what is "ALDL USB interface-optically isolated"?

[BarryDalHerbert]

Does the ALDL USB interface - optically isolated stop light getting to something? I am not trying to be a smart-arse, and I am saying that this gadget is not being advertised with any worthwhile information...

I am talking about this: http://aldlinterfaces.appee.com/product.php?prodid=2

It would appear to be using fibre optic cables instead of electrical. Yes? So electrically isolated (by optics) rather than optically isolated?

It does have some perilously thin non-industrial looking cables though, and they can't be fibre optics waiting to enjoy a long life, so what are they for?

Since the ElanScan program and USB drivers are installed, it would appear to have some storage capability and intelligence. Yes?

I am new to Elan ownership. I'd like to support the people that support the car. My car must be worth the amount being asked for this item, but I am not seeing anything to assist in my decision making process. Why is it better than the cheaper options? It clearly must be, you made the effort to make the thing, and it costs more, but you are not selling its benefits to me! And there are no CONTACT US type links there either. This is not some secret handshake organisation that I have stumbled in to is it?

So come on you people that are making it, here is your chance. Spit fire and venom at me if you must, but please open up about this device! Give us the information that should have been on that URL - and put it there too?

Many thanks
BdH
Canberra

[HJ2]

Ehrm... From where i am standing, your post reads like a clever spam message It took me a while to find out if you are an Elan owner!

Anyway,
The interface has an intergrated optocoupler. They look like a chip in the plug of the interface, and contain (simplified) an ir sender led and a reciever. This is the part where the signals are galvanically are separated. From there it's wires again to the laptop ant that's what you see in the picture as the red and black wire.

If in doubt if the interface is worth the price: try to buy all parts seperate and pay somebody to solder the bugger together and then see what you pay...

Good luck and happy elanning

[ashm]

Is this some sort of joke? If you're serious, it seems your problem is that you want to know what "optically isolated" means? I suggest you perhaps try looking it up.
Good luck!

Adam

[epipete]

Hi, I'm not sure that I fully understand any of this (ie: the practicality or politics) but as I've yet to obtain an elanscan cable it does indicate that there are more than one type and therefore for me it is a pertinent question: 'Why is it better than the cheaper options? It clearly must be, you made the effort to make the thing, and it costs more, but you are not selling its benefit to me'

Though I might have asked more diplomatically!

[dapinky]

Hmmmm .... 4 posts in 5 years

During that lengthy membership of this site, I assume you haven't actually been reading many of the regular posts?

Anyway, enough of that, let me enlighten you (see what i did there "enlighten" "optically issolated" - Ahh, forget it.......)

The brains behind the design (and it ain't me!) has developed this as the "Royce-Rolls" of all cables to do the job - there have been others who have made them, with varying degrees of sucess, all of which have 'done the job' on the particular harware/software package owned by that person.

However, as Mr Gates changes his systems as often as i change my haircut, one size does not fit all.

Many laptops no longer have serial ports, so USB design was added...

...some USB systems got unclear signals depending on the laptop, and needed an optical issolator (or so I am led to believe by the sales hype )

Hence the latest generation which are backward compatible with any USB (1, 1.1, 2 or 3) equipped laptop (or desktop with an extension lead/generator).

Now, i perhaps know far less than many on here about what advantages the current system has, but i do know that it works, and thats good enough for me!

Should you feel that you don't want to pay the price it is advertised at, then in a free-market economy that is your choice - you get what you pay for at the end of the day.

However, either more than 200 of us have been healthily conned, or they are the right bit of kit!

[saska]

Hi, I'm not sure that I fully understand any of this (ie: the practicality or politics) but as I've yet to obtain an elanscan cable it does indicate that there are more than one type and therefore for me it is a pertinent question: 'Why is it better than the cheaper options? It clearly must be, you made the effort to make the thing, and it costs more, but you are not selling its benefit to me'

The main point in optically isolated is that there is no electrical connection between the laptop and the ECU -- so no chance of one frying the other.
Imagine the scenario: you plug one end into the ECU ALDL connection and the other into a damaged USB port on a laptop. The specification for USB 2 ports is that it must supply 5V @ 500 milliamps (1/2 an Amp).
With a std USB cable there is a good chance of frying the ECU (you may also cause damage to the laptop). With an optically isolated cable there would be no damage to the ECU because there is no electrical connection.
Damaged USB ports are not that uncommon as the centre spline connector is just supported by an easily snapped plastic spade.
The other scenario is: there you are with the laptop in the passenger footwell, plugged in to the ALDL connection and recording ES data, you're doing 60mph when the deer jumps out and just looks at you. You hit the brakes v. hard, the laptop edge with the usb cable plugged in hits the firewall hard snapping the plastic spade...

[HJ2]

Sounds like you have experience Saska!

[epipete]

Saska, thanks I understand better now I did have a hair raising experience with a pair of bulls on the road some years back & confess the wellbeing of my laptop would probably not have been foremost of my concerns as I swerved to avoid, but I take the point

And Dave (now that I know) I agree 200 people can't be wrong - I better order mine.

I'm going to get off this thread now it somehow feels as though I've ventured on to the 'dark side'!

Pete

[HJ2]

Get those medichlorians comin'

[JonT]

The specification for USB 2 ports is that it must supply 5V @ 500 milliamps (1/2 an Amp).

<geek>only once a device has enumerated and requested high power. Up until then the device can only take 100mA @5V.

At the other extreme if you've got a new Mac which can charge an iPad, it can supply up to 2.1A @5V
</geek>

[ashm]

And in fact a lot of more recent non-Mac usb ports will deliver quite a bit of current... even when the computer is switched off! This is due to the proliferation of devices which now use a pc usb port as their main charging station.

the wellbeing of my laptop would probably not have been foremost of my concerns as I swerved to avoid

Granted, but the point is that without the optoisolator, the falling laptop could potentially fry your ECU - and that would really spoil your day!

Ad

[BarryDalHerbert]

First up, I have been unwell, and then came the Christmas break, hence the tardy response.

To address your responses to my original message:

Where was the hook of my “Clever spam message” to suck people in HJ2? Not spam.

Joke? Where was the punch line ASHM? I did think that “Optically” and “Isolated” were just two words that had no particular relationship to one-another (just like “Personal” and “Computer” could have), so I did learn something from your post, but the technical blah-blah-blah at your hyperlink just made my brain hurt though!

I was not diplomatic enough for EPIPETE, and yet he likes a quote from Oscar Wilde who was famous for being a most undiplomatic sort of chap! He (EPIPETE) saw some practicality and politics issues that I was not aware that I had written, but he was able to spot my crux-of-the-matter question, and being in the same ElanScanless position as myself, also wondered about the answer.

I have been reading DAPINKY. There is not much cause to post when you haven’t got an Elan though. I did still have the Lotus postcard that collected from Bell and Colvill near my brother’s place in Surrey in 1992 on the wall though, and I did very occasionally go to Sydney to look at really tatty and extravagantly overpriced Elans, all the while assuming that I would never own one of these rare-in-Oz beauties. But now I have got one, the only one in Canberra I think, hence my awakening on LEC. And it is people like you that make LEC so good. You answered questions that to many would have been a perfect explanation of how PC ports have matured, and you could not possibly have known that having been in IT since 1966, I knew that stuff, and I am not being patronising, and this is in no way a criticism. You did by telling me that you had bought an adapter and the RR reference (but the reversal of the order of those gentlemen’s names went over my head!) make me think that I was getting somewhere.

And SASKA finished off the job with the details presented in a way that explained it all to me.

Between you, you did it, and so to all of you, a collective thank you. I now know why I should buy an ALDL USB interface-optically isolated rather than a lesser product. And if you were to be bothered to re-read my original posting, you would see that was all that I wanted to know! Perhaps the maker of this fine gadget would now like to re-write their advertising copy, and then the loop would be closed. I am still a bit puzzled as to how the ElanScan program and USB drivers can be “Installed” as it says, since they will be going in my computer, but perhaps that wording can be tidied up too.

Come on! I just did not word my question in a boring and orthodox way. There was no need for your force shields to go up! I was not rude to anyone. Most of us learned something. I was rather amused by the responses. I never intended to offend anyone (why would I when I am going to need your knowledge to sort out the downward spiral of my new toy that has been going on for many many years?), so I truly hope that I did not do so.


BdH
Canberra, Australia
8-Jan-12 15:01

[BarryDalHerbert]

[attachment=0]111106 Happy!.jpg[/attachment]
Me having arrived home on my Elan purchase day.

The Lotus cap was one of two that came with my son’s Mk1 Elise purchase at a Melbourne Lotus dealership several years ago. I wore it home for the 700 kms of that adventure, and it has sat next to the Elan postcard until my own recent Lotus collection day.

BdH
Canberra, Australia
8-Jan-12 15:37

[HJ2]

Congrats Barry!

[epipete]

I can't speak for any other thin skinned 'poms' but it seems the only person with cause to be offended now, Barry, is Oscar Wilde!

[dapinky]

I can't speak for any other thin skinned 'poms' but it seems the only person with cause to be offended now, Barry, is Oscar Wilde!

and perhaps Henry Royce......

[GeoffSmith]

G'day Bruces and Barrys. Take your eye off the ball and all hell breaks loose - apologies for not picking it up earlier, but to clear up any misunderstandings:

I'm the daft bugger (electronics design engineer by trade) who said 5 years or so ago that I would "knock a few up" for LEC members. It was never done as a business venture and the eShop is merely there to help with the admin, so the advertising is minimal/non-existant and the pictures are not up to date.... and I can't be arsed to change them now.

The optically isolated interface makes no electrical connection with the car with all the aforementioned benefits but the printed circuit board has almost 4 times as many components so is a real PITA to build..... having hand built more than 250 of the little buggers to date, you can probably appreciate why I don't go pushing the sales. If you want one, I'll make you one. If you don't, I won't!

…only once a device has enumerated and requested high power…

I purposely disabled high power mode in the FTDI configuration.

I've been a bit crook myself Barry - hope you're getting over yours and welcome to the wonderful (and sometimes weird) world of LEC.

[BarryDalHerbert]

Go on then you daft bugger, you’ve talked me in to it, I’ll have one. Sorry in advance for the prostate-checking like discomfort that will apparently ensue. Tell me how to compensate you.
BdH
Canberra
Mon 12-Mar-12 22:25

[GeoffSmith]

The hard sell gets them every time!

I'll be in touch.