The MegaSquirt Project has experienced explosive growth other the years, with hundreds of new MS installations occurring every week - a phenomenal success! MegaSquirt has been successfully used in all aspects of Internal Combustion engine applications including R&D, Industry, Race, and Research. The MS project has transformed itself from a simple R&D project into a full-featured mature engine control system. To reflect this the support structure has also changed to meet the needs of MegaSquirt Users.
Moving forward, the R&D forums for MegaSquirt project are in a read-only mode - no new forum posts are accepted.
However the forums will remain available for view, they still contain a wealth of information on how MegaSquirt works, how it is installed and used. Feel free to search the forums for information, facts, and overview.While the R&D forum traffic has slowed in recent years, this is not at all a reflection of Megasquirt users, which continue to grow year after year. What has changed is that the method of MegaSquirt support today has rapidly moved to Facebook, this is where the vast majority of interaction is happening now. For those not on Facebook the msextra forums is another place for product support. Finally, for product selection assistance, all of the MegaSquirt vendors are there to help you select a system, along with all of the required pieces to make it complete.
Forum rules Read the manual to see if your question is answered there before posting. Many users will not reply if the answer is already available in the manual.
If your question is about troubleshooting, configuration, or tuning, you MUST include your processor type (MS-I or MS-II) and code version in your post. If your question is about PCB assembly or modifications, you must also include the main board version number (1.01, 2.2 or 3.0).
What is everyone using to glue down their crystal? I did manage to find the appropriate electonics safe RTV 162 at a few places on-line but it would cost about $30 for a 2 oz tube of the stuff. The idea of hot glue is nice, but since it melts at abou 120 degrees, won't it melt once the board warms up?
What seems to be working for the rest of you out there?
Thanks in advance!
Dan
The board doesn't really warm up in a general manner, especially in the crystal mounting area. The FETs may get a tad warm but that's far from the crystal, relatively speaking. I have 20K miles on my MS without any special mounting of the crystal, just soldered and laid flat in the PCB plane. The MS box itself is mounted via a 3x5" sheet of Velcro so as to hopefully prevent any sharp vibration getting to the components. This makes it R&R easy too. At times I've thought about throwing a dab of RTV around the crystal but have decided that it probably would have failed by now so haven't. However, I'd go with the hot glue if I were you. I have it on my bench units' crystal and it seems to work fine.
boost junkie wrote:I used standard automotive rtv silicone. Haven't had any problems yet...
You might want to be careful with that stuff. It certainly has different chemistry than normal "bathtub" RTV silicone, so as to be sensor safe (no acetic acid), but I'm not sure that makes it electronics safe. The Dow Corning electronics-safe stuff that I use is guaranteed not to attack any of the metals on PC boards, most notably copper, silver, zinc, tin or lead...
I used "that bathtub sealant"! Just basic clear and got a tube big enough to do probally 1000 Ms ECU's for $4. I figured since the build manual just said "clear silicone" and nothing more that it would work well. So far so good.
Well, I ended up getting a cheapo hot glue gun and tried that- I put a blob on my MegaStim in the empty section as a test and it stuck.. well.. like glue.. so I glued the crystal on and it all looks good- it functions fine and is very solid on the board- stiffer than I would have thought, but it sure won't be bouncing around!
Thanks for the advice!