pcmhacking.net

Greetings all - been a lurker here for quite some time, finally getting around to posting.

I'm primarily a TunerCat user, but recently I've been trying out PCMHammer and some of
the related XDFs that have been created - really great work by everyone involved! I've
been using an AVT852 along with my benchtop programming setup, and all has worked
great so far.

That got me thinking about my old original AVT838 interface, which is what TunerCat
supplied back in the pre-CAN bus days. I dusted it off and tried it out on the same
setup, and it did not work. For reference, this is an RS232 interface device, not USB,
and does not support CAN. I did confirm that it still reads and programs fine from
WinFlash.

Wondering if the authors of PCM Hammer have received any interest from other users
to support the AVT838? It seems like a nice way to give an older piece of hardware a
new lease on life, provided adding support isn't too difficult.

Here's the response from PCM Hammer V6 for reference:

[12:59:16:232] PCM Hammer 006
[12:59:16:517] AVT device not found or failed reset
[12:59:16:519] Unable to initialize AVT (842/852) on COM4
[12:59:16:692] Thanks for using PCM Hammer.


-Scott

I dont think there has been any interest, but if you want to try it you can check out the code from github and update this file so that the 838 is recognised, then test: https://github.com/LegacyNsfw/PcmHacks/ ... tDevice.cs

Thanks to forum member hquick for testing we now have initial support for the AVT-838 in the app. The code is currently on its own branch here: https://github.com/LegacyNsfw/PcmHacks/ ... us/avt-838

In order to get it in to the main app we'll need to re-test with the 852 and the 842 to check for any regressions with those devices, and resolve any that we find. If you have any AVT interface and are able to test this version of the app and report back, it will help. Once we have at least confirmed the 838 and the 852 are working as intended we can merge the code in to the main app.

From looking at the docs for the 842 it seems its default speed is 57600 (same as the 838) but pcmhammer was using 115200. I am not sure the 842 would have been working in prior releases, and I suspect it might be now. I would also be very interested to hear from anyone with an 842 testing this build.

Hiya antus, I have an 838 and an 852. I am out in vegas working for a few more days so I will test when I get home.

antus wrote:Thanks to forum member hquick for testing we now have initial support for the AVT-838 in the app. The code is currently on its own branch here: https://github.com/LegacyNsfw/PcmHacks/ ... us/avt-838

In order to get it in to the main app we'll need to re-test with the 852 and the 842 to check for any regressions with those devices, and resolve any that we find. If you have any AVT interface and are able to test this version of the app and report back, it will help. Once we have at least confirmed the 838 and the 852 are working as intended we can merge the code in to the main app.

From looking at the docs for the 842 it seems its default speed is 57600 (same as the 838) but pcmhammer was using 115200. I am not sure the 842 would have been working in prior releases, and I suspect it might be now. I would also be very interested to hear from anyone with an 842 testing this build.

I had the easy part. Thanks so much for your time doing this

Did a bit more testing today.
Took a full read from one of a PCM and cloned it to a different PCM.
The clone process worked perfectly and I was able to use the 2nd PCM in place of the first without needing to re-link any other hardware or sofware.

Thanks for the report. I did some additional testing and reported to the main development thread and we've merged in to develop meaning it'll be in the next pcmhammer release, presumably 020. viewtopic.php?f=42&t=6688&p=113534#p113534

Thanks to kur40 for letting us know that there was some activity on this thread over on gearhead-efi.
Glad to see the old AVT838's can be put to good use.

Conducted multiple reads and writes on a P59 PCM using both an AVT838 and AVT852. No errors to report
using either one. The AVT838 seems to run roughly half as quickly as the AVT852, but in the development
thread, I believe it was noted that the AVT838 runs at 57600 baud while the AVT852 runs at 115200, so this
would seem to be the expected result.

I've attached the two BIN files read from an identical PCM in case they are of use.

-Scott

Thanks for the report! The 852 seems to runs much faster than that, the speed seems irrelevant as it runs at USB line speed. Im not sure how the usb is connected internally but the speed the PC selects for the PC to 852 connection seems to make no difference, its always very fast and runs close to the vpw bus speed for the transfer. Its this chip, and its the VCP drivers. Ok maybe 300K byte isnt "very fast" by 2022 standards, but its good for this application if that is indeed how its configured internally. https://ftdichip.com/products/ft245bl/ which the docs say: