Altering firmware

[Motophyllic]

I came across this and thought it was interesting. It is a way to extract firmware from devices like our bikes, change it, and then reflash it without access to the source code. I am far from able to pull this off, but someone might be capable and willing.

Intro to Hardware Hacking - Dumping your First Firmware

 

[Philip]

German car tuners do this all the time. Do we have the geeks on this forum able to do the same?

@TCMB371 @querlenker @schwankl @sergeynik

 

[metallic88]

German car tuners do this all the time. Do we have the geeks on this forum able to do the same?

@TCMB371 @querlenker @schwankl @sergeynik

Ive done it with vws ecus for all my diesel conversions, but haven't wanted to tear the alta down yet to check it out, i have been looking at the firmware with the multitool though. I've been wanting to change that screen to something else since my mx lol

 

[Motophyllic]

I’d love to get into the programming and change the regen, maps, and add reverse gear.

 

[Redwolf]

I understand the desire to fiddle and tweak things, but I just can't imagine needing to change anything on my EXR, it already seems perfect.

Unless you're talking about adding a trip mileage... That would be nice.

 

[Motophyllic]

Reverse gear would be great. I do a lot of trail and woods riding and it would be greatly beneficial.

 

[Redwolf]

Reverse gear would be great. I do a lot of trail and woods riding and it would be greatly beneficial.

Reverse??? Why would you want to go where you have already been????

 

[Motophyllic]

Why not if you liked it

 

[wwmotors]

Due to the fact , that I have a EXR with 2 wheelsets and streetlegal, what i can ride on street, Supermototrack, as an MX and dualsport. I would love to make 4 induvidual maps:
-Supermoto with maximum regen for drifting into corners
-MX like Map4 now
-dualsport with hillhold and traction control
-commuting with maximum energy saving mode!

 

[privateer703]

If you could put a sensor on the front wheel to provide true traction control, that would be pretty crazy. I think anyone who trail rides would agree a reverse gear and hill-hold would be really helpful.

 

[TCMB371]

If you could put a sensor on the front wheel to provide true traction control, that would be pretty crazy. I think anyone who trail rides would agree a reverse gear and hill-hold would be really helpful.

We have better than that - sensors on the motor that detect excessive acceleration rate, many times a second. Theoretically with electric powerplant, you could test the dirt you're riding, determine the max RPM/sec acceleration rate allowed before breaking traction, and set the max acceleration rate for the motor at that slip rate or slightly above and you'd barely ever get wheelspin (although, you want a bit of wheelspin to allow for rear steer)! Another advantage is that you can prevent the drive wheel from "running away" after it breaks traction since it can only accelerate so fast. This means you can still run your max power mode and have all that power available as long as you have the traction for it.

 

[F451]

• Trip meters.
• Hill hold.
• Traction control (to limit run away rear wheel spin when the wheel is not in contact with the ground).
• Programmable regen.
• Regen increase/decrease on the fly (like the power mode setup, click up for more regen, click down for less).

There's surely many more cool features that could be programmed that we haven't thought of yet.

 

[privateer703]

I'm thinking of when I'm trying to get over an obstacle, or up a hill when I have very little traction and I'm only using a tiny amount of throttle. The wheel doesn't spin very fast, but loses traction immediately. In this case, where the wheelspin, to me at least, doesn't seem like it would be fast enough for the bike to know I'm not actually moving, how would it know you don't have traction. It's easy to identify wheel spin speeds that are much faster than realistic acceleration would allow, but when stuck on a hard trail or obstacle, you are at wheel speeds that are considerably slower. In this range how does the bike know it loses traction? In this instance the wheel spin would be limited to what the bike "thinks" is an acceptable rate of acceleration, but in reality it has no idea what the bikes actual acceleration is. An onboard accelerometer, like in our phones would work too. All I'm saying is that monitoring and limiting wheel spin acceleration is a very crude version of traction control, it's not true traction control. The theoretical limit of wheel spin acceleration for a bike with racing tires on a street track after they've been warmed up is completely different than a dirt bike with worn knobbys on a hill in deep, slick mud.

 

[Motophyllic]

I posted a way to extract firmware from a chip and reflash with whatever else. I’m just not knowledgeable enough to make this happen. I’m hoping to find someone who can help us out with this. I would love to have an app on my phone that connects to the bike with slide bars for traction, maps, and regen.

 

[C5tor]

I'm thinking of when I'm trying to get over an obstacle, or up a hill when I have very little traction and I'm only using a tiny amount of throttle. The wheel doesn't spin very fast, but loses traction immediately. In this case, where the wheelspin, to me at least, doesn't seem like it would be fast enough for the bike to know I'm not actually moving, how would it know you don't have traction. It's easy to identify wheel spin speeds that are much faster than realistic acceleration would allow, but when stuck on a hard trail or obstacle, you are at wheel speeds that are considerably slower. In this range how does the bike know it loses traction? In this instance the wheel spin would be limited to what the bike "thinks" is an acceptable rate of acceleration, but in reality it has no idea what the bikes actual acceleration is. An onboard accelerometer, like in our phones would work too. All I'm saying is that monitoring and limiting wheel spin acceleration is a very crude version of traction control, it's not true traction control. The theoretical limit of wheel spin acceleration for a bike with racing tires on a street track after they've been warmed up is completely different than a dirt bike with worn knobbys on a hill in deep, slick mud.

The bike has accelerometers. You can see the data-points in Multitool. @TCMB371 even noted them in his How-To video when he pointed out that it was showing his bike was leaned over a bit at the time he made the video.

The problem is that these are dirt bikes. (Street is a bit different.) The tires are meant to spin in many circumstances. They are also meant to be flung around, leaned over, and jumped. Accelerometers can give false readings when you are in odd situations. When you are at a 12 o'clock wheelie, you aren't really accelerating at 1g forwards, but it looks that way. When you are flying through the air after hitting that sweet triple, it might look like you are stopped, but you don't want the bike to limit wheelspin or you lose control of your orientation. Or when you case that jump, that bike really isn't going at 5 G's in reverse. Although, when you are heading for that jump face from 30ft up, and that pucker factor goes to max, it might be nice to have a do-over button. I want one of those.

 

[Caryder]

Due to the fact , that I have a EXR with 2 wheelsets and streetlegal, what i can ride on street, Supermototrack, as an MX and dualsport. I would love to make 4 induvidual maps:
-Supermoto with maximum regen for drifting into corners
-MX like Map4 now
-dualsport with hillhold and traction control
-commuting with maximum energy saving mode!

I also have two wheel sets. I’d love to be able to input sprocket combinations so mileage & speed are reasonably correct for any given sprocket combo. Right now mileage and speed is 20% low. And I’d like to do that from a menu on the display.

 

[Motophyllic]

Let’s make this happen. We raised a decent amount of money for our legal fund when Alta was going under. I think we could raise enough money to have somebody do this.

 

[Philip]

The Firmware Hacking Fund? That's interesting.

I will then also want the Motor Current Sensor Mod Fund. If someone tweaks its output down just 20-30%, then my MXR will have 60-65 HP!

So far none of the geeks bit the bait. But, I suppose, if we collect enough money, then there will be interest. Then someone will hack it and will ask to get paid.

Or we could hire the ex-Alta software team, just for a few days, to write us a new firmware. BRP cannot legally prevent them from earning their living this way, can they?

 

[Motophyllic]

Motor current sensor mod? I’m not sure what that is. For traction control? If we could get the old software crew back together, that would be awesome. I’d pay my fair share to them. Anyone know them?

 

[privateer703]

The Firmware Hacking Fund? That's interesting.

I will then also want the Motor Current Sensor Mod Fund. If someone tweaks it's output down just 20-30%, then my MXR will have 60-65 HP!

So far none of the geeks bit the bait. But, I suppose, if we collect enough money, then there will be interest. Then someone will hack it and will ask to get paid.

Or we could hire the ex-Alta software team, just for a few days, to write us a new firmware. BRP cannot legally prevent them from earning their living this way, can they?

They may still be prevented from doing that under an NDA. They usually have time limits, but it's only been just a little over a year.

And yes, using an accelerometer to try and make traction control could be quite buggy. But it would be hilarious if some programmed an "Auto-Wheelie" function, where the throttle was turned more into an angle setting, never goes past 90.