Uber-easy DIY USB ALDL Cable

[91Z28L98]

Thanks for the reply, read through all 20 pages of this post and kind of figured if it was that easy it would have been brought up. I have worked on my own cars for a long time and use to have a cable probably 10 years ago but have misplaced it. I found this thread and thought it would be cool to hard wire one in my car and truck (91 Z28, 89 K2500). Want to be able to hook to my phone and read sensor data. Maybe eventually mess with proms on the Z28. So i could get a mini usb cable and plug into my Note 2 and should work right? The other end of the module that has the 4 or 5 prongs is what gets wired to the aldl port? Thanks for the help!

[Six_Shooter]

Hmm, this is interesting, and could be problematic for some people...

http://hackaday.com/2014/10/22/watch...ng-fake-chips/

I wonder though, if one does end up with a bricked device using a fake FTDI chip, a simple swap to an official FTDI chip should solve the issue and allow the device to be used again, no?

[RobertISaar]

swapping the IC wouldn't end very happily for a lot of people, SSOP-28 gives me trouble at times and i would like to think my skills are at least average.... replacing the entire adapter could be an issue as well, since one could run into the same problem immediately or in the near future if they don't get one with a FTDI sourced chip.

this is a really bad situation to be in.... i've gotten both legitimate and clone chips from ebay, i IMAGINE a company like mouser or digi-key will have only legit pieces, but any level of supplier after them could have anything on their shelves.

perhaps it is time to jump ship off the FTDI path? i'm seeing some interesting uses of some ATTINY and ATMEGA chips that use them to act as a USB-UART bridge.

http://www.obdev.at/Images/vusb/circuit-zoomed.gif

the ATTINY2313 isn't expensive at all.... and would allow for some external a/d to be added in for additional sensor logging.

[steveo]

if it's just the windows drivers that are the problem, let the knockoff chip mfrs change their device IDs and supply their own patched drivers. if you're using knockoff ftdi chips to make aldl cables, you can flash the firmware to change the device id yourself and supply a driver. no big deal.

personally i like how the ftdi series chips work; and i've used quite a few different ones, even playing with them 'driverless', with both raw usb commands and libftdi.

[Six_Shooter]

swapping the IC wouldn't end very happily for a lot of people, SSOP-28 gives me trouble at times and i would like to think my skills are at least average.... replacing the entire adapter could be an issue as well, since one could run into the same problem immediately or in the near future if they don't get one with a FTDI sourced chip.

this is a really bad situation to be in.... i've gotten both legitimate and clone chips from ebay, i IMAGINE a company like mouser or digi-key will have only legit pieces, but any level of supplier after them could have anything on their shelves.

I agree it's not a perfect situation or solution to the problem, the idea was just that if on did find themselves with a bricked FTDI based device that there could be a way to revive it.

I agree on the "who knows what they have" end of things, they all look legitimate even to people in the know, unless you take a close look at them.

perhaps it is time to jump ship off the FTDI path? i'm seeing some interesting uses of some ATTINY and ATMEGA chips that use them to act as a USB-UART bridge.

http://www.obdev.at/Images/vusb/circuit-zoomed.gif

the ATTINY2313 isn't expensive at all.... and would allow for some external a/d to be added in for additional sensor logging.

Hmm, tie pins 2 and 3 together and have a USB to ALDL cable?

[RobertISaar]

if it's just the windows drivers that are the problem, let the knockoff chip mfrs change their device IDs and supply their own patched drivers. if you're using knockoff ftdi chips to make aldl cables, you can flash the firmware to change the device id yourself and supply a driver. no big deal.

personally i like how the ftdi series chips work; and i've used quite a few different ones, even playing with them 'driverless', with both raw usb commands and libftdi.

i have a basic idea of what all that entails..... and it really doesn't sound that difficult, so i have to ask, why wouldn't this have been done yet? the illusion of legit parts?

Hmm, tie pins 2 and 3 together and have a USB to ALDL cable?

that is very much how it is looking. and with 11 I/O ports left to do whatever there is enough processing time for. then the software side needs dealt with, i would say it can't be that difficult to emulate a serial port, but i would probably be wrong.

[steveo]

i have a basic idea of what all that entails..... and it really doesn't sound that difficult, so i have to ask, why wouldn't this have been done yet? the illusion of legit parts?

perhaps

one drawback is, as soon as you change the device id, all your generic drivers wont work. this also means that plugging this device into things you haven't planned for, but have perfectly working drivers... android.. linux.. whatever.. wont detect the device at all until you "fix" it.

this shouldn't be necessary, i suspect this 'windows driver update' is actually an 'ftdi chipset firmware update', which i guess the clones deserve, if they aren't making copies that can handle the same firmware as a real ftdi chip.

[Six_Shooter]

Well, it looks like things are changing concerning the FTDI driver bricking issue: http://hackaday.com/2014/10/24/ftdi-...up-backs-down/

So now, instead of bricking the device it just won't work with the new driver to be released next week.

I think I'll find a copy of the old driver, just to make sure I have something that will work, in case I ever end up with a counterfeit FTDI chipped device.