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Thread: Uber-easy DIY USB ALDL Cable

  1. #286
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    is that ground shared with anything else? i would imagine that if the ground were questionable, wiggling the connection near the bolt/screw it is fastened by should produce errors in the stream with the engine off.

    if that doesn't reveal anything, you may need to reroute or shield the ALDL comms line if there is any possibility of it picking up noise from the ignition system.
    1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS 3100 + 4T60E


  2. #287
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    Yes, I just grabbed any ground under the dash. I am at work now so I can't check it now .I'm guessing that has got to be it. I had my voltmeter hooked up under the hood and it was very steady. When I brought it into the dash I used the same ground and now it's fluttering. So I'm going to bring in a good ground in straight form the battery for both of them. I will also check where the aldl originally patched into the harness and maybe tie in there.

  3. #288
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    Have seen the arduino converters with bluetooth, if i made a cable with the bluetooth one could i read data through it or is there more to it than that?

  4. #289
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    can(and has been) done, but i've never attempted bluetooth anything, so i wouldn't have anything useful to contribute to such an endeavor.
    1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS 3100 + 4T60E


  5. #290
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    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!

  6. #291
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    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?
    The man who says something is impossible, is usually interrupted by the man doing it.

  7. #292
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    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.
    1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS 3100 + 4T60E


  8. #293
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    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.

  9. #294
    Super Moderator Six_Shooter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RobertISaar View Post
    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?
    The man who says something is impossible, is usually interrupted by the man doing it.

  10. #295
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    Quote Originally Posted by steveo View Post
    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?

    Quote Originally Posted by Six_Shooter View Post
    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.
    1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS 3100 + 4T60E


  11. #296
    LT1 specialist steveo's Avatar
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    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.

  12. #297
    Super Moderator Six_Shooter's Avatar
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    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.
    The man who says something is impossible, is usually interrupted by the man doing it.

  13. #298
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    Robert, I've sent you PMs about buying your cable. You haven't replied.

  14. #299
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    Scorp1us, it isn't intentional, i'm getting further and further behind on a lot of things now that i'm spending more time on the road than i am at home. what i am able to reply to and what slips through the cracks is somewhat random, there are more than a few forums that i'm very late replying to PMs/posts. i know i've left Jim and Mark hanging for quite some time now because i just can't work my way backwards fast enough to catch up yet.

    in light of the FTDI clone stuff, i'm at somewhat of a crossroad to continue using the parts that i have compared to finding a permanant solution... lifting the counterfeit chips off of an otherwise functional and well-defined board to replace them with legit chips sourced from mouser/digi-key would work, but it is kind of tedious and adds some not insignificant cost to the project(my margins on these cables are pretty slim as-is). i am seriously considering going down the ATTINY/ATMEGA as a USB-UART bridge route as a way to get around potential counterfeiting issues along with adding in A/D channels(and possibly some simple output logic?), but that may be a bit longer term(and at a necessarily higher cost), but i may have to do the chip swapping route until then. even then, the connector still needs finalized before any of that will be of any use.
    1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS 3100 + 4T60E


  15. #300
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    Not to worry Robert, Life gets in everybodys way sometimes.
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