Uber-easy DIY USB ALDL Cable

[EagleMark]

Thanks Robert! Saw you looking into this awhile back. Got to be the cheapest way to make a cable on the net!

[RobertISaar]

cheapest USB.... probably. and by a long shot as well. parallax 28030s are something like $18 shipped IIRC. then add in the MAX232...

i'm more stoked about the fact that it's dead-simple to put together. my previous cables all went through the extravagence of a full MAX232, which was a total pain to put together and took forever compared to this.

[historystamp]

How do you set the baud rate?

Robert

[RobertISaar]

use Tunerpro. when making an ADS (or more recently, the ADX), you can simply choose to use an 8192 baud rate for a connection.

IIRC, 8192 is the default rate in tunerpro anyways, so it won't really even be apparent unless you need to change it.

[FSJ Guy]

Would one of these work?

http://www.sparkfun.com/search/resul...&what=products

[RobertISaar]

while some of them look similar, it doesn't look like the pins that are needed are available?

if the RXD, TXD and ground pins are able to be connected to and it is a TTL to USB(or maybe UART to USB?) converter, then it should work.

note: SHOULD. i researched the one i bought a bit before i pulled the trigger.

[EagleMark]

OK that link was to much fun! Now all we need is a Uber Nerd to use one of these to flash a OBDII PCM?
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9555

Robert in your spare time could you take pictures and links and ? For a formal writup on how to do the Cable? It would be great for the forum and I would convert it to our HTML pages. Many guys want to get into this but like us funds are limited nowadays and this is such a useful and cheap way to spend some time and get involved.

This goes to anyone and everything who wants to contribute something here!

[RobertISaar]

LOL, i can take 2 pics and write a paragraph, and that's about all that's necessary to explain how to make this type of cable. it's just that easy.

that link though..... quite interesting. it would require converting from UART to USB(or UART to serial) to use it with a computer(could use the adapter i listed earlier from the looks of it), but since it uses ELM327 instruction sets, it can be used with tunerpro to do some basic logging at least...

however, if the "large memory buffer" turns out to be large enough, it COULD be used to flash the PCM as well.... with the right software anyways, but that's always been the hard part.