ALDL basics for a Dummy

[VNracer34G]

I searched usb pinouts late last night

Red - > 5v+ out for charging i-pod and the likes
Black - > earth
Green- > data +
White -> data -

Six-Shooter your dead right with your observation of the pic on aldlcables site - thats why i called it ugly i'm sure if i knew what transistor/resistor was needed where i could solder it up myself and put some shrinkwrap on it.for about $2.00NZ dollars rather than about $130.00NZD with the exchange rate. It's the Kiwi mentallity mate. If we all went out and bought stuff off the shelf this site would be redundant. I hear you though.

Cheers guys, back to work dammit

[antus]

I agree, USB is a far more complex standard than rs232 serial or aldl (technically USB is a shared bus, and needs a chip that can tell the pc what it is and handle multiplexing data with other USB devices that could potentially be on the bus, eg through a USB hub on another port at the same time). You will need an interface chip that can do this. This then becomes a mini electrical engineering exercise and is generally is not considered worth the effort.

However the usb to serial interfaces discussed have all of that in them. Heres one I just randomly found on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/USB-to-Serial-Ad ... .m63.l1177

It has the FTDI chipset and is therefore able to handle the non-standard speeds in the delco world. From there you can use the aldl to serial methods earlier in the thread or elsewhere on the site.

Just to give an idea of what USB does when you plug a device in, heres the logs from my linux machine when I plug an FTDI usb serial device in. As you can see there is a discussion with pc about the device, what it is, configuation and all that. Unfortunately you cant build that with just a couple of transistors

Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: usb 2-5: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: usb 2-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: ftdi_sio 2-5:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: ftdi_sio: Detected FT232BM
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: usb 2-5: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: usb 2-5: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: usb 2-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: usb 2-5: Product: USB <-> Serial
Aug 10 10:31:10 media kernel: usb 2-5: Manufacturer: FTDI

And now my system has a serial port that programs can use.

You could build it yourself, but not with off the shelf parts (mail order internet parts, yes..) and not for less than a pre-built interface.

[antus]

having said that I now found the FT232BM reference circuit design. You'd need to find the chip, but then you could put this circuit on the end of your cable and that should do it.

You wouldnt need the optional chip, and with the max232 wired in as well that would give you a USB->ALDL cable.

[Six_Shooter]

Yep, while I like to build as much as I can, including my electronics, there's just a few things, like this that I'd rather just buy.

I look at my time as money too, so for all the hours to find and then assemble the pieces, I can buy a pre-built cable cheaper.

[VNracer34G]

Yep, while I like to build as much as I can, including my electronics, there's just a few things, like this that I'd rather just buy.

I look at my time as money too, so for all the hours to find and then assemble the pieces, I can buy a pre-built cable cheaper.

Point taken, i absolutely HATE farming anything out ... when i built 34G all but one task ( welding an extra hose fitting and moving the filler neck on the stainless fuel tank - no tig at home ) was done in house... however i currently need a 30hr day to get through what i need done, do my day job and remind the family who i am from time to time.

Bit the farmout bullet again, USB-rs232 serial cable bought off TradeMe last night so should have that by Friday, also took DelcoWizzid up on his offer to make me a cable - and he was good enough to send me a few .bin's and .xdf's unzipped so i am working on getting my head around Tunerpro with different tunes for comparison.

Off to wade through the crap out in the shed from tearing down 2 1/2 motors and hook up an O2 sensor in eager preparation for my first crack at logging.

VL400 i cant datalog on the track true enough but i will take the opportunity for a few clandestine squirts off track - i have access to a few off public road strips so i'll dig up a couple of same size ungrooved tyres and fit to rims in the next couple of days.


Q. as i will be running 205/50r15 rears instead of the normal 205/65r15's i am aware the speed readings on winaldl will be way off relative to rpm but will this effect the tables at all??

[delcowizzid]

speed wont effect anything in the tune really apart from TCC lockup kmh which doesnt matter in your case i better make that cable and send it then aye and a memcal too test to is it

[VNracer34G]

Sounds like a plan on the cable and thanks for the info






maybe mate

PM sent

[VNracer34G]

Its a very limited data stream with a very slow update rate but the first time you get it working you will be

!

OH YEAH

After a few dramas to get my laptop on vista to talk to my TradeMe USB-RS232 serial with a cable from the very busy delcowizzid. After much gnashing of teeth i plugged the cable to the car turned the master switch on so it should have been chucking a signal out (warning light flickering away nicely) then booted up the lappy and clicked on Winaldl and woohoo those empty boxes started filling up. Kick er in the guts and

Now to and figure out how to digest it in terms i understand have been comparing files with Tunerpro free version and find the graphs make things much clearer for me, can i export a log from Winaldl to Tunerpro ??

[Six_Shooter]

No, there's no way (that I'm aware of) to convert WinALDL files to be used by Tuner Pro.

You should look at using Tuner Pro RT, so that you can datalog and watch the tracing tracing all within one program. It's nice to at least have the infomration of what the engine is seeing at that time, even nicer to have a bubble floating around on the tables showing you what cells are being used.

[v6bucket]

I realize that topic hasn't been alive for a while, but I'm having some dramas with a recently purchased VP v6. I've made a cable as described by delcowizzid, accept that I used a bc547 transistor. I plug the cable & get the engine light flashing away nicely, but nothing appears to be happening with WinALDL. Tried changing com ports, any clues to what I might be doing wrong? The cable is connected to the serial port on the laptop.