WinOLS Mastery: Map Identification & Editing: Bench Reading
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Bench Reading
09.22
| 00:00 | - In this module, we're going to take a look at the process of reading and writing from the bench so of course in this instance, we've already got the ECU removed out of our car. |
| 00:09 | Every car is a little bit different, in the case of our MK5 Volkswagen Golf the ECU is stored in the scuttle panel below the windscreen. |
| 00:18 | This requires us to remove the windscreen wipers, a trim panel and then there is a bolt in steel panel that we need to remove to allow access. |
| 00:28 | It is a little tricky to remove and there isn't a lot of space to work with but by removing the connector for the ECU header plug first, and then manipulating the little clips that hold the ECU into place, it is possible to slide it out so that we can actually access it on the bench like we've got here. |
| 00:47 | We are going to be using the bFlash flashing module but the process that we're going to go through here is probably going to be reasonably consistent irrespective of what interface you're personally using for reading and writing. |
| 01:01 | Let's jump into our bFlash software and what we want to do is start by using the vehicle selection icon in the top left corner. |
| 01:10 | And we're going to scroll down here and find Volkswagen, click on Volkswagen and we can move onto the next page and of course this is a Bosch MED9.1 ECU so we are going to select that. |
| 01:24 | Now we need to choose our write and read method so of course this time we are going to be clicking on our bench protocol, a little radio button will be enabled there, showing that that's what we're going to be using and then we can simply click the little tick box to confirm in the bottom right hand corner. |
| 01:43 | So this sets us up to read and write from the ECU but of course first of all we actually need to connect to the ECU. |
| 01:50 | This involves, rather than connecting the OBD2 connector to our bFlash unit we're going to connect instead our bench reading harness which has a range of coloured adaptors that we can then jumper into the ECU header plug. |
| 02:07 | I've already gone ahead and done this. |
| 02:09 | Of course we also need to know how we're going to be connecting this to our ECU header plug and a lot of care is understandably required here. |
| 02:17 | So in order to help us here, what we want to do is start by clicking on the little help icon in our toolbar and what that's going to do is actually open up a browser tab and that will give us information relevant to the ECU we are trying to read or write to. |
| 02:35 | So in this case we've got the Volkswagen Audi Group Bosch MED9.1 and this gives us all of the information that we need in this little diagram here in order to connect to the header plug. |
| 02:48 | What we want to do is basically be mindful of the colours of the different connectors or jumpers that we need to connect so we've got a couple of powers or three powers, we've got a single ground then we've got our green K line here and we've got two that are labelled simply S1 and S2. |
| 03:07 | Now again just to reiterate, a lot of care is required here, we are dealing with a fairly tightly packed header plug on the ECU so it always pays to double check your work, counting the number of blank spaces before you connect. |
| 03:23 | The other element here which does require a little bit of care is we can see that our S1 is blue. |
| 03:30 | The S2 at a glance also looks blue, this is actually a purple jumper so it's really important to be able to differentiate between these and make sure we are in fact connecting the correct colour to the correct pin location. |
| 03:45 | And I would highly recommend that once you've got everything where you expect it should be, to just double check your work, go through and count all of those empty pin locations again, just to be 100% certain that you have in fact got everything in the right location. |
| 04:02 | If we scroll down on our browser window, we can also see there are a few notes that bFlash have given us for this ECU. |
| 04:09 | Always important to make sure that you pay attention to any of these notes and read them thoroughly before getting started. |
| 04:15 | One of the key elements here is to make sure that before we actually attach our jumpers to the ECU header plug, that our bFlash unit is not powered up and likewise we want to remove the power from the bFlash unit before we actually remove those jumpers from the ECU header plug as well. |
| 04:33 | Before we close this browser window down, we can see that there is also an estimate of the read time and the programming time here. |
| 04:41 | I'd treat this as a guide, I haven't found this to always be pinpoint accurate but it does at least let you know what you're likely to be in for. |
| 04:50 | Let's close down our browser window now and we can get back to bFlash. |
| 04:54 | We're ready to perform our read and to do this we're simply going to use the read icon in our toolbar. |
| 05:01 | First step, once we've clicked on that button is to give our file a suitable name. |
| 05:06 | We can see we've already got our OBD2 read from the last step in our course so we'll just click on this and what I want to do is just give this a slightly more specific name here. |
| 05:18 | So what we can do is just add bench to this so that we know that this is a bench read vs an OBD2 read. |
| 05:25 | Another hint that this will be a bench read is that the file size is going to be larger. |
| 05:31 | We can see obviously we haven't got the bench read at the moment but the OBD2 read there is 2048 Kb, this will be significantly larger because it contains more information. |
| 05:42 | We'll click on save now and this will begin the read process. |
| 05:47 | This will take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes depending on the specifics of the ECU so let's let that complete now. |
| 06:03 | Alright so our read is now complete and our file is saved and we can see right down the bottom that bFlash does tell us how long that read operation took. |
| 06:12 | In this case one minute and 26 seconds which obviously is a little bit more than the 30 seconds that the help file actually suggested for us but our read is complete, it's automatically saved and we can now import this into WinOLS, modify it as required and then save it. |
| 06:30 | We're now going to demonstrate the process of writing a file to the ECU using the bench method which is really pretty self explanatory, it's no different to what we've just looked at with reading. |
| 06:43 | Typically coming into this of course we would have the ECU freshly removed from the ECU so the first part of this process would be to connect our jumpers just like we did to perform the read. |
| 06:53 | Obviously our ECU is still sitting there on the bench, we're still connected so we don't need to worry about that. |
| 06:58 | What we're going to do is head up to our toolbar and we'll select the little write icon from the toolbar. |
| 07:04 | Write file is already highlighted in our select operation window so we can click the little confirm tick box in the right hand bottom corner. |
| 07:14 | What we want to do now is select the file that we want to write to the ECU. |
| 07:19 | And in this case because we're flashing via the bench method, we want to make sure that we are selecting a bench read or something that is a bench compatible file, in this case we've got the file that we just read out so we can click open and that will then open a box asking us if we want to program that file into the ECU and of course we are going to click yes. |
| 07:43 | We can now allow the write process to complete. |
| 07:50 | Alright and there we have it, our write is complete and this time bFlash has told us that that write process actually only took 13 seconds so in this case a little bit quicker than what was suggested in our help file. |
| 08:04 | So that's the process of reading and writing using bFlash and using our bench method. |
| 08:10 | Of course as I mentioned everything is going to be slightly different depending on the specifics of the hardware interface you're using but the general principles, the general principles particularly of connecting your jumpers to the ECU header plug are going to remain the same. |
| 08:23 | Really just to reiterate my words of caution here, make sure that you follow the information in the help file. |
| 08:30 | Specifically around making sure that your interface isn't powered while you're connecting and removing those jumpers from the ECU header plug. |
| 08:38 | Double check and even triple check that you do have your pin outs correct. |
| 08:43 | It's very easy to damage the ECU if you've inadvertently got those jumpers in the wrong position so always worth double or triple checking that just to make sure that it is absolutely correct. |
| 08:54 | Other than the extra time involved with removing the ECU from the vehicle in the first place, the bench read is a relatively straightforward and quick process to complete and as mentioned in the body of the course, the benefit is that it does give us a complete read so that we should in theory be able to recover the ECU if it inadvertently becomes bricked during our normal OBD2 read or write process. |
