I didnt want this to get lost.... Question essentially was.... Pro's and Con's about getting a Diablo Trinity or Keeping a Predator and adding a DashDAQ for the ability to monitor whats goin on under the hood.... If anyone would like to add to what Dave has said (for either the Diablo or DashDAQ) please feel free as there are plenty of us who wouldnt know why one is better/different than the other....
I have both...and both have their advantages.... hell I even still have a Predator come to think about it. One thing I REALLY like about the Dash Daq XL is you can plug your Zeitronix into it and monitor and log your Air/Fuel, Boost, and EGTs with it. As for the Trinity I like it cause I can change my tune with it faster than the Predator and I use it as a display. I can get anyone a really good deal on New Dash Daq XL's and it will come setup to run the Zeitronix stuff which is an added bonus.
I don't think the Trinity has any serial inputs or drivers for them. Have they got their analog inputs working/integrated for monitoring and logging yet?
I have the DashDAQ along with the Zeitronix A/F monitoring... it works quite well. You can also set it to watch several different areas. I have mine to also display IAT, spark advance, RPM, and A/F . With the DashDaq I can read the OBDC II codes and also reset them. With the DasDAQ I have the ability to datalog all my runs .... not that I done it... but I can send the datalogs to my tuner for evaluation.
Here is a little bit. Maybe Nathan can add to it. The idea is to get all your OBDII parameters, external sensors and gauge inputs integrated into a single log. Then when you graph it they are all on the same graph and synchronized to each other and a single clock. It's just not effective to see a log of your A/F on one screen and your RPM on another and try to match them up when looking at the log(s). So you need inputs on your scanner to integrate external signals. Side benefit is that you can then monitor them all on the same display screen as well. You can put your A/F gauge on the same screen as your RPM. The A/F might be coming from the 0v-5v output from your wideband controller and the RPM coming from OBDII from the diag port. You get 2 analog or serial inputs through the accessory cable/port. That means that you can accept 2 analog inputs (from 2 widebands for example). Serial inputs means that you're getting a serial protocol input. Innovate, for example, has MTS (proprietary serial protocol). Using MTS you can "daisy chain" multiple Innovate controllers and displays together. You could have your A/F, EGT, Boost, fuel pressure, etc. gauges daisy chained together. Then you would run the serial (bus) into one of Innovate's Multi-display gauges. Display 2 or so at a time and push a button to scroll through them, whatever. DashDAQ has a serial driver for Innovate's MTS protocol. That means that you install the Innovate serial driver in the DD as a device. Now that device supplies all the signals from the sensor/controllers that you have daisy chained together. You would select them for display on a gauge on the screen just like you would select one of the OBDII parameters. I think they have serial drivers for Innovate, Zeitronix, phidgets, and a couple more. They haven't done a driver for PLX's serial connection so I use the analog out from my PLX A/F gauge. OBDII installs like a device. Pick a slot letter and install the OBDII driver on that (virtual) slot. Then when you go to select a OBDII signal you scroll to that device and then select a parameter/signal from the drop down menu. Chrysler Specific OBDII is a "device", Analog input is a "device". It's linux so you install/configure devices/drivers. Then you "hook up" signals from those to other devices or directly to a display gauge on the screen. Other (sort of) devices include a Rescale Calculator and a Statistics Calculator. You can run a signal from some device through these devices to manipulate the signal. Like you would do to map a 0v-5v signal to a 10 - 20 AFR display or Lambda or whatever. The Stats Calculator can be used to smooth a signal, trap max or min, sliding average, etc. Just for kicks I managed to get my RPMs to display in 100 rpm increments. 0, 100, 200, 300, ..., 2100, 2200 ... running the RPM signal through one rescale calculator, into another rescale calculator, and then to the display gauge. basically make it big, round it, make it small again and truncate it. My A/F display updates (smoothed average) 2 times a second and moves in .1 increments. The unmassaged signal is what I log and moves at the sample rate which is a whole lot faster.
i have the dash daq xl and love it. i got mine from redfox at a very fair price!!! what i like is all the things dave mentioned!! it is quite versitile!!!
So does this work with ANY wideband A/F or only some? I know the Innovate one can plug in but I dont think mine can...would that mean yet another gauge? lol
ANY wideband that supplies an anolog output will work on one of the two analog ins. Almost all wideband controllers provide an analog output (and I think all of them are 0v - 5v). I vaguely remember that one of the cheapo brands didn't? To use the serial output of gauge *systems* that have that feature, you would have to have a driver implemented on the DD. Look here: http://www.dashdaq.com/specs/addons.htm The ones in blue that you can click on can use one of the two serial inputs and will support the sensors listed (click on the blue link) over the single serial link. The ones listed in black will be analog (one gauge/sensor per analog input -- total of 2). don't know if that made it any clearer... PLX is listed in black. PLX controllers have both analog out or you can daisy chain a number of PLX gauges and/or controllers together for display on a single PLX display. DD doesn't have a driver for PLX. I can only hook my wideband up to the DD using the analog output. I could only hook 1 additional PLX gauge/controller to the DD since there are only 2 analog inputs. Zeitronix ZT-2 is listed in blue. If you have that system you could run the following inputs Air/fuel ratio from the wideband O2 sensor Exhaust gas temperature Engine RPM Manifold absolute pressure Throttle position Analog voltage on a 0-5 volt input into the DD over a single serial input (apparently the ZT-2 will accept an analog input itself?)
so if I am reading you correctly (which i probably am not but...we will see).... based on teh "notes" on autometers website for the NV Wideband....I should in theory be able to use it with the DashDAQ?
Yes. You would wire the 0-4v output (2 wires) from your autometer controller to the DD using the (optional) accessory cable. In the device manager you would select the Analog Input (1 or 2 depending on which lead you wired to in the cable) device and configure it for either AFR or Lambda. Same config just different numbers to scale a 0 - 4 range to 10 - 20 range. For AFR that would be ummm... afr = 2.5*V +10 so multiplier = 2.5 and offset = 10. If you wanted to display Lambda then it would be Lambda = 0.17*V + 0.68
