V3 MicroSquirt® - QuickStart Guide

Triggering Directly Off the Coil

Your coil's negative terminal can be used to send the engine speed signal (aka. "the tach signal") to your MicroSquirt® controller. However, you can ONLY do this if you are using your MicroSquirt® controller to adjust the fuel only. If you want to control ignition timing advance as well, you cannot use the coil's negative terminal, and must use a distributor, crank wheel, or cam wheel.

If you are triggering directly off the coil (instead of something like a missing tooth wheel or another relatively low-voltage signal), connect OPTOIN+ (Ampseal pin #30) to the coil's negative terminal, and connect the OPTOIN- (Ampseal pin #31) to a 12V source (rather than grounding it as some older instructions recommend).

This then uses the flyback spike off the coil as a trigger (rather than the 12 Volt signal). Doing this reduces the energy dissipated in the circuit, prevent a thermal 'melt-down' of the components inside your MicroSquirt® controller.

Note that you CANNOT connect any of your MicroSquirt® controller's pins directly to a CDI (capacitive discharge ignition) coil's negative terminal in any fashion - doing so will damage your MicroSquirt® controller. CDI ignitions include MSD 6a, some motorcycle ignitions, etc. Often such ignitions can be made to work with appropriate circuits, check the documentation.


If you have any questions or problems that can't be answered from the links above, or a search the MicroSquirt® manual:
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you can ask questions at the MicroSquirt® support forum which is at: www.microsquirt.com Click the links for more information.



MegaSquirt® and MicroSquirt® controllers are experimental devices intended for educational purposes.
MegaSquirt® and MicroSquirt® controllers are not for sale or use on pollution controlled vehicles. Check the laws that apply in your locality to determine if using a V3 MicroSquirt® or MicroSquirt® controller is legal for your application.
©2011 Bruce Bowling and Al Grippo and Lance Gardiner. All rights reserved. V3 MicroSquirt® and MicroSquirt® are registered trademarks. This document is solely for the support of V3 MicroSquirt® boards from Bowling and Grippo.