/mtCfg/MSnS-extra.ini.xxx
  
  Where the .xxx represents the version of the MSnS-E firmware you are running. You MUST choose the right file here… very important. It's not hard so don't let me freak you out ;)… just important. So for example if you're running MSnS-E firmware version 024s9 OR 024s13 then you will find the file called MSnS-extra.ini.xxx (in this example the xxx will be 024) and use the RIGHT mouse button to drag and drop a copy of that file in the same folder (just drop it anywhere in the empty white space) and you'll get a little menu. Choose COPY. Now you'll see a file called ‘Copy of MSnS-extra.ini.xxx'. You want to RIGHT click this file and you'll get a menu, choose RENAME and enter the name ‘MSnS-extra.ini' without the quotes of course. Hit ENTER. Depending on how your PC is configured you may see the .ini part of the filename disappear after you hit enter, and it may just say ‘MSnS-extra'. That's OK as long as you know you had the .ini part of the filename in there. Don't add it again.

• Next, Open MegaTune, Open the ‘Communications' menu from the top and select ‘Settings' Select the proper COM port (very important) and select 9600 as the ‘Serial Data Rate' (just as important).
   

That's it-- you should be able to connect to your MS-I with M1/Extra firmware now!
 

If you don't know your COM port click START and RIGHT-click ‘My Computer' and select ‘Manage' from the little menu that pops up. Select ‘Device Manager' in the left pane of this window and then expand ‘Ports (COM & LPT) in the right pane of this window. This shows your available COM ports, it has to be one of these. If you are using a USB adapter it's usually pretty easy to tell which one it is as it will say something like 'USB Adapter COM4', if not then you may have to try each of them (usually there are only one or two unless you have a USB adapter).

Here are the high level steps you want to make sure you do, these are described in detail at http://www.megamanual.com/ms2/configure.htm

• Install MegaTune  (steps 1-5)
• Put the proper MegaSquirt-II.ini file in place.  (step 6)
• Use the MegaTune Configurator to set the CODE_VARIANT to "MS_II - Bowling and Grippo MegaSquirt-II" (step 7)
• Configure MetaTune for the proper COM port and the Serial Data Rate of 115200.  (Step 7 cont.)

That's it, each of these steps are critical though, if you skip any one of them you'll have a problem, if you complete each one you'll connect right up!