This is an email sent to me to post from Matt Brown at NIStune.
Its lengthy, but if you dont care to read it you have no business even participating in this thread.
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Hi Brandon
If you want to post for me...
Hey guys, Matt here from Nistune. I've just been alerted of this thread so
thought I'd add my bit....
yes it will. it allows changes to the ECU whilst the engine is running from
it. With both emualtors and our boards. If Nistune tells you that you have
exceeded your license conditions then it will only allow offline tuning (see
next)
where did you get this information from? I should clarify from our official
source of information (Nistune FAQ)
"5. Individual License and Tuners License Difference
We have been working with and received quite a number of queries and
requests from workshops with what NIStune will cost for the workshop.
NIStune has now been split into two users licenses.
(a) Individual users license
- Intended for those who wish to purchase one or few boards, only needing
address files for those boards for personal interest
- Limited to three address files, and five differerent ECU IDs that can be
tuned in real-time
(b) Tuners license
- Intended for those in the business of tuning. ie primarily workshops.
Those who wish to either run NIStune with emluators and daughterboards, or
wish to tune using our RealTime boards
- Provided with complete set of Nissan address files with maptracing
information
- Unlimited emulator and boards supported
- Discount prices on boards, and further discount on quantity boards
ordered. "
As per our license agreement which you clicked when installing - you may
install on mulitple computers which are owned by you. You also have the
ability for unlimited realtime tuning on upto 5 vehicles (determined by ECU
ID). You may reset this by uninstalling/reinstalling the software if need
be. What you have written is basically misleading/incorrect
Plain wrong. The boards have EEPROM backed SRAM. All changes made are stored
to SRAM when a cell is altered and take effect immediately. When you wish to
keep those changes the burn button stores from SRAM to EEPROM on the chip
whilst the car is running. It is not FLASH memory like Bikirom which is only
'uploadable' after 20 seconds of FLASH block erasure and reprogram.
Emulators are battery backed SRAM and have the same effect except they keep
their changes all the time but are not a permanent fixture to the ECU.
We have a lot of positive tuner feedback expressing how easy the system is
to use. The design of the application was based from other various tuning
programs including TunerPro, Chrome, Hondata etc.
The vocabulary is based from what JECS/Nissan engineers called all the
parameters in the ECU (See Nissan patents for more details). Some of these
definitions (for example TTP could be broken down into plainer english).
Care to elaborate on non-standard and what it should be? We take all
comments on board for improvement of the software to make it easy to use.
Nistune single users license + Type 4 board + consult cable = $535AUD
~$430USD.
You can realtime tune, log and maptrace simulatenously with that setup and
guess what, no emulator is required. btw Where can you buy a brand new
PowerFC for that price??? Oh you cant. They dont sell them brand new any
more. What about second hand? I see an ER34 Power FC going on ebay for $2K
AUD... and the average price for a R33 Power FC starts around $1200AUD. Best
prices I have seen are about $800AUD
Again we are talking about what the common market price is in the United States in US dollars for comparable or single solution units...not AUD but I understand what you are trying to suggest...
Thats what we do also when you have realtime tuning available
Our software license is an unlimited time license which is available in two
types, individual and tuners. If you look at FLASH based tuning systems for
Suburu, EVOs etc they charge more than what we charge for a tuners license
for each car reflashed!!
We are not talking about systems for EVOS and Subarus, we are directly addressing these issues from the perspective of Nissan tuners and nissan customers....Re-Flashing an ecu everytime they get adjusted in this case you are not talking about Full Reprogrammable EMS...you are talking about a different type of system. If you are going to market your unit against the Full Reprogrammable EMS and Standalone units then you shoudl address the issues with them as the competition not deflect to another manufacturers common market ROM flash issue.
What you see with most 'free' aftermarket software is that they are
specifically designed for one purpose - and that is to run with the ECU that
it supports. In case you didnt realise, the cost of the support and upgrades
is factored into the price of the aftermarket ECU when you purchase it.
Exactly...so why do you not invest your costs into your hardware? This way your software is available to all tuners, customers and shops who would like to sell your system and EVEN possibly distribute it? Instead you are creating a divide between preferred shops or customers who will invest in buying liscenes. This will also limit the amount of the market that your prodcut can be RE-SOLD into as well...
We
would have sold our boards with the software 'free' and bundled but then we
would still keep the same price as current for the board. We offer
flexibility to split the boards from the software so tuners can install
boards for customers and also to tune with third party products including
emulators and calumsult boards.
License costs covers my time with support each night (20-30 enquiries),
developing new features, bug fixes etc, equipment costs, business running
costs, liability insurance and legal costs (which are massive especially for
selling to the US market) and all profits are taxed at 30% before I even see
any of it a. Compared to most software applications, especially for
automotive - its priced quite reasonably.
Let me put in on another perspective. How much do tuners charge for a tune
which is just changes made to maps? How much money do you put on a tune you
have sold? How often do you sell that tune to others once you have spent the
time and money developing it? Its all time vs cost and software projects
take a long time (its been about 6 years since starting writing the
application). How pissed off would you be if people started taking your
tunes and selling them on ebay or distributing otherwise. Its all
intellectual property and time invested which is worth something in real
dollars.
You are making your timing changes on the timing maps and the igntiion
timing reported by consult changes whilst you are altering the map. its all
good you can do that with Nistune
target AFR is updated within receipt of wideband data from the selected
wideband unit. you put in your required AFRs and then the fuel map will
increase/decrease. I estimate processing time about 30ms at worst. Its a
feature some users wanted and we are implementing and testing
hmmmm... sounds like the license was for a board and you are trying to use
it on an emulator. Licenses can only be resold with my permission (see
license agreement doc) and we enable the license conditions depending on
what gets ordered. Sorry but you did not purchase an emulator license. See
the Help-About for the type of license you have
The live tuning isnt avaialble with the license he is using which is why
this is the problem to begin with. The reason for the restriction is so
people dont abuse the individual licenses
where did you get your license? what did you specify when you ordered your
license? most licences out there are not for realtime tuning with
emulators....
This was a customers license and he brought his lap top with the car for me to tune...however due to the limitation of licenses we cannot actually use his software - this must be because of the fact he purchased his unit from a private seller who already "used up" all of the available licenses...
We do it already. We transfer license keys and blacklist old ones.
Does it need to be? We have a trial run available. for experimenting. Most
fully downloadable software for vehicles is no good without the ECU
connected anyway
Yes, the software should be fully downloadable and the lisences should be offered at the time of re-selling...otherwise you are going to limit the the level the product can be consumed over time and the number of re-sales the product can effectively live on through...Unless of course you automatically offer a free-license to the next purchaser of the unit...
Regards
Matt Brown
NIStune Developments
www.nistune.com