Topic: Help! Is anyone in Calgary (successfully) using FreeSSM?

[jonathan909]

I'm having an awful time getting this thing going.  Hoping to use it to diagnose a problem in my '99 Legacy.

I'd really appreciate hearing from someone who has it running.

Thanks much.

Jonathan

[darthekai]

I HAD it running on my 00 ej22 impreza.
I recall the hardest part Being getting the virtual COM port to function correctly.

[jonathan909]

I HAD it running on my 00 ej22 impreza.
I recall the hardest part Being getting the virtual COM port to function correctly.

I understand, this being windoze (xp) and all, but I'm leaning away from that being the problem.  This has actually been a bit of a saga.  The first cable I bought (over the winter) turned out to have the CH340 chip, which I (too late) learned is unsupported.  So I ordered up another one, this time making sure to get the FT232.  Got it in today's mail (five weeks later...) and confirmed the FTDI part.  Downloaded driver from FTDI, installed it, and windoze reports it as running properly.  When I fire up FreeSSM and attempt the connection diagnostic, it picks up the COM port properly from windoze (I've tried both COM5 and COM1), then errors on the test.  Strikes me that the car controller's physical layer shouldn't be at fault, since my little Autel OBD2 code reader can scan through it just fine.

I'm hoping someone around here will say "you bet, works fine for me" and won't mind my popping over for a visit with the car, laptop, and cable.  If that happens, we should be able to suss out in about two minutes what the hell is going on here.

[RockThePylon]

Any diagnostic jumpers you have to jump for FreeSSM?

[jonathan909]

If you mean connectors (e.g. under the dash or on the ECU or TCU) that have to be connected or otherwise fiddled with to enable a diagnostic mode, none that I'm aware of.

[nosale]

I run a lot of legacy hardware that requires a com port (air monitoring hardware). In my experience USB com ports work only 25% of the time at best. Is this what you're using? Sorry if this isn't helpful! I may be able to find an old laptop with a working com port if you want to try it out.

[jonathan909]

Yes, but it's also what I need.  This isn't a case of using a USB-to-RS232 cable to get to an RS232-to-car cable.  The cable in question is a USB-to-car cable, and the RS232 portion is completely internal to the cable's electronics.  I understand what you mean, though - I keep old PCs (laptops and lunchboxes in addition to a couple of old ISA desktop machines) for similar reasons.  I work with old electronic hardware.

[nosale]

Yes, but it's also what I need.  This isn't a case of using a USB-to-RS232 cable to get to an RS232-to-car cable.  The cable in question is a USB-to-car cable, and the RS232 portion is completely internal to the cable's electronics.  I understand what you mean, though - I keep old PCs (laptops and lunchboxes in addition to a couple of old ISA desktop machines) for similar reasons.  I work with old electronic hardware.

Ah thats too bad....

I do have a tactrix cable that you could try (It's a v1 - see link). Which cable are you using now?
http://www.westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=48326.msg585462

[strykr]

Just saw your post on the outback forum, I was hoping to get this working also

[jonathan909]

Ah thats too bad....

I do have a tactrix cable that you could try (It's a v1 - see link). Which cable are you using now?
http://www.westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=48326.msg585462

See reply #2 above - the two cables I have are cheap Chinese generics.  Part of the problem
is that I don't actually know whether my '99s (Legacy and Forester) support any of this stuff,
and I'm not sufficiently up yet on the protocols.  So too many variables for me to resolve where
the problem is.  I'm willing to try anything, though.

What part of the city are you in?

[nosale]

See reply #2 above - the two cables I have are cheap Chinese generics.  Part of the problem
is that I don't actually know whether my '99s (Legacy and Forester) support any of this stuff,
and I'm not sufficiently up yet on the protocols.  So too many variables for me to resolve where
the problem is.  I'm willing to try anything, though.

What part of the city are you in?

I'm in the SE (Err... Edit: SW) . Lakeview. Let me know if you want to try it out. I can try to meet you somewhere... Don't think I can do the Timmies meet this Tuesday tho.

[jonathan909]

I'm in the SE. Lakeview. Let me know if you want to try it out. I can try to meet you somewhere... Don't think I can do the Timmies meet this Tuesday tho.

I assume you mean "SW".  If Lakeview, that works pretty well for me - I'm actually in the woods a little west of Millarville and come in frequently to sail on Glenmore, so it'd be easy for me to swing by your place.  I've never done the meets.

[nosale]

I assume you mean "SW".  If Lakeview, that works pretty well for me - I'm actually in the woods a little west of Millarville and come in frequently to sail on Glenmore, so it'd be easy for me to swing by your place.  I've never done the meets.

Hah... Whoops. Yeah SW. Thanks.

Pm me and we can set up some time to get together and try it out. I'm curious to see as well.

[strykr]

If you guys get it working please post up here as I'm curious about this too!

Thanks!

[jonathan909]

I have gotten something going - this new cable is working with FreeSSM on my '99 Forester.  It's talking to the ECU, but not the TCU (normal for a '99, I gather).  That's as far as I've gone.  For reasons yet unknown it still won't communicate with the '99 Legacy's ECU.  The Legacy, unfortunately, isn't driveable thanks to severe AT misbehaviour, so we're going to put off meeting until I can sort that out - I'm hitting the junkyard today to see if I can find a TCU for it.

What are you trying to do, and with what?

[strykr]

I have a '99 LGT with 4eat and I'm just looking to tune the ecu for a later project but even right now there's still room to tune a stock car.

[strykr]

One of my buddies in another group of mine has a cable that we are going to give a try. Don't know which version it is yet, but when I go over I'll find out. If we get any info I'll definitely post it up to let you know.