galvitron

iTrader: (2)

Gender changer may work. Give it a shot. They are only a couple of bucks

Well, unless someone is willing to help me with this idea from FTDI I will be unable to proceed. Only thing I can try is a powered hub...

burgers22

Looking at the schematic, the capacitors would have to go on pins 2 & 3 of the USB connector J4, I'll see if i can get time to pop the cable open over the weekend.

MB

galvitron

iTrader: (2)

Burgers,

Thanks for the info so far. If you can lay out for me how to do it I am willing to do mine too. I've invested so much time so far that I can't quit now!

burgers22

Hi Galvitron

Only had time for the briefest of looks.

Just had the Tackrix apart. The front part has to be prised off, I used a blunt dinner knife to work between the crack, technical huh? The front bit has a plug and socket arrangement so no wires to damage. Then do the same to split the back part.

I'd suggest doing the capacitor mounting on the cable itself. It detaches from the PCB so no chance of frying the PCB. If you cut back the cable sheath a bit it will give you more to work with. Get some heat shrink to make good afterwards.

The capacitors will go between the white (pin 2 ) and thiner black cable (pin 4 ). The again green ( pin 3 ) and black (pin 4) I sugest cutting the wire, striping it back a bit, puting a small piece of insulation over one conductor and twisting the three back together, then soldering up.

I suspect the thicker black wire is the shield but I've not had time to investigate that. Drop me a line if you've any more questions.

MB

galvitron

iTrader: (2)

Burgers,

I appreciate your help. I will try as soon as i can, probably this weekend.

What capacitor should I use?

burgers22

Hi


The text you posted stated 47pF, check out this page http://www.justradios.com/orderform.html

About half way down pn the left, under Polystyrene Film "Tubular Axials" 47pF/630V axial ....$0.97.

I checked Radio shack, but they didn't have any 47pF. Be carfull NOT to get electrolytic, if you'd need them the FTDI guy would have said.

MB

evo828

I am going to test with Acer N50 and the openport cable from Hamish (should be very similar to Tactrix) - what software do you use to test the connection to ECU?

jcsbanks

Galvitron/burgers22 - can you get the Tactrix cable to appear as a virtual com port on the Pocket PC?

Reason I ask is that my Pocket PC logging app that uses COM1 and a VAGCOM cable also works on a full PC with the Tactrix cable, even at 15625 baud (the ECU's standard baud rate) using the virtual com port on COM1 that the Tactrix cable appears as.

The problem I'm having is my decent dual core laptop PC logging is only half as fast as my very old and slow Pocket PC logging using the same code!!! Same applies even though I've compiled a new app for the PC in Visual Basic. It changes a write of a RAM ignition map from about 6 to 14 seconds, quite annoying. The delay seems to be in the instructions that read bytes from the serial port. AAARRRGGH!

galvitron

iTrader: (2)

I will get a little test program ready this weekend (or earlier if I have the time). I will have it test the problem I am having and report the results on screen.

I have the cable installed as an FTDI device, which uses the FTDI driver dll rather than the standard COM port access that a normal program would use. But, it is possible to use the cable as a COM device. Fortunately, most PocketPC's have a COM port integrated into the unit already. Most have a proprietary connector used for syncing. This connector can also act as a COM port usually so you can communicate directly. But as noted before, you need to get the ECU to use the standard baud rate.

If you want, you can try going to the FTDI site and get the other drivers for the ARM processor for WinCE and try to get the cable connected as COM1. The logger I will release when this is done will support normal COM ports at a user selectable baud rate (in addition to tactrix cable).

BTW, I think Hamish's cables are the same cables as the Tactrix. Hamish, can you verify this?

evo828

I can test either:
1. Acer n50 - USB host adapter - Openport/Tactrix cable - some test software
or
2. Acer N50 - USB host adapte - USB to Serial Adapter - VAG COM KKL cable - soft published by john for his serial logger

seems to me that nr 1 still needs soe finetuning for the FTDI drivers - but I can try but I do not have the test soft - so I will wait

nr 2 - I will try may be over the weekend

galvitron

iTrader: (2)

Well from what FTDI is saying my host interface into my PocketPC is putting "noise" into the communication. When I get that test app up we can see if you get the same issue with this "noise" stuff...

evo828

ok - maybe the circuit from Hamish is slightly different - lets see.

But somehowe I do not understand - the cable is working with no probs on the laptop - so why suddenly on a pocket pc there are some noise issues...

evo828

galvitron - do you have the testing app already - I have my USB cable connected to the PDA via USB host adapter - got the FTDI driver installed - unfortunatelly I cannot use the test program from FTDI.com to test becasue I still do not have the VS2005 - so no way to compile

jcsbanks

You can download a 3 month trial of VS2005.

galvitron

iTrader: (2)

Still working on it...I will get it done soon. probably this weekend.