SRAM & Piggyback Memcal board

[fat265]

Hi Guys

I am new to this site ( but not new to Electronics, Computers, Delco )
I currently have Kalmaker and am in the process of upgrading to TunerPro RT & OSE12P

I would like to know why the NVRAM board needs to have the old memcal piggy backed to the side of the nvram board or is this optional ?
https://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=167

I was also wondering what type of issues ( if any ) you have with corrupted SRAM's from laptops shutting down when they shouldnt. ( I will explain )

Because I currently have kalmaker and I need a old DOS laptop with a parallel port for the dongle. Older laptops are getting thin on the ground
and usually they have dud batteries so a inverter is needed to power it from the cigar lighter on the car. if you happen to start the car sometimes the laptop will reboot ( due to crap battery ) in this case ( even if kalmaker is NOT even running ) the SRAM can get corrupted due to some randon data sent down the ALDL then I got to rip it out and reprogram it in a eprom programmer ( a pain in the butt ! )

[Jayme]

thee piggybacking of the memcal is optional. you can set the nvram board to use the cylinder select from the memcal OR you can leave the memcal off it and manually select TBI, 4,6,or 8 cylinders. also if your memcal uses a knock board you can piggyback the memcal to get the knock board circuitry working OR you can unsolder the knock board and solder it directly to the nvram board

OSE$12P uses windows programs to tune with so you can use late model laptops, you must use serial not parallel and most people I know use an FTDI usb > serial adapter. im using a brand new toshiba laptop running windows 7 to tune with tunerpro and the OSEplugin. as data is not uploaded from tunerpro to the ecu all the time, you shouldnt have a problem if the laptop is rebooted. the only other time you meay potentially have a problem is if you reboot the laptop while its in the middle of an upload. even then, im not sure what will happen as ive never done it. the only time ive had a corrupted nvram myself is when ive pulled the memcal out while the ECM is still powered on.

[VL400]

As jayme said another reason to piggyback the memcal is for limp home mode, but this only really applies to standard engines. It also give you a place to store a spare memcal in case the nvram was to become corrupted.

[fat265]

Ok cool

Just a question does a write line still need to be soldered from some pin on the SRAM board to the mainboard of the ECM / 808 or is it already connected ?

My Kalmaker board still needs the WR line soldered to the ECM ( it would appear that there is no WR line on the standard memcal header ( i havent checked the pinout though )

you must use serial not parallel and most people I know use an FTDI usb

So can I use the USB board ( link below ) ??? based on the above comment. ( I guess its just got the FTDI on it anyway ) this is neater then the usb to serial adapter.

https://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=164

RE: parallel port I realize I cant use it ( its TTL and this is why the older version of kalmaker didnt have the max232 chip in the ECM they used serial bit banging to read the 8192 baud via parallel port.

[Jayme]

yep, still need to solder your write line same as kalmaker. the VS > PCMs with the smaller memcals have got the write line already there in the memcal header, but the older ones with the large memcals dont.

you are right - you can use the usb board instead and will work exactly the same.