a diy version sounds like a huge headache to be honest.

we have considered a design with out a case but an exposed circuit board would likely end up being damaged or shorted out if it wasn't handled nicely. Micro usb would also be the only option if we went used the fastest/cheapest method of building these. The usb ports on cheap processor development boards are also not of great quality and woukd likely be damaged after a couple months of use To get a full size USB port or even a built in cable means using a custom built circuit board and at that point the cost of a case would only be a small part of the overall cost of the device.

It's easy to build one off versions of something for personal use or even a hand full of devices for friends but the moment you talk about something for resale is where things become difficult and is the reason so many great ideas never materialize into real products.

 

So true. The AllPro was a nice finished product but when you have to do a run of 500 that takes a big capital outlay. You have to be really confident in your market, and then hiccups like the Chinese counterfeit chip business can sour things in a hurry. Apparently I bought one of the very last AllPro's that were available and who knows, it could have accidentally been one with the bad chip. (In spite of Alex doing 100% testing, mistakes do occur for the best of us.) I'm not savvy enough to be able to check it and see. But I do know that if you have just a few people demanding returns on that sort of thing it can kill the whole deal so even if it is, I see it as a chance I took when I bought it. I know it's hard to accept that approach but a developer's life is a hard one. I'm not going to make it worse if I can help it.

Since I didn't get a reply on my terminal test results I'm making assumptions here that may or may not be warranted. But from this perspective my best guess has to be that I have a bad chip. Does that make the cable completely valueless? Dunno. Maybe I could re-chip it if I knew what chip to buy. Regardless, looks like I'm as much out of luck as everyone else looking for a comm solution. Has anyone asked Alex if he has any with the bad chips that could be reworked? Short term that might get a few more of us by. Also, it looks to me like the boards could be hand assembled so the MS model of a group-buy might be a possibility. That's how they started out back in the good old days. You signed up for the board and then there was a component list that you ordered from digikey. You ended up with surplus components due to minimum quantities but they were cheap and handy later. Once enough were signed up for, the boards were ordered. Took a little while sometimes but it worked.

Jim

 

Hi all,

Jim, are you getting a voltage from the cable if you enter AT RV ?
I have a CHEAP USB cable that DOES give me the 12v response, HOWEVER it REFUSES to communicate with the Vehicle it is attached to.
MY guess, is that the J1850 circuits are defective (both in MINE and yours) as I am able to send MOST ELM AT commands to the "Interpreter chip" and get proper responses.
Yours may also have a similar problem. IF so, then someone may be able to repair it fairly easily.

Mike

 

So from a assembly perspective, while having the board married to the OBDII connector is high in cool factor,,
It seems like putting the board in a generic project box with a OBD cable on one side and the USB jack for
the cable to the computer/laptop out on the other end would be easier to fab, shrinking the package is
secondary to me, since its essentially a cable I'd only be using with the laptop..

For driving around data I use a ultragage for monitoring current running state. But I'm not messing with
a highly modified tune/engine package.. Just a N/A engine..

Love watching this move along..

 

As they say....been there and done that

This was like the 2nd or 3rd version we tried out. One of the biggest downfalls to this design is that a DB9 to OBDII cable isn't exactly cheap.

 

How many of you could be happy with a box that just had 4 or 5 wires coming out, for vampire-tapping into the wiring behind the OBD2 connector? And a USB cable on the other side.

Tuck the USB cable under the center console when you don't need it, pull it out when you want it... or something like that.

The only drawback is that you'd need one per vehicle if you wire in that way.

 

Hi all,

Pete and NSFW, of the two designs, I would prefer the one Pete posted, though I suppose the hard-wired version COULD be made to work - especially for bench flashing.

Pete, I don't know the actual cost of the cable you are talking about, HOWEVER I happen to have TWO of them that came with the Aluminum ELM 327 devices I purchased from eBay!
Both cost less than $15.00.ELM 327 USB Metal Aluminum Shell Cable (like this one)

Mike

 

The case it self isn't the issue, those are cheap from china. Its the cost and time of assembling boards...or having them manufactured. Building a device that works isn't all that much in it self. It's building something that's durable enough you don't have to treat it like a piece of glass.

I'll use USB cords as an example here. It's not hard to find USB cords from China for under a buck a piece. But what are you really getting.....A rather short cord, about 3 feet long and a PVC jacket on the cord and may or may not be properly shielded. The ends going to be plain steel and will be prone to rusting even just from humidity. The wire it self will be something around 36-40 gauge and will break if you put any kind of stress on the cord. Now expose the cord to direct sun light and the PVC jacket will start to become hard/brittle, depending on how much sun it's exposed to it could start cracking with in a couple of months of use if you left the device in your vehicle.

Every thing become a compromise, it's just a matter of how detrimental the possible side affects are to the devices performance and life span.

How long should something last? Does a cheaper initial purchase price justify a shorter product life?

Like I said we don't know what it will cost by the time we have something ready for prime-time but were shooting for something around what the Allpro cost say were trying to target a $40 price point. Adding things like BT, Wi-Fi and even an external ADC is going to end up adding to the cost but those are not "features" the Allpro had so that's no longer an Apples to Apples function comparison. You should also keep in mind we've made sure this was FAST, not Allpro fast.....we're talking AVT fast. I'm talking like 2 minute PCM reads and like 30 second calibration flashes.

 

If the Tactrix is a no...

What is different about the Allpro, compared to lots of other available USB to DL16 setups out there for other platforms ?

There are dozens, if not hundreds of OBD type scan cables, some that allow some editing of OEM ecu's etc whether US, European etc etc.

Or are there some very specific requirements for this ? ( and no, I know **** about them, I just know there are various cables for other tasks on different platforms )

 

There are two key things missing from most interfaces:

We need large memory buffers so that we can read and write large amounts of data in a reasonable time. Most obd2 adapters are geared toward telling you which trouble codes are present, which only requires a few very short messages.

We need support for the high speed mode, aka 4x mode, again for the sake of speed.

Together those two things are why the Allpro is so much faster than the Scantool.

For bonus points, a good protocol helps too. That's the main reason the AVT and J tools (and Pete & Tazzi's prototype) are faster than the ELM-style devices. ELM has a lot of overhead.
​

 

I will invest in whatever tool you guys come up with....to support the project and take advantage of the faster speeds. I'm assuming though, in the short term anyway, that support for the Allpro won't go away?

 

ie the likes of specific OBD diagnostic tools like this ? Anything there of any use ? ( This would be at the expensive end )

https://www.obdinnovations.com/vxdia...e-for-gm-opel/

Or the likes of these universal stuff, although they are primary scan, not flash. Hardware totally different ?

https://www.palmerperformance.com/pr...scan/index.php

Some BMW setups ??

https://www.n54tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29236

There are lots of other flash tool/cable devices out there. Maybe they are all dedicated to each platform though ? I'm probably waffling, as I'm sure you've come across most of them before or are aware of them. But just in case, it does no harm to suggest.

 

I think reliable/simple setup/use and affordable cost might be of greater importance than overall speed for the average user. I know it is in my case. If that can be done wirelessly, so much the better. A fast read/write is nice of course, but the peace of mind of knowing it will work trumps all, and if I have to wait 5 minutes but I know it's going to work I'm certainly able to live with that. I can always take a coffee break. Towards that end, I applaud what Pete's been doing with the obdlink. The convenience of being untethered is worth a little extra time.

Jim

 

Thanks Mike. The answer is "no", 0.0v. Silly me, I hooked a voltmeter and then a DS203 to it trying to measure it. Should have just tried the command first. But no, I get nothing at all.

Jim

 

Yes, we'll continue to support the AllPro. There's no drawback to keeping it supported as we add support for more devices.

I should get myself one of those bluetooth adapters to try it out. I was really suspicious of bluetooth at first, but Pete seems to have proven that it can work well.

 

The VCX Nano in that first link uses the J2534 standard, and the app should work with any J2534 device that supports VPW. There are some cheap / crappy J2534 devices that don't work, but that one should be fine. I'm pretty sure there are people out there using PCM Hammer with the VCX Nano already.

The Palmer thing is actually software, not hardware.

You have to be careful about devices made for non-GM cars, because prior to 2007 or 2008 (meaning, everything that PCM Hammer supports) there were multiple incompatible flavors of OBD2. GM's version is called J1850 VPW. I think BMW used ISO 9141, similar to Subaru. After 2008 the whole industry standardized on CAN.

 

Yea Palmer is software...but requires hardware to interface with the car, and they link to a few options, although they are all read only sort of things.

 

Hi all,

Jim, have you checked to see if the actual OBD DLC has power on pin 16 (to GND IE pin 4,5)?
The Cable COULD be receiving power from the USB port, which most likely is NOT adequate for the electronics in the cable to work properly.
BOTH of the cables I have WILL light up the power LED when plugged into the USB, but the one WILL NOT respond to ANY AT Commands unless it is powered from the DLC
(the other does not EVER respond)
Mike

 

Thanks Mike. I did some more testing. Yes, it does make a difference if the cable is plugged into the bench harness. It returned a voltage. So I thought, hey, the OBDLink didn't work right with the original wall wart but did with the laptop brick so maybe... well, no. PCM Hammer still can't talk to it. But it does return a voltage to "at rv" of 15.6v so that's one more step done. I also measured a voltage on pin 14 (green wire) with the bench harness disconnected of 2.5v if that means anything. What's next?

Interestingly enough, the wall wart returns 12.3v so the issue between it and the OBDLink-LX would seem to be the AC ripple.

Jim

 

Hi all,

Jim, you should NOT have pin 14 connected to ANYTHING on an '0411 PCM - did you mean pin 16?
As far as MY bench harness, I have a DLC from 2001 GMC Jimmy:
Pin 2 connected to the Purple "Class 2" Data Bus wire from the PCM,
Pins 4 & 5 connected to the Black "Ground", (PSU & PCM)
Pin 16 connected to the Orange AND Pink Wires from PCM (and PSU +)

While I DO NOT have a cable the works, I have a BAFX BT that allows me to run Torque Pro to access basic functions.
It also allows me to connect my Netbook to the PCM and send AT commands via PUTTY.

Mike