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Using The Ebay/VAG-COM Cable To Datalog


qikslvr

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Woot, my ebay cable finally came in! After hours and hours of trying to get the cable to work, cursing qikslvr and his family, I FINALLY got it to work. My biggest problem was, I could get RR to begin logging data from the ECU, but as soon as I turned the car on, I would get "invalid header" errors, followed by "Could not send ECU init". Took me HOURS to figure out what was wrong.

 

I have a very old laptop...so naturally, the battery is shot, and I was using a power inverter to charge it while I worked in my car. That's what was killing me. Every time I turned the car on, the inverter would get more amperage/voltage, and for some odd reason that must have been disrupting communication with the ECU.

 

After just letting the laptop use its handicapped battery, I've pulled several good logs, with no issue, whatsoever.

 

As for my setup:

$9 Ebay cable

The Tactrix cable drivers that come with ecuflash

4800 BAUD settings

3000ms min. timeout for serial send/receive

Romraider V0.5.1b

And a laptop that IS NOT plugged into a power inverter

 

Thanks for the writeup qikslvr - very helpful.

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Glad to hear you got it working. I know it can be a pain in the azz to get it dialed in, but once it's working; it stays working. Just try to use the same ports everytime to keep the software happy.

 

And good call on the power inverter. That could be what has plagued many of the others who have had the same issue. I'll edit that into the destructions somewhere.

 

Oh and now I know why I felt a little ill the other day:lol:.

Let's kick this pig!
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I'll edit that into the destructions somewhere.

 

That might be good, depending on how many people would really be having this issue. I was very hesitant to post about the charger, just for how far-fetched it sounds. I'm not a computer newb - I do computer programming and repair for a living - and I can't justify why it would be doing this. All the current should be well regulated by the time the USB interfaces come into the equation. *shrug* I tested it probably 60+ times, over the course of this last weekend, though, so I'm 100% sure the issue has been identified correctly.

 

Got the newest version of ecuflash working last night, as well.

 

Maybe I shouldn't have done this, though. Now I can see the massive amounts of knock I have. Ignorance was bliss.

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Well, if the laptop is depending on the car charger to get power and all power is cut to accessories while cranking; the laptop and the car both have a power dip right there when you start the car. This could easilly cause communications problems.
Let's kick this pig!
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  • 2 weeks later...
I finallly got another cable; so I'll be doing some other stuff with the OS software again too. I'll try to post up a walk through for reading/flashing your ECU image using ECU flash and this cable too.
Let's kick this pig!
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Oh well. Opened up a Paypal dispute. I tried calling both numbers, got an answering machine of some family for one of them. Ran the area codes and did some research. I may have the guy's name if anyone who lost their money is interested in trying to contact him directly. Shoot me a PM for that.
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Got a new laptop, so I am having to reload all this stuff and get it all working. Also have another FTDI/dongle/usb-serial driver I'll get posted too.

Again, a thread on using this cable to flash with OS software is in the near future. I'll take care of the technical stuff and leave the actual tuning discussion out of it. I'll try to make the first post the homebase for all the relevent data in that one.

Let's kick this pig!
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  • 2 weeks later...

I just got one of these cables from alpha-bid on ebay. With my 05 LGT, I can log just fine. However, I've tried several versions of ECUflash and it will not connect to the ehicle to read teh ECU.

 

Any ideas? I've messed witht eh drivers, baud rate.. tried 2 different laptops. My cable looks a lot like the other ebay cables, but has a green LED. I wonder if its different inside?

 

Thanks!

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I know I'm going to get beat up for this question, but I bought the same cable from Alpha-Bid and can get it to read/log but can't get it to flash at all. My guess is because the car i'm trying to flash is a 05 WRX 2.0 Turbo. It's not Drive-by-Wire like the Legacy/STI's so it requires the 12volt write block http://www.tactrix.com/images/0405_WRX_init_connector_smwm.JPG.

 

My flash issue is ECUflash fails to write because Programming voltage is too low.

Example from my logs:

-reading ecu programming voltage

-programming voltage is 4.28 volts

-programming voltage is out of range!

 

Does anyone know for sure this won't work for Drive-by-cable / WRX ECU's or should work etc.

Due to the difficulty and price with the openport/tactrix cables I was hoping this would work for me as well.

 

Morrias, what drivers did you use? Lasted FTDI (worked) or the one's on alpha-bids link (didn't work for me), or the ECUflash 1.29a drivers?

 

Thank you

Edited by bisch
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Thank you for the quick reply Morrias. I will try the Tactrix drivers with ecuflash 1.29a.

 

I've done some reading and it seems people have been successful with the same car I have and DBC cars in general, so I'll keep after it and post a solution in here when I find it.

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Hey guys,

$5.99 plus 9.95 shipping:

USB Cable KKL 409.1 VW/AUDI OBD2 OBD OBDII VAG COM 409 Item number 320345060681 EBAY cable

 

I just flashed my ecu with it using the latest RomRaider0.5.2Beta and Ecuflash version ecuflash_1412483_win, all is well, just took a little trickery starting ecuflash and ignition key at the right times to write to ecu. Comes with VAG com driver disk setup.

First change: remove cylinder timing compensations from 2+4.

 

Edit:srry not applicable to wrx, 06 lgt mt

Edited by stiinc
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I was able to flash just fine with an ebay cable.

 

Seller: smooth-dealer

Auction: "NEW USB OBD2 OBD-II Diagnostic VAG COM KKL Cable for 409.1 Audi/VW/Seat/Skoda."

 

However, when I tried to data log with RomRaider, the logs came up empty. There were column headings, but no data. Any ideas?

 

I'll try again and see what happens.

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