Support¶
TL,DR: see https://discord.gg/rCGAUaZJKF
rusEFI is a community-driven free open source project. We offer very flexible universal units which empower motorsports professionals or enthusiasts to accomplish a lot, but we do not have the resources to offer free support to end users.
If you need help with your rusEFI project, you have two options:
Paid Technical Support¶
Technical support can be purchased on an hourly basis at the rusEFI Store. Supply limited.
Community Support¶
Ask for help from someone in the community.
Where to ask for help¶
In most cases, please start by posting your tune & log files on rusEFI Online for easy access by those trying to help you. More information on how to do this can be found in the rusEFI Online wiki page.
The rusEFI Forum is the primary free support channel.
Discord is a group messenger that can be accessed through your browser or as an application. This is a good place for quick one off questions, but not for continued help on a project, as context is very quickly lost in the stream.
How to ask for help¶
Before getting in touch for some assistance there are a couple of things to know that will make it easy for us to help you.
Before asking for help, please search the wiki and the forum for a solution to your problem. Reading through the FAQs may also help you.
If you still need direct help then please have a read of the information below; help us to help you.
BLUF (bottom line up front) communication
How to ask technical questions
FreeCAD's Bug Submission Guidelines
An example of a question asked with helpful background information:
UK Mazda MX5 miata NB 1.8'99 - Future Turbo project r0.5 #38 - Forum
rusEFI is not specific to a particular vehicle. The people involved own and know about a wide range of vehicles. It's easy to forget this and use terms that may be familiar to people who mess with vehicles like yours but aren't well known in the broader audience. Asking "What about N75?" is a much more ambiguous question than "What about N75 (boost control valves)?" Adding the extra information (parenthetically) makes it easier for more people to understand what you are asking and help you faster.
Screenshots are an easy way to add helpful information to your request for support. Attaching a screenshot to a forum post you requires less than six key presses.
- "ctrl-print screen" or "alt-print screen" to take a screenshot and copy it into the clipboard
- "ctrl-v" to attach image from clipboard into forum post.
Snipping Tool, which is included on your PC if you have Windows 10 or newer, and ShareX can take screen recordings in addition to screenshots.
Please collect the below information before requesting support in the forums. Also please include this each time you post about a problem. This can all be collected in a zip file, or done as individual files and attached to your forum support request. Please keep in mind that you are seeing this and you have a lot of information which those of us in the forum do not have. Things that may seem simple to you may be complicated for those of us who have not physically seen what you have, or have not see the steps you have taken to get to the problem you are faced with.
- What is the basic problem? This would be something like, engine does not start, cannot connect Tuner Studio, Magic smoke has come out, or something similar. A video on youtube can be helpful for this as well.
- Please provide a screenshot of the rusEFI console. This tells us allot about what firmware you are using, and the status of your software. Also please include the console's border as that indicates information as well.
- Please provide a screenshot of Tuner Studio. Just like the console, this indicates a lot about your setup and which pieces of software you are using. Also please include the Tuner Studio border as that indicates information as well.
- Please provide a picture of your physical setup. Seeing how the wires are connected tells us allot about how the hip bone is connected to the leg bone, etc. It also tells us if you have connected the leg bone to the shoulder bone.
- Please provide a copy of your logs, or specify NA for this.
- Please provide a copy of your tune, or specify NA for this.
- Please tell us if you have updated your discovery firmware with the STLink tool. This is not the rusEFI firmware, but the discovery firmware.
- Please tell us if you have installed the VCP drivers.
- Please indicate your software pieces, commonly as noted below. The most common platform and the platform used by the primary software developer is Windows, so you are most likely to get the best support with a native Windows environment.
Tell us about your engine setup. Something like the below.
| Cylinder Count | Injection Configuration | Ignition | Fuel | Aspiration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | port | distributor | gasoline/petrol | turbo |
| 2 | batch | COP | diesel | supercharger |
| 4 | direct | CNP | propane | Naturally Aspirated |
| 6 | no fuel control | no spark control | ethanol | other |
| 8 | wasted spark | other | other | other |
| 12 | other | other | other | other |
Success?¶
Once your issue is resolved please write up how you got things resolved. Your experience may be helpful to someone else.
- Please have a separate forum thread for each of your rusEFI vehicles. Please have at least one picture in the first forum post.
- Please upload your best rusEFI tune to rusEFI Online
- Please upload a few interesting log files to rusEFI online - a starting/warm-up log, a wide open throttle driving log etc.
Support Q&A¶
Q: I am not into reading, can I just rely on community for everything?
A: No, there's an expectation that people read documentation and follow that documentation.
Q: Do you guys prefer short text descriptions or long text descriptions?
A: We prefer longer problem descriptions with as much of supporting material as possible. Screen shots, videos etc.
Q: I would like to get individual technical support via email
A: Your best option in this scenario is paid technical support
Q: What is the preferred way of posting videos?
A: Please use Youtube to post videos, then post a link of your video.
Q: I have 2009 AXP with TAMTAM. Help me. ("AXP" and "TAMTAM" are made up to illustrate that the particulars really don't matter here.)
A: You are very unlikely to get much help asking for support like this. rusEFI helps those that are willing to help themselves. We do not have the have time or bandwidth to provide hand holding for specific setups or features. Unless you want to become involved in the development process as a contributor, it is very unlikely that we will "just get around to it" in the next year.
Q: Joe rusEFI Dev is on Facebook; may I message them directly?
A: Unfortunately we do not have resources for technical support via Facebook direct messages.
The same goes forum private messages. Please use public channels to have a higher chance of a response from the community. The more effort you make to ask a good question, the better response you would get. If you want one-on-one support, it is available in the rusEFI store.
Q: How do I attach logs to my forum post? Looks like forum does not allow .msl files?
A: Please post your logs and tunes to rusEFI Online.
Q: I have damaged OEM ECU, what's best way to just repair my vehicle?
A: Universal standalone ECUs are not trivial, we do not recommend universal standalones as a way to repair a broken vehicle. While you gain openness and sureness in what you deal with, you would have to make quite an effort to calibrate your ECU to a drivable state.
Q: What is the process for warranty/returns
A: Once you have exhausted all public community support options including Discord we usually accept returns with a refund.