Flash limit?

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

How much is the chip, how difficult is the removal/install, is your tune lost, etc?

the cpu is not socketed, so it needs to be professionally replaced. The tune of course would still be on your laptop and easily rewritten to the ecu.

[Greg E]

Never knew there was a theoretical ceiling to the number of flashes, not really happy about that.

Why? That seems silly.

[Greg E]

Related note: we NEED an emulator.

It's been discussed before but designing such circuitry then somehow re-writing the serial bus on the chip is beyond me.

[anyonebutme]

Maybe instead of redesigning the ECU to allow emulation, design a whole new box that will run the car off the laptop?

[Greg E]

LOL!! You over estimate my skills.

Mega-squirt has something like open source tuning solutions but the cost of each individual unit is no better than AEM.

Flash ecu is the best bang for the buck. This flash limitation is nothing more than a physiological issue more than anything.

[DrGonzo]

Are the chips in the flash ECU's EPROM?

Assuming the limitation is the same as most types of chips as they all have some sort of memory wear based off of P/E cycles.

All memory whether it be the chip in ECU or the flash drive you carry in your pocket has a finite amount of P/E cycles "program-erase cycles". They will only last so long before they encounter some sort of data loss. Considering the technology at the time when the 99 ECU's were built compared to today, the amount of P/E cycles for the Flash ECU chip is low "100-500 just from what people above has said, may go even as high as 1-2k" where as today you can get chips good for 1 mill+ P/E cycles before they encounter data loss.

Without knowing the manufacturers P/E specs on the chip I don't think anyone can say what the safe limit is on how many times the chip can be flashed.

Not knowing much about the Flash ECU, I may just be talking out my ass.....LOL

[Greg E]

The manufactures PE limit is 100 flashes. I have the manual for this chip and can post it later.

I personally have gone far past that limit.

[DrGonzo]

HA... so you do have the info on the chip. Good to know.

The PE is just a safe limit they set for all chips. Most go far beyond that though. There is no set point as to when they will start to have data loss though. All chips are different so the limit could never be set in stone. The safe limit is just there to state that the chip will have a minimum of so many cycles.

[Greg E]

Is like the life hours of a light bulb. They're rated at so many hours but most go well past that.