Canems ecu firmware
Discussion
Hello, does anyone have experience of uploading new firmware to their canems ecu? I have a Griff 500 with the rover v8. Page 8 of the canems manual states it’s possible to download the latest firmware from the canems website but it’s not anywhere to be seen. The file is called 8_cyl_36–1.cup or 8_cyl_60-2.cup. I’ve tried contacting the usual channels but no response yet. I appreciate they might be busy but I’d really like to get my car up and running ASAP. To cut a long story short, I’ve purchased a second hand ecu but it has firmware for a 6 cylinder engine and needs changing to the files mentioned earlier. Anyone have these files?
Any help really appreciated
Cheers
Any help really appreciated
Cheers
I would have thought David Hampshire from Canems (if you're lucky enough for him to answer your email) could send you the firmware you need?
Failing that as I know he's very hard to get hold of, surely Lloyd Specialists Developments would be happy to help an existing customer?
An ECU is a very technical product that demands good aftersales support, without this support customers could easily be left out in the cold holding a completely useless plastic box of non functioning electronics through no fault of their own.
And all for the sake of emailing a tiny firmware file which costs them nothing and would take seconds to send, plus a moment for the customer to upload.
I can't see many people choosing Canems in the future if the aftersales support isn't forthcoming
Failing that as I know he's very hard to get hold of, surely Lloyd Specialists Developments would be happy to help an existing customer?
An ECU is a very technical product that demands good aftersales support, without this support customers could easily be left out in the cold holding a completely useless plastic box of non functioning electronics through no fault of their own.
And all for the sake of emailing a tiny firmware file which costs them nothing and would take seconds to send, plus a moment for the customer to upload.
I can't see many people choosing Canems in the future if the aftersales support isn't forthcoming
Thanks COG, Perhaps they will see the light and send me the files free of charge as the canems manual states on page 8. Why wouldn’t they supply firmware upgrades free of charge. It only helps to promote their products and more importantly keep the paying customer happy. I’m current very disappointed.
I have now spoken to the installers and they want me to send my second hand ECU to them and charge me for uploading the software. I’m not doing it out of principal.
After inspection my old canems ecu it is very different to the one I purchased recently. A couple of pictures will tell a thousand words. No wonder the idle valve doesn’t work correctly and the car has inconsistent running. The first ecu looks like a prototype PCB with hand soldered components which is why I’m very keen to get the new one working which is of superior quality.
After inspection my old canems ecu it is very different to the one I purchased recently. A couple of pictures will tell a thousand words. No wonder the idle valve doesn’t work correctly and the car has inconsistent running. The first ecu looks like a prototype PCB with hand soldered components which is why I’m very keen to get the new one working which is of superior quality.
Well over the years I've found the customer service from my installers to be pretty good overall, and having suffered six ECU failures in six years I've had plenty of cause to test this support!
David Hampshire who builds the ECUs is a lovely guy but he is notoriously difficult to get hold of, I think when things become challenging for him his response is to hide from the problems. It does seem David has been unusually burdened with family berheivements too as this was often the reason I was given for his impossibly slow response, however its likely he's run out of relatives to bury now so he should be more responsive in future.
Like all cottage industries mistakes in production like leaving out the essential ceramic heat pads that heat sink my LPG injector drivers are in some ways inevitable, with volume production comes accuracy and reliability you can never replicate with a hand soldered product you build one by one in the shed at the bottom of your garden.
Fortunately I've ended up with one spare petrol only ECU which David Hampshire sent me to get me home from the South of France, I call this my 'get me home ECU' and I keep int in my boot at all times for this purpose. But that was many years and five further ECU failures ago though, so whe its saved me many times its also lucky I now find myself with a spare dual fuel ECU too.
Anyway I've clearly been very unlucky and as the installers have told me over and over again the system has been 100% reliable on their Range Rover which makes me feel so much better every time I find myself broken down at the side of the road.
I also fully accept their point that I the paying customer must have bought all my ECU problems on myself, actually I'm being a little ironic here as in the last year I decided to forensically unpick what I paid for over and over again during at least five years of spending & pain, what I found were many mistakes and poor levels of workmanship so as it turns out I'm not the criminal in the story after all!
Fortunately I'm capable of tracing and correcting the mistakes of others so my car has never driven better, but I do feel for those who are unable to do the same as I fear they will be locked into an endless cycle of spending with no effective resolution.
At the end of the day no one has been a bigger advocate and promoter of the system and installers than myself, which makes being blamed for failures not of my making even harder to to swallow. If I had a pound for every ECU installation I helped them secure I may have even collected enough money to pay for all my wasted time and train tickes to and from Warminster?
Of course I never recieved a penny and never expected financial recompense either, all I wanted was a system that worked as advertised and made my car more reliable than it was on the original Lucas 14CUX, not less reliable which has clearly been the case right upto the point I decided to take control and sort it all out myself!
Other that it's been a fantastic experience and one I'd recommend to anyone who is at least as exceptionally patiant and tollerant as me, enjoy
David Hampshire who builds the ECUs is a lovely guy but he is notoriously difficult to get hold of, I think when things become challenging for him his response is to hide from the problems. It does seem David has been unusually burdened with family berheivements too as this was often the reason I was given for his impossibly slow response, however its likely he's run out of relatives to bury now so he should be more responsive in future.
Like all cottage industries mistakes in production like leaving out the essential ceramic heat pads that heat sink my LPG injector drivers are in some ways inevitable, with volume production comes accuracy and reliability you can never replicate with a hand soldered product you build one by one in the shed at the bottom of your garden.
Fortunately I've ended up with one spare petrol only ECU which David Hampshire sent me to get me home from the South of France, I call this my 'get me home ECU' and I keep int in my boot at all times for this purpose. But that was many years and five further ECU failures ago though, so whe its saved me many times its also lucky I now find myself with a spare dual fuel ECU too.
Anyway I've clearly been very unlucky and as the installers have told me over and over again the system has been 100% reliable on their Range Rover which makes me feel so much better every time I find myself broken down at the side of the road.
I also fully accept their point that I the paying customer must have bought all my ECU problems on myself, actually I'm being a little ironic here as in the last year I decided to forensically unpick what I paid for over and over again during at least five years of spending & pain, what I found were many mistakes and poor levels of workmanship so as it turns out I'm not the criminal in the story after all!
Fortunately I'm capable of tracing and correcting the mistakes of others so my car has never driven better, but I do feel for those who are unable to do the same as I fear they will be locked into an endless cycle of spending with no effective resolution.
At the end of the day no one has been a bigger advocate and promoter of the system and installers than myself, which makes being blamed for failures not of my making even harder to to swallow. If I had a pound for every ECU installation I helped them secure I may have even collected enough money to pay for all my wasted time and train tickes to and from Warminster?
Of course I never recieved a penny and never expected financial recompense either, all I wanted was a system that worked as advertised and made my car more reliable than it was on the original Lucas 14CUX, not less reliable which has clearly been the case right upto the point I decided to take control and sort it all out myself!
Other that it's been a fantastic experience and one I'd recommend to anyone who is at least as exceptionally patiant and tollerant as me, enjoy
lancelin said:
I have now spoken to the installers and they want me to send my second hand ECU to them and charge me for uploading the software. I’m not doing it out of principal.
So the ECU is your property and the firmware is the property of the ECU maker.I'm confused
Why would the installers think its acceptable to charge you to upload firmware that doesn't belong to them to an ECU that also doesn't belong to them?
Its a tiny file they could email you in seconds, something that would cost them nothing!
ChimpOnGas said:
So the ECU is your property and the firmware is the property of the ECU maker.
I'm confused
Why would the installers think its acceptable to charge you to upload firmware that doesn't belong to them to an ECU that also doesn't belong to them?
Its a tiny file they could email you in seconds, something that would cost them nothing!
I've been here too, although in my case it was an ECU for a Radical which was 'locked' and I needed to be able to remap it due to having a new engine. In that case the firmware update was provided by the manufacturer, but they still charged me circa £150 for the privilege (I had no choice it was either that or spend a lot more money somewhere else). No doubt it was just a flag in the firmware somewhere. Easy money.I'm confused
Why would the installers think its acceptable to charge you to upload firmware that doesn't belong to them to an ECU that also doesn't belong to them?
Its a tiny file they could email you in seconds, something that would cost them nothing!
I do understand the principle in the above though; the installer is no doubt licensed by the manufacturer. They will not be charging for the firmware itself, but will charge for the time to install and verify the update.
Whether they should / would email it is a different question. Once sent, they are then in the support loop which can be extremely problematic if the recipient does not know what they are doing or the version of firmware is not compatible with the version of hardware being used.
The thing is, I’ve inspected the second ecu and it’s of far superior build quality to the first. The components are not hand soldered and the PCB is properly constructed and coated. The driver heatsinks are connected to the box heat sink which was not the case on the first Ecu.
I paid considerable money for first ecu which I believe is now faulty and is of substandard build quality. I feel hard done by and the least they could do is give me the firmware free of charge.
I paid considerable money for first ecu which I believe is now faulty and is of substandard build quality. I feel hard done by and the least they could do is give me the firmware free of charge.
I'm on my sixth ECU now and despite me never opening any of them I can tell they have definitely got progressively better with each replacement, and so far I've had just over a full year out of my current one which is good going I can tell you.
Perhaps the latest incarnation will finally deliver the reliability I was promised?
I think we need to accept the maker has made many improvements since he started out, and being an early adopter (and promoter) cost me dearly, even though each replacement ECU came FOC we need to include the inconvenience and cost of the many failures I've suffered.
The unwillingness to support an existing customer with firmware is disappointing, it seems the OP is being held to ransome which in a small community like the TVR world is a short sighted business strategy to say the least.
I hope the installers change their mind and support the OP, and perhaps the OP could post some photos of the internals of each ECU to demonstrate how these ECUs have improved and evolved in the last few years?
Perhaps the latest incarnation will finally deliver the reliability I was promised?
I think we need to accept the maker has made many improvements since he started out, and being an early adopter (and promoter) cost me dearly, even though each replacement ECU came FOC we need to include the inconvenience and cost of the many failures I've suffered.
The unwillingness to support an existing customer with firmware is disappointing, it seems the OP is being held to ransome which in a small community like the TVR world is a short sighted business strategy to say the least.
I hope the installers change their mind and support the OP, and perhaps the OP could post some photos of the internals of each ECU to demonstrate how these ECUs have improved and evolved in the last few years?
jesfirth said:
if you bought the first ecu from said specialist and its poor quality/defective then can you not just reject it and get your money back?
Sadly its not really like returning a pair of defective trousers you bought from M&S.I've been on a six year journey and I'm still replacing defective engine sensors and correcting earth loops that were not of my making dispite the installers claiming they were, the latest issue being a poor quality MaP sensor that as it turns out has been the reason for the hesitation l've suffered for years.
Besides the ECU and loom the MaP sensor and the crank position sensor are the two most critical elements of any such engine management installation, so for heaven's sake dont fit cheap items to keep the cost of your installation down especially when the proper good quality sensors are only a few pounds more.
Luckily my fuel savings by running LPG have paid for my system and I've got it working properly now, but its been quite a journey and has tested my patience to breaking point at times. I think its possible the installers confused my amazing patince and easy going nature with gulabilitty, but there comes a point even for the most tollerant where enough is enough.
I think it was being blamed for issues that were not of my making that was the straw that broke this very tollerant camel's back especially as this came as my reward for being their most vocal promotor.
Its all really sad to be honest as you'll not find an engine management system with more intuitive and user friendly software, and you'll certainly never find another engine management system that gives you a 50mpg V8 TVR!
Edited by ChimpOnGas on Monday 22 July 23:17
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