will TunerPro RT v5 work with a printer port

[RRice]

recently found and resolved all the issues i was having connecting and data logging from the ECM...
first the 2 transistor circuit..forget it ppl..i tried 4 different versions and none worked..

the ebay pre-made RS232 to serial was working..but was getting data errors.
this was resolved by opening device manager for my com port and changing the default rate from 9600 to 115200..
and now there's no error and i'm getting around 10 HZ average rate on my datalog.

until now i was focusing on the idle stuff..but now i'm ready to go for a spin..but..the problem is my laptop doesn't have a serial port.
It does however have a printer port..so the question is.. can tunerPro RT v5 work with a printer port??

i see alot of the rs232 schematics listing the DB9 pinout as well as the DB25 pinout..but i don't see anyway of accessing the printer port from tuner Pro

[steveo]

no, serial and parallel communications are different. it wont work

[RRice]

hmm..Never fails just when things are working right I find that things just aren't gonna work out in my favor after all...

Are there any tuning softwares out there that can run from the parallel port?

[RobertISaar]

software isn't the problem, it's a hardware issue. the way the ECM communicates is in a serial fashion, all data going over a single circuit, where with a parallel scheme, you would see something like 8 pins being used all at the same time that when combined, represent a single byte of data. this is in addition to the other handshaking stuff.

converting serial to parallel or back isn't a very fun thing to do. maybe shift registers could be used or ???

[RRice]

well i guess i'll have to get a serial to USB converter cable next....tunerpro will work from USB right?

[steveo]

tunerpro will work with practically anything that windows recognizes as a serial interface, including usb to serial adaptors

[RRice]

aahh cool.. thanks fella's..i feel alot better now :-)

[delcowizzid]

just make sure its and ftdi chipset not prolific

[RRice]

hold up a a sec..so the ECM is outputting a signal as TTL ? and the RS232 chip is then converting that to a rs232 for use on the computer?

if that's right then most parallel ports on laptops and some desktops are already TTL compatible..so shouldn't there be a way of getting the aldl line to go straight into the printer port somehow?

[steveo]

short answer, no.

long answer, sure you can do it if you really want.

you would probably at least need to construct a UART; this is a daunting task. this is actually what UARTS are designed for, serializing parallel data. there may be store bought ones to do the job, but you're going to spend quite a bit of time getting them working.

then you have to deal with the fact that windows still thinks your parallel port is a parallel port, which is a gigantic problem, so you'd need to write a driver that makes your parallel port look like a serial port and interface with the UART.

it might also be possible to ditch the UART idea and write a low level bitbanging-type driver for a line on the parallel port, and use that to try to recieve and send serial data on a single parallel line. this would be unbuffered and require fairly precise timing in both the operating system and the driver, and would also be unreliable.

this is uncharted territory because it makes no sense for anyone to do it

it would be like building a forge to make a hammer, not because you want a forge, but only because you need a hammer.... when you can just buy a proper hammer instead

and your homemade hammer wont only be much more expensive and frustrating to make, the store bought hammer will likely be of better quality.

im not sure why you want to avoid attaching a proper serial port to your laptop instead.... they're cheap.