SLC Free review with pics

[Ignas]

Hi everyone. Recently I bought a SLC Free Wideband Controller kit from 14Point7.com and wanted to write a small review about my purchase.

I received my package in a month, which is pretty fast considering I live in Europe and the package came from US.

All the components came packaged securely and clearly marked. 

The PCB is well made and shows the location and value of components you need to solder. 

 The kit is DIY, so obviously you will need to assemble it by yourself, which requires a soldering iron and some basic skills. But it is pretty much as easy as it gets.

The instructions manual is given on 14point7.com website. It includes the list of all components and suggestions about what to solder first.

Here are a few photos from the assembly process.

After soldering the main components, and headers to the 16x2 LCD screen, you need to add the spacers to mount LCD on top of the assembled PCB board.

The only problem I ran into is that clearance between LCD and the capacitors is really small, so you need to solder the capacitors as close to the board as possible. But this is no big deal,  as there was info on this forum on how to do it.

After final assembly of the board and power up it looks like this.

It displays not only the fuel mixture in lambda, but also the temperature of your wideband, which is pretty neat.

Overall I am really happy with the kit. It was not difficult to solder, and took me about an hour to do it. The assembled unit feels very sturdy. 

Also, it is open source, so you can find all the schematics and code if you want to modify it or understand how it works, which is a really big bonus for me. 

Last but not least, the price starts at 35$ (without a wideband sensor), which is a bargain in my opinion.

At the moment I don't have a Bosch LSU 4.9 wideband O2 sensor, so I am not able to further test it for now. As soon as I will get the opportunity, I will do further testing and post my results here.

P.s. I ordered the unit with the bar graph display (SLC Free A), which costs 35$, but instead I received the one with numerical display (SLC Free B). But I actually prefer the numerical display, so I'm not complaining.

[Benny Kalanskiy]

Dear Sir,

I'm about to order all the components from Digikey,

Can you please let me know how I enter the code inside the chip?

Best regards,

Benny

[Alan To]

you need a programmer, http://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/cy3217-miniprog1

[Benny Kalanskiy]

Thank you Sir,

What I understand is because the open code will show only graph,

And new code that It will show me text?

Best regards

Benny

[Warwick Harris]

Actually there is not much missing from the code to add the text display. (Particularly if you check some older versions of the code)

You will need to add it yourself, but as you will be programming the chip anyway it would not take much extra work to modify the code to add text display.

Feel free to post on the forum if you need some help.

[chris Lowe]

Ok I followed Ignas photos and build 

then I can see the unit is powered up all this looks possible for me as I can use a soldering iron and read drawings etc, but I'm no electronics guy or programmer

My question there is talk about programming but is there a need to do any (if I order free B kit which is numeric display)or is this if people what to change from say a bar graph reading to a numeric display

hope someone can clarify

thanks

Chris

[John Bullas]

Hi Chris 

I assembled an SLC free (C?) with a background in highway engineering!

I would say that the main thing to avoid is overheating the board as with a removal of the connectors I pulled off one of the copper strips (but I bypassed with a loop of wire)

I have the device with the EGT and Lambda output on the display and it looks great in the 3D printed case I have,

Before you put the end connectors on decide the case you are using and THEN choose the connectors! I am looking at PC headers to be able to take the connection up and under the board to exit the case at the rear 

I don't see any reason to use the spare header connections on the edge of the board as I don't forsee having to reprogram it!

Dr B 

Southampton UK 

[John Bullas]

YES it was an SLC Free C, I used one of a pair of Bosch 4.2 sensors I had

[chris Lowe]

Hi John 

thanks for the response that has helped me, I was thinking somehow I would need to programme the chip

one other thing have you the 3D file for your box as I have a printer (Its about time I made some use of it)

thanks

Chris

[Milenko Mihajlovic]

Hi everyone. Recently I make a SLC Free Wideband Controller kit from 14Point7.com .

Now I conect it to 12 v Power but I dont have reading on LCD with Lambda and Temperarure .

I have no Probe conected .

Should I have same reading now?

[tycs solac]

hi i was wondering if you can share the slc free b and c code? thanks