Why not just tune your own Motronic chip?

[george graves]

Do you even work somewhere? Would that company tell me all I want to know so I could make their product? What exactly is going through your mind?

One of the companies I work for is Adafruit.com We're 100% open source. You can download the schematics, parts lists and board files for all of our products. You'll notice that we're on the cover of WIRED magazine this month too. So yes, you can make any of out products. You can even make a clone of our products for sale - it's completely legal and encouraged. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[MarkD]

I think is what he was getting at.

But it's pointless to argue over that - for one, it's possible it could fall under "derivative works" since it's being modified, not merely copied. BMW is definitely not losing any revenue for it, you already have a license for the software since you own the car. And what Hakken is doing (wholesale direct copying of other people's tunes) is something else entirely.

That's correct. I'm still not sure what George Graves is up to, but I've wasted a lot of time on things that will not pay the bills this week, and have to get back to those tasks that do.

I'm waiting to hear what TRM, Turner, Miller and Dinan say if he calls them to ask for "the secrets"

[Midnighttuning]

Instead of supporting people self tuning BMW, here you are talking against it because you are runing comercial chip tuning service making money on community.

Most comercial tunes are "generic tunes" this means that tune was developed on a dyno on one car under one circumstance. Lets say you develop a tune for 1990 E30 M20 with intake and exhaust, on a dyno in Otawa Canada, elevation 1000f, humidity 70%, temperature 50f, engine 150k miles with good compression, canadian gas, whatever. Then you sell that tune to someone in Arizona where it is hot, dry, high elevation, and US gas fuel. That would be generic chip, this is why "self custom tune" is the best. you tune your car with mods you got at place where you are at.

You make it sound like people are forced to buy my product...I have registered business/ vendors permit and I have every right to sell my last four years of jerking off to binary code and testing.. Unlike you, I didn't have the luxury of looking at or copying other tuners calibration files

All good tuners leave room for certain real world tolerances and that is why the products are always top notch when sold around the world

[MarkD]

One of the companies I work for is Adafruit. We're 100% open source. You can download the schematics, parts lists and board files for all of our products. You'll notice that we're on the cover of WIRED magazine this month too. So yes, you can make any of out products. You can even make a clone of our products for sale - it's completely legal and encouraged.

OK but that is the business model Adafruits chose to work with. Don't expect every company to do tha same, and don't chastise those who don't. I'm waiting for you to call TRM and Turner, let me know what they say. And don't forget to call Steve Dinan also. Just ask him to release all the old OBD-1 chips to the public domain. I'm sure he'll have it available by FTP by the end of the week.

[george graves]

TRM and Tuner aren't on this forum attacking someone. You are. And I never asked you to open up your business model. It's not right for everyone - it's clearly not right for you. But adafruit has done well with it. You asked, and I answered. See post #61:

I'm still not sure what George Graves is up to

Ad hominem - that's wonderful. Stay classy MarkD..


EDIT:

Did you not see his pots where he direts people looking for my chip to buy a programmer so he can email a file, or where he says he looked at my chips and they are junk?

No. What file did he email? I can't tell what the OP's intentions are - his posts are a utter cluster fuck. If he's stealing from you - he should be banned - plain and simple. You are right - no one should be copying your chips and selling or giving it away. But I don't think that's what your upset about.

If that's the case (the OP is just a copy cat) then it's a shame. Hopefully someone else will come along and make an opensource chip that can be freely shared. That's the goal I think we should be aiming for. My beef with you is only with your "smoke and mirrors" tactics. I'll continue to look for MarkD counterfits, and I hope other people do too. But you'd have to expect that people are going to be looking at your work to examine what you've done. You've set the bar pretty high.

I can see someone making the argument that it would be legal to modify your own maps, and reburn the chip you own, from your own car, yourself. But I still don't see where you got the permission from BMW to do that and make it a commercial venture. Do you see where I'm coming from? - But that's a whole other discussion.

[frankenbeemer]

I'm dizzy

[nando]

actually, george - it was Hakken that first attacked mark, making claims about what he does with his chips, and calling him (and other tune vendors) scammers.

He's been copying other guy's tunes for far longer than this little thread. It's been years since he was banned on E30tech, for basically the same reasons.

[george graves]

My bad then.

[Dominic49]

omg george works for adafruit!?!?!!?!

arduino group buy?W??!?!?! (or how about a coupon code :shifty)

[bmw325csi]

I'm dizzy

I do like what George is saying about tunes being an open source for all to use and enjoy but Im too much of a newb to even question anything

[CoClimber]

Also if you already have expensive tuned chip in your DME ecu. With the eprom programmer/reader, you can read that chip, save the file, it will be in 32kb size on our cars 88-91, then you burn that file into one of the new flash chips, and you put that new flash chip in your ecu, and you sell the expensive tune chip. So basicly chip tuning hardware becomes free. Then you make your own chip tune. No need to spend money on expensive tunes, they are not that good anyway.

If you don't have 173 ecu don't worry. You can use 173 tune in any of the ecus ending in 380, 525, 524, digits.

I think it is this post that pissed Mark off. Rightfully so, IMHO.

[MarkD]

No. What file did he email? I can't tell what the OP's intentions are - his posts are a utter cluster fuck. If he's stealing from you - he should be banned - plain and simple. You are right - no one should be copying your chips and selling or giving it away. But I don't think that's what your upset about.

I already told you what I was upset about but again you don't seem to read my responses.

If that's the case (the OP is just a copy cat) then it's a shame. Hopefully someone else will come along and make an opensource chip that can be freely shared. That's the goal I think we should be aiming for. My beef with you is only with your "smoke and mirrors" tactics. I'll continue to look for MarkD counterfits, and I hope other people do too. But you'd have to expect that people are going to be looking at your work to examine what you've done. You've set the bar pretty high.

I asked you previously what you are referring to my my "smoke and mirrors" tactics but you have not yet answered. The fact is, all the chips I sell work well, if they didn't you would be reading about it on the net. I don't feel that I have to tell anyone exactly what I did, how much any data got changed, etc.

I can see someone making the argument that it would be legal to modify your own maps, and reburn the chip you own, from your own car, yourself. But I still don't see where you got the permission from BMW to do that and make it a commercial venture. Do you see where I'm coming from? - But that's a whole other discussion.

I don't think at all that they care about it, as I said I did not take their code and sell it for use on some hardware that I developed, such as a cheaper replacement DME. And if you think there is a problem with what I am doing, why aren't you asking all the other performance chip sellers? You can be sure they have not re-written all the code in theirs. Call up Will Turner and tell him he has no licence to use the code that was in the Bosch units with only different maps.


Would you feel better if I just sent out a piece of paper with addresses and data to be changed by the end user and he programs his own chip by modifying those particular memory locations?
That isn't going to happen.

If you feel so strongly about some open files and info for BMW's, spend your time making it and then release it.

[ForcedFirebird]

People have been stealing binaries forever, we have out GM chips pirated quite often actually, but then again, as mentioned in this thread already, the GM crowd shares the info.

Only reason we even got into tuning the Motronic stuff is because we have been tuning OBD1 cars for some time.

Just wish Motronic had a data link like the other brands, lol, it's nice to see what all the sensors are doing - and having the ability to log.

Next step for us is using GM ECM's in the e30's. Standalone abilities available at the JY for $16 :)

[KennyT]

Cliffs:

HakenTT condones buying others chips, and copying them for profit. Also, self tuning.
MarkD sells good aftermarket tunes that work well and have lots of customer support.

There is no reason someone can't make their own tunes and post them for all to use. You will piss off those around here that sell tunes, but those who like to tinker will thank you. There are plenty of other automotive communities that run open tunes. It just takes someone to post all of the info needed.

[matt]

George... it is cheating to look at a commercial chip and compare that to stock.