MX basket case bike resuscitation

[enjoythesilenc]

I need help to determine if I can make a runner out of a pile of spare and possibly mismatched electronic components.

I think I have all the essential components because all of the connectors on the harness are plugged into a component except the "light" plug.

I'm a novice alta owner so maybe there is little hope of this ever working.

Current status is key is turned on, the display lights up, red light on battery glows, blue light blinks and red light inside ACM blinks.

I'm going to visit the multitool videos to see if there is a step by step sequence of tasks I need to perform to see if my components are viable or compatible with eachother.

 

[Redwolf]

I'm betting a few knowledgeable volunteers will be arriving soon to help walk you through the steps it will take to make this dream a reality.

 

[C5tor]

Maybe you should start with an inventory of the parts you have, and what you want to do with them. Pics help too.

 

[Rashid510]

Since it sounds like you hobbled together an Inverter, Motor, ACM, DCCP, Key switch, Battery and Display. Based on your picture you are not getting any coms with the ACM being initialized or Battery (BCU). Quite old firmware on those parts it seems. MT will let you know whats not working/initialized.

 

[enjoythesilenc]

This place is great. I love the first steps climbing a steep learning curve.

I think I have all the components accounted for and connected properly. First time using multitool and I dont get very far so I better watch the tutorials again. It seems the laptop is able to connect properly and scan the bike but...

 

[Jayfox911]

Post a picture of the loader tab.

Did you copy the recommended_fw.json and firmware(s) to the /.alta/firmware folder?

do you have an A battery or a R battery pack?

 

[Rashid510]

It has no VIN number, interesting, it needs to be initialized with a VIN number so it can go through the next steps of associating firmware. Then it can associate a vehicle type. Also the loader tab as @Jayfox911 mentioned will explain more details.

 

[enjoythesilenc]

Rashid510 is walking me through this process with great patience! What I have is a bunch of pre production or early components. (Old) I also have a working MX model (new). I have swapped components out step by step. I still haven't got the old components working but I'm learning a lot and maybe the process will benefit our knowledge base, even if I fail to get things running together.

I have tried 5 combinations of old and new parts and so far haven't bricked any of my working components. This is a terrible table but it works for me and maybe will be of some general benefit.

 

[enjoythesilenc]

So far it seems that the odometer data resides in the inverter. I would have thought it lives in the acm since that is coupled to the VIN in multi tool.

Also interesting is that the water pump status changes when I swapped batteries.

 

[snydes]

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing!

 

[Mark911]

If the parts are off previously working bikes you have a pretty good chance of getting everything to play. However, if some of the modules are from old Alta inventory there's a good chance the CAN bootloaders were never loaded. If that's the case you'll never get that particular node to communicate. At least until someone (ex Alta employee) coughs up all the bootloaders. I've got many modules that are essentially paperweights because of this issue.

 

[Rashid510]

If the parts are off previously working bikes you have a pretty good chance of getting everything to play. However, if some of the modules are from old Alta inventory there's a good chance the CAN bootloaders were never loaded. If that's the case you'll never get that particular node to communicate. At least until someone (ex Alta employee) coughs up all the bootloaders. I've got many modules that are essentially paperweights because of this issue.

Good luck with boot-loaders. Everything that existed with boot-loaders has gone to a better place. Now you can argue, pretend or counter but every Alta employee involved with that area will say the same thing. Even with older inventory the likelyhood of getting something apart is possible, but with so many design(PCBA) and software iterations, its going to be tough.

Your paperweights? May want to use them as ballast.

 

[Mark911]

[QUOTE="Good luck with boot-loaders. [/QUOTE]

In the long-run this issue might ultimately be the downfall of our bikes.

 

[enjoythesilenc]

The laptop that came with the disassembled bike has some "devel" firmware and boot570 file but maybe that has nothing to do with what you are talking about, boot-loaders. How does one determine if each component has the CAN bootloaders present?

Also, my proclamation that the odometer lives in the inverter is probably wrong. The working bike's odo went to zero when I had the old ACM installed in it.

 

[Rashid510]

The ACM contains the critical info of the bike ie(mileage, turn signal notifications and the VIN) - when mixing around parts, sometimes the firmware packages do not jive and create these situations.

Boot570 is the old timing program we used before integrating it into multitool. Its quite a "fun" piece of software, uses linux terminal commands to communicate inside the inverter.

A boot-loader is useful to do modifications which is on the laundry list of many members here on the forum. Unless you like to play with PCBAs and then break things. Then you would need a boot-loader to fix your mistakes.

 

[enjoythesilenc]

I think I've read about half of the content of this forum so far. Its pretty interesting to see the Alta history as it unfolded in the threads and posts.

I have juggled most of the components back and forth between the two bikes except for hooking all the old parts onto the "new" inverter. In summary, none of the old parts have worked on the new bike and all the new parts hooked up to the old inverter did not work either.

So far I have had no luck in being able to change firmware on the old inverter, acm and display. Perpetually stuck on "waiting for target" in multitool. (key cycled, multitool relaunched etc) I am able to change firmware on the old battery when it is hooked onto the new bike but still only gets me to "not ready to start" message on display.

The old battery can be seen while the old acm is hooked to multitool so I'm fairly sure the old parts communicated together as a working bike at some point

 

[snydes]

I think I've read about half of the content of this forum so far. Its pretty interesting to see the Alta history as it unfolded in the threads and posts.

You are well on your way to being a full blown forum junkie then. It’s addicting!

 

[Mark911]

The easiest way is to remove the covers and see if the main processor chip has paint makings on it. It was typical at Alta to initial each chip after it had the bootloader installed using a paint pen (silver or white) and a series of little lines or dots or sometimes with the actual revision of the firmware. You'll know it when you see it for sure. I'm not saying this method is 100% perfect as maybe some pre-production or engineering model modules slipped through but it's worked for me.

Note, the ACM cover on the production models was glued on and can't be removed. That one can be a problem.

 

[Judaslefourbe]

In the long-run this issue might ultimately be the downfall of our bikes.

I would have thought it was Alta going bankrupt...

 

[C5tor]

I would have thought it was Alta going bankrupt...

Clearly that didn't stop us idiots from buying bikes after the company folded. And most of the bikes are still running so far. I'm hoping by the time the batteries start to fail for good, I can just drop a Mr. Fusion reactor into the thing and keep on flying. After all, "where we are going we don't need roads..." Because technically we have offroad bikes, so the roads thing is totally optional.