No Reply with serial interface

[hotchalupa]

I'm trying to get ElanScan talking to my ECU via a serial interface to an old Windows 95 laptop (HP 800CT). This machine has a single serial port (known working, I tested it as a console terminal), and I have attempted configuring it in many different ways, to no avail. I've tried different speed configurations (from 300 through 115200 bps), different flow control settings, and even switching the FIFO buffers off. I've tried while the car is running, while the engine is stopped by the ignition is on, and I've quad-checked both ends of the cable to make sure they are properly plugged in.

What am I doing wrong?

[hotchalupa]

By the way, I wanted to add that I did read up on the Wiki, but it seems the suggestions there are only applicable to the USB->Serial interface, and newer OS's. Windows 95 does not seem to have as robust port settings.

[rip]

You should be able to get a reading from your ECU with the ignition on regardless of whether then engine is actually running or not.

My only guess is that the program is timing out before the reply actually arrives.
When my old ECU died, the engine still ran & the car was driveable but the ECU would not talk to Elanscan or Tech1.

If that helps, then great. If not, then I'm sure Geoff will be along shortly. He knows a lot more about port settings than most, is never far away from here & is looking rather like Monty these days if his new avatar is anything to go by .

[hotchalupa]

You should be able to get a reading from your ECU with the ignition on regardless of whether then engine is actually running or not.

My only guess is that the program is timing out before the reply actually arrives.
When my old ECU died, the engine still ran & the car was driveable but the ECU would not talk to Elanscan or Tech1.

If that helps, then great. If not, then I'm sure Geoff will be along shortly. He knows a lot more about port settings than most, is never far away from here & is looking rather like Monty these days if his new avatar is anything to go by .

Question... When your ECU died, did the CEL light up or did it remain off? Was the engine idling higher than normal, or did it seem to behave as usual? Now I'm concerned the ECU might be the problem. :-\ This was all being done while trying to troubleshoot a non-working Mountain chip upgrade, but I hadn't paired up ElanScan with my ECU prior so I never got to see it in action.

I haven't drove my car off due to the weather outside... So I'm not sure if it's running less than optimal.

I hope I don't have to go hunting for an ECU...

[rip]

Question... When your ECU died, did the CEL light up or did it remain off? Was the engine idling higher than normal, or did it seem to behave as usual?

Ah, if you asking those questions.....

CEL stayed on.
Engine idled at around 1400rpm.
Boost was limited to something like 0.4 bar (the gauge is notoriously inaccurate & without Elanscan I had nothing to measure it with).

My ECU was damaged by one of the new Mountain switchers. ESM withdrew the switchers immediately afterwards (& was as good about the incident as anyone could possibly hope). After testing, ESM discovered that the new style switch-board cable was at fault.

hth?

[hotchalupa]

Question... When your ECU died, did the CEL light up or did it remain off? Was the engine idling higher than normal, or did it seem to behave as usual?

Ah, if you asking those questions.....

CEL stayed on.
Engine idled at around 1400rpm.
Boost was limited to something like 0.4 bar (the gauge is notoriously inaccurate & without Elanscan I had nothing to measure it with).

My ECU was damaged by one of the new Mountain switchers. ESM withdrew the switchers immediately afterwards (& was as good about the incident as anyone could possibly hope). After testing, ESM discovered that the new style switch-board cable was at fault.

hth?

Okay, I don't think my ECU is fried... The CEL only lights up with the ignition on, engine off, and clears off once the engine starts up as it should. The idle is normal.

Coincidentally, that is the behavior I got with the Mountain chip plugged in (CEL ON, high idle). As soon as I switched back to MEMCAL, it all seemed normal. I was just afraid to learn that, perhaps if the ECU died completely there wouldn't even be a CEL. It makes sense that with the limp home circuitry it would cause the behavior you described.

Makes me feel a bit more at ease... Thank you for the information!

Sorry if my questions were newbish in nature.

Now back to trying to figure out why ElanScan and my Elan won't talk. I'm going to try another laptop tonight (with Windows 7 and a serial->USB converter).

It could also very well be the cable, as this was a used cable that was donated to Geoff/LEC. I might crack the serial end plastic cover open and make sure all the connections are still as they should (and any resistors didn't come loose during shipping).

[GeoffSmith]

Arse!

ElanScan takes control of the serial port settings (baud rate etc.) and there are no port settings to adjust with the serial one so it should work if the hardware is working. What error message did you get from ElanScan? Was it "Bad echo (sent: F4 56 01 B5: received: )" or "No reply"? The first message means that the port has not received back what it sent and the second means it received what it sent but no more data (from the ECU). You've obviously done the right things so far but you could try something else:

Run ElanScan without the lead and you should get a "Bad echo…" message. Shorting pins 2 and 3 on the D type should change this to "No reply". If you get this far, you know your port is working and the problem is then either with the interface or the ECU:

Interface: Pinky did have a problem with it, but I am convinced it was his pc serial port. I tried the lead on a pc and a lap top and also a USB to serial converter both on the car and my ECU emulator and had no problems. There must be a question mark over it, so if you have a pc with USB to hand, I can get a USB interface in the post to you tomorrow for you to try. I will see if I can find my lashup to test the ALDL plug - you just provide power and ElanScan should go from "Bad echo…" to "No reply".

ECU: Rip has outlined his ECU problem and I am aware of at least one other where the ECU worked but the ALDL interface did not. I'd be interested to get hold of an ECU like this sometime to see if it just the IO buffers that are u/s but you're a bit far away!

[hotchalupa]

Arse!

ElanScan takes control of the serial port settings (baud rate etc.) and there are no port settings to adjust with the serial one so it should work if the hardware is working. What error message did you get from ElanScan? Was it "Bad echo (sent: F4 56 01 B5: received: )" or "No reply"? The first message means that the port has not received back what it sent and the second means it received what it sent but no more data (from the ECU). You've obviously done the right things so far but you could try something else:

Run ElanScan without the lead and you should get a "Bad echo…" message. Shorting pins 2 and 3 on the D type should change this to "No reply". If you get this far, you know your port is working and the problem is then either with the interface or the ECU:

Interface: Pinky did have a problem with it, but I am convinced it was his pc serial port. I tried the lead on a pc and a lap top and also a USB to serial converter both on the car and my ECU emulator and had no problems. There must be a question mark over it, so if you have a pc with USB to hand, I can get a USB interface in the post to you tomorrow for you to try. I will see if I can find my lashup to test the ALDL plug - you just provide power and ElanScan should go from "Bad echo…" to "No reply".

ECU: Rip has outlined his ECU problem and I am aware of at least one other where the ECU worked but the ALDL interface did not. I'd be interested to get hold of an ECU like this sometime to see if it just the IO buffers that are u/s but you're a bit far away!

Thanks for the information, Geoff!

I will try these steps as soon as I get home this afternoon! I'm going also to bring down a couple other laptops, actually, just to be sure.

The previous owner left the original ECU in a box, so I will see if that one actually works. I have a feeling he replaced it thinking he had an issue (the one I finally pinpointed to being the ignition lead terminal for the #1 cylinder plug), and it may be a perfectly working ECU. I was just a bit scared to try it out, but now I'm in ECU trouble-shooting mode so...what the heck.

I'll report back. The cable looked to be in good physical shape, so I don't think it suffered any shipping catastrophe. I'm thinking it's my laptop, so I'll try a different one with a bit newer OS.

I shall report back...

[GeoffSmith]

Just shout if you need the USB lead Eddie.

[hotchalupa]

Just shout if you need the USB lead Eddie.

Will do... I'm going to exhaust all possibilities with the serial interface first, though!

Thanks again, Geoff!

[dapinky]

The situation i had with the serial lead was as follows:-

Worked fine on IBM T22 laptop with Windows Millenium, and then XP.

Still worked on IBM T23 with XP.

T30 with XP worked until i had a mishap with the laptop which needed some internal (I/O board) repairs - then nowt worked on Serial Port - I have a bit of kit for downloading data from my diving computer via serial, and that don't work either.

As my other laptops didn't have serial ports, i upgraded to a USB version which worked with the T30 (so i still suspect the serial port on the machine), and all of the other 'modern' ones with USB 1.1 or 2.

(PS - i now generally run it on T30 with XP, Samsung netbook with XP, ditto with Win7, Dell Inspiron with Vista, ditto with Win7 - all combos seem to work as good as each other)

[hotchalupa]

After further troubleshooting, I am fairly certain the cable is the issue...

I tried with a different laptop and I get "Bad echo (sent: F4 56 01 B5: received: XX XX XX XX)", as shown in the WikiLEC (the XX XX XX XX XX digits are actual HEX digits returned, of course). If I wiggle the serial connector side of the cable, it switches between no digits after the 'received:' and digits, but mostly digits. I tried unplugging, p lugging back on, but no difference.

[GeoffSmith]

Eddie, you've got an e-mail.

[hotchalupa]

Eddie, you've got an e-mail.

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