Really Easy Start

[volcano island trial]

Lotus 54,

I ve been reading your forum on Your Ossas, and I also read your document that you wrote on your expereince on Ossa TRi series. Your writing inspire me to learn more about Ossa FI bikes.

I own a 2014 Ossa Explorer 250, and have been inconsistent in solving the startting problems..and As you know the 2014 model have the original easy start system by ossa which uses 1.5 volt battery to energize the capacitor.. Also I have installed the 12 V lithium ion battery to the diagnostic connector as per your earlier post... I have several questions..

1. The 12 V diagnostic connector..you can hear the Fuel pump run when you press the momentary switch until the pump stop (fuel press reached ?)..then we release the switch when we kick start it.. Or shall we still press the switch (12 V to the diagnostic connector) while kicking ?...I read in your post, that the 12 V to the diagnostic connector only powered the fuel pump not the ECU..but is it true ?

2. On the older TR Ossas..Nigel Birkett suggested installed 9 V battery to the capacitor behind the headlamp and also connect to momentary switch to energize the capacitor with 9 V battery for the ECU..As far as you know how much is this different to teh original Ossa easy start box installed on the explorer ?

3. Even with the 12V easy start, my bike still hard to start..I suspect the ECU is not properly energized, even i repeatedley use the kill switch to activate it...Do you know how the check if ECU is fully energized before kick starting it ?..so the ossa easy start is working (or not)

 

Thank you for your attention

VOLCANO island

[lotus54]

I hold the momentary button (on my modified setup) down as I am kicking. Then release.  This has always worked for me.

  I believe the ECU is also energized by applying voltage to the proper diagnostics connector. These are the same connectors used when using the diagnostics software-  and it cannot read it unless it is powered up. 

I find that the bikes are very easy to start- BUT you really need to have the TPS (throttle position sensor) and idle set as the manual says. Plus do not touch the throttle when starting.

I also ran a little ‘hotter’ sparking plug in both my bikes- I was very careful to watch them and the stock ones just ran too cold.  That seemed to make the bike harder to start as the sparking plug aged a bit.

Edited March 31 by lotus54

[konrad]

To check if the EasyStart is working properly, connect a voltmeter between the Red & Black wires at the 6-pin diagnostic connector.  Momentarily actuate the kill button.  You should see something close to 9 VDC for 30 seconds.  If you don't, replace the 1.5V Ni-MH AAA cell in the EasyStart.  Or simply remove the cell and charge it outside the bike.  The bike's electrical system does recharge this cell at a trickle rate.  But I think if the cell gets really low, the trickle charge becomes insufficient. 

Lotus, I'm not sure how you can start the bike while actuating the kill button.  On the trials bikes, the kill action overrides (as it should).  Perhaps the Explorer is different?

I no longer think it's necessary (or perhaps even desirable) for the fuel pump to run prior to kicking.  The fuel pump and Injector are powered by a seperate winding on the stator (I'm in the process of reverse-engineering the ECU). 

You can learn a lot by "teeing" a pressure gauge into the injector's fuel line.

Most of the time these EFI OSSAs will start on a single kick if everything is working properly.  The problem is that the system is quite complicated with lots of potential for things to go wrong.

[lotus54]

I do not hold the kill button down, but the momentary switch I installed that powered 12V to the diagnostics connector.

   For me- both bikes I installed it on started a LOT better, especially when I’m tired and not in a good kicking location. The other things I liked about that modification- if the bike runs out of fuel, a simple button push with prime it. Vrs a ton of kicking (at least in my experience). Plus it works great for diagnostics out on the trail if it is won’t start/quits running. The button push verifies the fuel pump is working (at least). 

On my bikes, the little AAA battery would not really charge back up properly and I would take them out every so often to give a proper charge. But after the ‘super easy start’ mod I no longer did that.

on the early Explorers, turning on the keyswitch would power up the fuel pump and you could hear it running. One I worked on would start very well- once I set everything else up properly.

[konrad]

3 minutes ago, lotus54 said:

On my bikes, the little AAA battery would not really charge back up properly and I would take them out every so often to give a proper charge.

I've noticed the same thing.  And they did not design the box for easy AAA cell removal/installation.

I've anyone has a dead EasyStart box, I'd like to reverse-engineer one of those too.

 

[konrad]

I find it interest that the Explorer has both a main filter capacitor plus a filter capacitor in the EasyStart box.  This latter capacitor is only connected when the fan is running.  The trials bikes with factory EasyStart dispensed with the main filter capacitor.  I think the entire EFI system was a learning process for OSSA, and perhaps Kokusan Denki as well (whose 2T experience was with snowmobiles).

I also think it's difficult to generalize too much about how the different models operate.  Not only are the "maps" themselves different, I believe some of the ECU firmware may be different as well.

[pinsx3]

i opened up the box on (now) my Ossa -- one of the wires dislodged from the little clippy thing -- I pushed it back and it seems to be in there but I am uncertain.  Have any of you pushed the wires back into place?